Chalk is one of the most helpful pieces of climbing gear around. It helps climbers dry their hands and prevents them from slipping off of holds. While climbers commonly use it on their hands, I began wondering if chalk had any other applications for climbing. Such as, can you use chalk on or in your climbing shoes?
As a general rule, you do not want to put chalk in or on your climbing shoes. Putting chalk in your shoes can mitigate foot sweat but will build up and create a mess. Putting chalk on the outside of your climbing shoes will cause the rubber to lose its effectiveness.
While the above statements hold true for 90% of the time, there are special exceptions to them. In addition to the exceptions, there are a few things you can do instead of putting chalk in or on your shoes to get better results. These exceptions and better alternatives are discussed below.
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Applying Chalk to the Inside of Climbing Shoes
Putting chalk on the inside of your climbing shoes can help prevent your feet from sweating. However, you should put the chalk on your feet rather than the inside of your shoes. Putting chalk on the inside of your shoes will build up very quickly and create a pretty big mess.
Climbing shoes are gross enough as it is. Do not make them extra gross by coating them with chalk, sweating in them, and leaving behind a gooky war zone after your session.
If you are looking to use chalk to help keep your feet from sweating, it would be better to put a thin layer of chalk on them rather than a bunch in your shoes. That said, chalking your feet isn’t exactly the best way to keep them from sweating. Does it work? Yes. Is it fantastic? No, not really.
I have an entire article which lays out 10 tips to stop sweating so much in climbing shoes. I believe that these tips will keep your feet dry and limit the amount of clean-up required afterwards.
Besides limiting the amount of foot sweat, chalking the inside of your climbing shoes does not serve any other purpose. If you are hoping it would help keep your feet from slipping/sliding in your shoes, then you have too big of climbing shoes. You can help fix that by either wearing thin socks or getting a smaller shoe size. Unfortunately, chalk will not help you with how your shoes fit.
Applying Chalk to the Outside of Climbing Shoes
Chalking the outside of your climbing shoes is typically more of a hindrance than a benefit. Generally, chalk will cause the climbing shoe’s rubber to become less sticky and lose its effectiveness. Climbing shoe rubber is specially designed to give climbers incredible grip. Chalk will get into this special rubber material and can actually make them slicker than they were without chalk.
The only time chalk should even be considered to use on your climbing shoes is if they somehow got greasy and slimy. If that is the case, chalk can help dry out that grease and slime. That said, it is very rare for your climbing shoes to get greasy.
If you are looking to keep your feet from slipping off of holds, chalk is not the answer. Also, the climbing shoe rubber is likely not the problem. The most likely reasons that cause this to happen are having improper body position or poor footwork. Unfortunately this is not easily fixed overnight and will take a lot of time and practice to start to get better at.
Check out Magnus’s YouTube video below that goes through basic foot technique.
Having too big of climbing shoes could be another reason for your feet to consistently slip off of holds. If you have too much room in your toe box, you will not be able to step on the hold and will fall off. That said, having too tight of shoes can present issues in itself. Look for shoes that are snug but not painful.
How to Clean Chalk Off Your Climbing Shoes
If you have an excess of chalk on the outside of your climbing shoes, I recommend cleaning it off by wiping them down with a dry rag or towel. Chalk can get pretty gooky when it is wet so it is best to keep them as dry as possible when wiping them down. Once you have gotten as much off of them as possible, you can spray them with air to get the rest off. (If you blow on them you should wear glasses and try to keep your eyes shut as getting chalk in the eye is NOT fun).
Having too much chalk on the inside of your shoes will be a little bit more difficult to clean. To get chalk out of your climbing shoes, I recommend to open them up as much as possible and wipe as much of the chalk out with a dry towel or rag. If they are still dirty and gross, you will have to wash them. This mountainknowhow.com article is the most helpful guide on washing climbing shoes I have found to date.
If you are looking to go climbing relatively soon after washing your shoes, I highly recommend reading my article that details the fastest way to dry climbing shoes. Air drying them will do the trick but it can take a while until they are completely dry. You should avoid putting them in a drying machine at all costs because this will ruin them. Nobody wants to spend an extra $100-$200 for a new pair of climbing shoes and have to break them in again just to “save” a couple hours.
The Bottom Line
Chalking the inside and outside of your climbing shoes presents little to no benefits. There are better ways to mitigate sweating too much and to keep your feet from slipping off of holds. Always be sure to wipe down or clean your shoes to prevent excess chalk from building up on them.