SKIN CARE FOR CLIMBERS - FILE YOUR FINGERS

Climbing is hard on your finger skin. When you start out, you wish you had tougher skin but when you finally start to build up callouses, you learn that they can become uncomfortably hard.

Uneven hard callouses cause pressure points on your skin that can turn into tears and flappers, if you’re not careful on dynamic moves.

You want to avoid building up those hots spots by sanding them down. This can be as simple as tossing some hardware-store sandpaper in your climbing bag and using that.

Your goal is to keep your finger skin smooth by sanding down anything that sticks out: callouses, little bits of dried skin, etc… Anything that is not even is more likely to catch on the rock and result in a tear or flapper.

We found that P80 or P60 grit sandpaper works best. Conveniently, those grits are also commonly used on skateboard decks.

Our own finger file is made with P80 and P60 sandpaper and features a slightly curved handle for easy sanding.