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They save your life. Good belay partners are a rare breed. They keep you from falling to your demise, they hold you patiently as you work the moves on your project, and they politely listen to your childish rants as you continuously peel off your route. Show your belayer gratitude, or that rope gun that sets up all the hard routes, by giving them a gift this Christmas season; not so much because it’s Christmas, but rather because it’s probably about time you did.  

With online shopping platforms like Coupang, Gmarket, or Amazon, and the ease to connect with manufacturers through portals like Alibaba, there are amazing gift items for every niche including climbing. While we don’t condone consumerism, we know that there’s a warm positive energy that happens when you give and receive a considerate gift. It shows that you have been paying attention, it shows that a person matters, and it shows affection. 

Also, tradition and the sway of Christmas consumerism are really, really hard to ignore especially during Christmas parties and gift exchanges. But a different approach to gift giving can be taken to modify and perhaps curtail the effects of consumerism. Think slightly more materialistic. 

According to all-knowing Wikipedia, the philosophy of materialism “holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions.” 

It’s the latter part of the definition (“mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions”) that we focus on during Christmas and, when we normally buy stuff. We are slightly materialistic in that we are pleasantly satiated when we buy things that promote environmental mindfulness, have weaker impacts on the earth, and last as long as we do. We try to choose items that provide our mental states with bliss knowing that we are messing up the earth less or at least slower so that more people can enjoy the feeling of walking on a beach without plastic bottles jammed in the sand, or hiking in the mountains without a plastic wet tissue with that gross brown spot blowing in the wind. 

So with that in mind, here are our Christmas gift recommendations for the vertically addicted and/or environmentally conscious loved one in your life. 

1. Climbing Hardware (₩9,000)

There is a plethora of climbing gear you can buy your belayer or loved one, and there is a wide range of prices for gear. However, depending on how well you know the person you’re buying for, I would stay away from buying high priced items like ropes or climbing shoes. Experienced climbers have a preference for gear; especially rock climbing shoes as the fit should be very snug. For the inexperienced climber buying expensive gear is a great learning opportunity. I know more about ropes by having spent pain-staking hours researching the best value for my student loan sponsored climbing rope. So, I would leave the big ticket items like an expensive set of Totem cams to your climbers. Of course, if you know exactly what your climbers want or need, go for it. 

Mad Rock Oval Tech Screw Locking Carabiner

If you’re set on buying gear, but don’t want to spend a whole bunch of cash, but want to get something useful, I would get an oval locking carabiner like the MAD ROCK OVAL TECH SCREW. It’s a workhorse type of gear that can be used for anchors, rappels and belaying. It’s small, and it’s a keylock. The screwgate action on my carabiners is smooth even after 4 years of use. Also it’s cheap enough you can buy two!

2. Climbing brushes (₩3,000)

Butora Brush

I usually don’t buy climbing brushes as I’ll just re-use my old toothbrushes. Recently, however, some very sanitary people have started to foofoo this idea yapping about me scrubbing my gross plague onto the holds. So, I found these awesome brushes by Butora that have natural boar bristles and a bamboo handle. These little environmental treats have bristles that are stiff enough for proper brushing and it’s 100% better than plastic. My one small issue is that a few bristles come out with aggressive brushing. But being made from completely natural sources, you won’t feel guilty for losing your brush at the crag. Yeah for the Butora Brush!

3. Gym memberships/day pass (₩10,000 to 30,000)

Make sure your climbing loved one gets to climb all year round with a membership at a local climbing gym. South Korea has a lot of climbing gyms, over 400 hundred! You can locate 109 of them through the Korea on the Rocks website or keep your eyes open for a sign that says something like 암장 (climbing place), 실내암장 (indoor climbing place), 클라이밍 (climbing), 짐 (gym), or any combination of these words.

To see if the gym is a good match for your climber, try a day-pass. When you get there you can ask (or show) the following:  “내친구 크리스마스 선물로 하루 이용권 상품권 살수있을까요?” which means: “Can I buy a day-pass gift certificate for my friend’s Christmas gift?”

If this doesn’t work download and use the Papago translation app. It’s made by Naver, and in my opinion, it has the best English-Korea translations. It even has a on/off switch for honorifics.

4. Manicure kit (₩4,870 to 12,000)

A good manicure kit will keep your vertical addict (i.e. climber) free of pain and free from surgery. Climbing is tough on hands and nails, and especially on feet and toenails. Tight climbing shoes coupled with heavy pressure on small footholds create ingrown toenails. Some climbers will neglect their nails to the point that they need surgery for their ingrown toenails.

A good manicure set will include fingernail clippers, toenail clippers, files to shave down calluses and prevent flappers (i.e. torn skin), and a variety of hooks and blades to dig and cut nails out of the nail bed. I have this set exactly like this one (click here), and I like the variety of tools in the handy aluminum case. This one is more portable but has less tools (click here). Buy both! Keep one at home and put one in the gym bag.

5. Hand salves (₩25,000)

Climbskin hand lotion

As mentioned, climbers’ hands take a beating. Inevitably, the skin will start bleeding or tear from being jammed into cracks, scraped on the rock, or from just being exposed to the elements. When this happens, the wrong thing to do is grab a regular old moisturizer. The right thing to do is apply climbing specific hand balms. Common moisturizers don’t have antibacterial and healing properties needed to repair climbing hands. Climbers need a moisturizer that isn’t water-based. We need something that will stick to our skin like we want to stick to rocks. For a great review on the different climbing balms checkout this post by 99boulders.com. We personally like the ClimbOn bar for several reasons: we climb outdoors a lot and need tough skin, the parent company (SKINourishment) has environmental-conscious business practices, and the easy to recycle aluminum packaging is way better than plastic. But if you’re looking for something for softer hands, we use and like Climbskin, and it’s easily available in South Korea (we actually sell it); we’d love it if it didn’t come in a plastic package. Oh and bonus for you cosmetic type, Climbskin is in a skin tone color so it can double as a cover up (I've been told).

7. Guidebooks (₩25,000 to 155,000)

Yes we live in a digital age with apps and online publishing like Mountain Project, The Crag and Korea on the Rocks. So why would someone want a guidebook, especially one written in Korean that they can’t read. 

Kim, Yongki's guidebooks

Guidebooks are more convenient. It’s easier to look at route maps and flip back and forth from pages comparing climbing areas in a guidebook than it is on a phone...a computer is debatable, but a guidebook is more portable and durable than a laptop, and guidebooks don’t require wifi. Also they are like travel mementos, and you can share guidebooks with friends traveling to the same location.  I try to get a guidebook for every area that I climb at. Looking through the pages takes me back to good times and scary poop-in-my-pants times. It gets me motivated to travel and climb. 

The definitive rock climbing guidebooks in South Korea were written by Kim, Yongki. He wrote 5 books with each book covering a different area of the country (e.g. Gangwon-do, Gyeonggi-do). They are written inKorean, but the route maps are decipherable by any climber. Furthermore, it creates an opportunity to learn Korean through an interesting topic. It’s how I learned how to read and write 암장 (rock climbing place, could be a crag or gym), 바위 (rock, boulder, and sometimes cliff),  난이도 (level of difficulty or climbing grade). 

Dong-il Ryu's guidebook

The only English guidebook for South Korea was written by Don-il Ryu. In his one compact book, he fits in brief descriptions of over 200 climbing crags. While not a
complete guidebook due to the lack of route maps, it’s a great place to start your Korean rock climbing journey with useful information on transportation, information and GPS coordinates. Fun fact, Dong-il was also a major contributor for The Crag’s Korea section.  

Unfortunately, both these books are out of print, so it’s hard to find through the normal shopping channels. But fortunately, iGuideKorea, has a few on hand as a special gift for that special person. Email Eddy at igk@iguidekorea.com for more information or to order. 

8. Online courses ($40 to 175)

“Give the gift of learning.” “Teach a man to fish and you feed him a lifetime.”

Learning is a great way to discover more out of life, and with a huge selection of online courses, you can learn an amazing variety of topics in any language virtually anywhere. But being a climber focused post we’ll keep it focused on climbing related topics.  

First on the list is Aim Adventure U. I first heard of these courses through my Climbing Magazine subscription. Some of the courses they offer are: Overcome your Fear of Falling, and 6 Weeks to Stronger Fingers. What’s nice about the site is that they offer an option to gift the course at checkout. They also offer courses in backpacking and skiing. 

Training Beta offers a comprehensive selection of resources for climbing courses, personal coaching, and nutrition. They also have a very informative podcast that interviews leading training professionals. I’ve bought an ebook and a training course from them. Their 6 Weeks Power-Endurance Program was real tough for me and made me realize how much fitness I lacked. It provided a great insight on how to climb and train harder. I did get stronger after the 6 week program, but it was tough. That’s what it takes though. Unfortunately, at the time of writing this post, Training Beta didn’t have their gifting program set up. But you could always give a cute card with a few Korean wons and a message like: “To help you train to overcome  whatever challenge you face,”  or something as lovingly cheesy as that. 

Similar to Training Beta, The Power Company has multiple resources for the climber. I haven’t bought anything from them yet, but I listen to their podcasts, and Kris Hampton, owner and coach, knows what he’s talking about. His knowledge and the success of his clients have created a strong reputation in the climbing community. Kris also emailed me saying that they were starting a gifting option for their Proven Plans for the holiday season. And if there are any issues or questions with gifting their products, Kris said to email him, and please be sure to tell him that you came from the iGuideKorea page.

While not about climbing, it’s in line with this blog and company (i.e. climbing in Korea), Korean language learning programs online and offline. Even if your loved ones are going to be in Korea for a short stay, they’ll get way more out of the experience. They’ll be more independent, travel more efficiently around the country, and meet more people. I learn Korean through a private tutor so I haven’t fully tried these options but subscriptions to these online programs seem to be the most popular: FluentU and KoreanClass101. I didn’t see any gifting options on either site so you might need to do the old card-cash-and-quote trick. I tried a sample KoreanClass101, and I like their word-of-the-day email that comes with a photo. Keep in mind that they send a few emails abut promotions regularly, too. If you have comments or opinions about these programs please let me know at igk@iguidekorea.com or leave a comment below.  

9. Magazine (digital) subscription (₩11,000 to 110,000)

Climbing magazines are awesome! They got great content in one convenient medium. When I’m sitting down to a nice meal, or on the can taking care of that meal hours after, I like going straight to a magazine. I don’t want to search the blog-o-sphere for one post, then search for another, and then another. I’d much rather flip a page. And who doesn’t like getting stuff in the mail? Furthermore, magazines like Climbing and Rock and Ice have gifting options for international subscribers as well. 

But yes, we live in a convenient, digital world that is more and more paperless and more smartphone dependant. Well good news, through services like Magzter and their apps, you can subscribe to thousands of digital magazines (Climbing and Rock and Ice included) for about the same price as one traditional magazine subscription. Magzter even has a gifting option which is great for the holidays. 

10. Acupressure finger massager (₩8,000)

SoiLL Finger Massager

I’m not really sure how effective these little spikey rings-of-joy are, but I do know they feel fantastic. Rolling these rings up and down stiff finger joints gives me enough pleasure to confidently say they are a positive rehabilitation tool.There are a bunch of these kinds of rings all over the Web but we like and sell the ones by SoiLL. They're a climbing company and make pretty good stuff that won't break right away.

With so many options for a wide range of budgets, why not give that special climber in your life a little token that says, "I appreciate you!"

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Eddy Park