About Chalk & Crimp

Climbing isn't a hobby for me — it's just how I live. Eight years in, and I still get that same stupid grin every time I stick a move I've been failing for weeks. If you climb, you already know the feeling I mean.

I started Chalk & Crimp during a strange chapter. I recently moved to Japan to help run my family's farm, which means the gym crew I climbed with for years — my people at Vertical Adventures and Chambers Purely Boulders back in Columbus, Ohio — are now a very long flight away. You don't really notice how much a climbing community means to you until you're an ocean away from it. This store is partly how I'm staying connected to that world while I figure out the next one.

Everything here is picked, tested, or designed by someone who's actually on the wall, not a brand that's never chalked up before a proj. If it's in this store, it's because I'd genuinely use it myself.

The V-grade badges came from wanting something to actually mark progress — not just for the gram, but because sending your first V4 deserves more than a mental note before you're back on the wall trying to fall off the next one.

I also post climbing videos on YouTube — about 1.7k of you following along so far, which still catches me off guard. Come say hi over there, I post more of the day-to-day climbing (and farm life) stuff than what fits here.

Thanks for being here. Now go climb something — and if you're ever climbing at Vertical Adventures or Chambers, tell them Chalk & Crimp says hi.