For context, the image above shows my current collection. It includes the new Muiras but excludes several decaying pairs that I recently threw out. Even if the six pairs in kids sizes are ignored, plus the historic-interest-only 1980s Czech modified carpet slippers (a gift put to temporary use thanks to delayed luggage on a London-Prague flight), there remain eight pairs requiring justification.
Whilst pondering this, it struck me that I have always owned lots of climbing shoes, and that the main change has been increased diversity, not a profound shift in quantity. When I started climbing (I was very very young - really!) there was just one manufacturer making just one shoe - or more accurately - one boot: the "EB". Being canvas and a pretty basic construction they wore out fast but never quite expired ... so it was typical to accumulate several pairs, distinguished only by their position on the new-to-knackered spectrum.
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Choice only became an issue in 1984 when the Boreal Firé appeared. For a climbing-fixated teenager this was impossibly exciting. Their practical advantage was greater stickiness, thanks to the Spanish maker's softer rubber, but the uppers were also not canvas but a funkier suede. As Firés were expensive and often out of stock, I has split loyalties for a while, but eventually became monogamous with Boreal.
The number of climbing footwear manufacturers and models grew gently from then, but I didn't abandon Firés until Asolo introduced the Runout, in - I think - 1989 or 1990. The Runout was a genuinely radical design, being the first low-profile climbing shoe rather than climbing boot. Ankles could finally be flexed and toes pointed accurately, though at the expense of calf support and ankle protection. (Climbing "boots" didn't surface again for a couple of decades but are now a firmly re-invented niche. These "high-tops", for example). I bought a ton of Runouts, but clearly not enough to satisfy Asolo, who dropped out of the climbing shoe market after just a couple of years.
The natural next purchase after Runouts disappeared, and the start of a love affair that has continued to this day, was the classic La Sportiva Mythos. The Mythos is a simple unlined suede shoe that relies only on a clever lacing system to maintain toes and heels in position. It fitted my feet really well and was superbly comfortable after a few sessions, even if bought very tight. To their credit La Sportiva have changed nothing but the colour - purple to beige - over twenty years.
A year or two after the Mythos was introduced La Sportiva introduced a radically "bent" version: the Mirage. I bought some but couldn't make them work for me. In fact I don't think I ever wore them on an outdoor climb. Retrospectively I realise that this was the moment when I lost pace with cutting-edge climbing shoe design. Worse, I stuck with the Mythos unquestioningly for more than a decade. The Mirage turned out to be the forerunner of asymmetry in climbing shoes - using sole shape to concentrate power in the toes. Other trends that passed me by included aggressive heel designs to hold the toes more firmly in place, low-stretch uppers, stiffened sole inserts for better edging and yet more innovation in sticky rubber.
I am greatly puzzled by this phenomenon now, as I think it held back my climbing performance significantly. Though the start of this period was (just) pre-internet when information exchange wasn't as frenzied as it is now, I still spent plenty of time in climbing shops and at indoor walls, visited trendy "hard" crags (Rifle! Siurana! Ceuse!) and subscribed to climbing magazines full of shoe reviews, so definitely had exposure to the new shoes entering the market. And I wasn't short of money to experiment. Clearly the comfort of the Mythos was a factor. I think I also had a muddle-headed notion that the sensitivity and "feel" of a well broken-in soft shoe trumped everything else. Worryingly I think I might also have "given up" as a climber at some sub-conscious level. It is telling that my Mythos era coincided with the acquisition of steady employment, a spouse, a child and other conventional doings of adulthood.
My first awareness that I needed to reconsider my shoes came as recently as summer 2005, when I first climbed at Squamish. My partner was Andy Donson, an old friend from university, man of accomplishment and "climber's climber". He observed me sliding off granite nubbins in my Mythos and noted authoritatively that he now only wore stiff shoes as they were "better on everything except slabs, but actually better on slabs too". By then I had moved to the UAE and was spending a lot of time struggling to stand on tiny edges on exfoliating desert limestone, so a lightbulb did go off in my head. At that time the most common performance shoe was the 5.10 Anasazi lace-ups or "Pinks". They incorporated almost all the design elements I had been ignoring for years: asymmetry (though not "downturn"), stiff sole insets and a very aggressive heel. I tried to convince myself to buy a pair but the fit to my feet seemed hopeless, with obvious bagginess in some places yet much pain where the heel bit the ankle.
A year or so later on another summer vacation I came across a pair of Pinks in the remainder bin in MEC in Vancouver. They were half a size tighter than seemed reasonable but so cheap that it seemed almost indecent not to take them home. Plus the model was being discontinued, so it was my last chance to get some. Though they stayed too painful to use often, I realised rapidly and with some embarrassment that they were a quantum leap superior to my usual shoes. The rational next purchase was a half-size larger pair of "Whites", 5.10's replacement for the Pinks. These have now been my go-to shoes for harder routes for several years. (I still use Mythos for multi-pitch routes, especially on granite, and some ultra-comfortable though - frankly - crap Red Chillis for warming up.)
On a whim I augmented my Whites with another 5.10 shoe, the 5X, which I also like very much though primarily use for indoor climbing. This took 5.10 to dominance in my shoe collection, at least in the "mine" (I also own a lot of kids shoes) and "actively-used" categories.
Approaching this Christmas I thought it might be time for another pair of Whites, but found myself considering another classic performance shoe, the Muira, instead. Over the last two years I have been climbing with several good climbers who swear by them, from gurus like Neil Gresham, who I crossed paths with in Oman and then Kalymnos in 2011, to my occasional local Squamish partner, Stewart. In March this year I also had the near-mystical experience of placing my feet briefly in a pair of the world's best climber's Muiras, that had found their way to a Czech guy in Dubai; the next day brought one of my best ever first-ascents (though back in the Whites!). Muiras have more of a downturn sole than the Whites, so may be better on steeper routes. Unquestionably they also fit me more accurately with no dead space. It seems generally I have a La Sportiva shaped foot. Another option from the cutting edge would have been the La Sportiva Solution, an ultra-downturned bouldering shoe with a gimmicky closure system, but my feet say firmly "no".
In summary then, I now have eight shoes in active use, as a legacy of these evolving decisions. The Whites and Miuras will be competing for my loyalty on harder sport routes - I will report back - the too-tight Pinks available on special occasions, Mythos of various sizes and exhaustion to be brought out for long granite, whilst the 5Xs and Red Chillis will live in my gym bag. All quite logical.
Except of course that it isn't and the obvious truth is that I just like to collect climbing shoes. But as compulsive disorders go, rock shoe accumulation is pretty harmless and not even especially expensive: I guess all my shoes could be bought for less than the price of a moderately good AT ski setup and a fraction of the price of a decent mountain bike. So I think I can be forgiven.
