Climbers generally elect to tape up for climbing when embarking on more difficult, technical crack climbs or in areas of coarser rock (e.g., Joshua Tree). Some climbers swear by tape’s ability to provide them with additional jamming support, but primarily, tape serves as an added layer of skin protection that can be especially useful when attempting to crack climb for consecutive days.

While many climbers utilize various techniques for taping up, outlined below is just one method that allows for single or multi-use crack gloves.

Offwidth enthusiast and general crack lover, John Hickey, shows how to make tape gloves for crack climbing:

 

How to make tape gloves for crack climbing

  1. Take about a 5 or 6″ strip and rip it in half to create two long strips
  2. Place a piece from the back of your hand and in between fingers
  3. Do this twice between each finger, overlapping the pieces on the palm and back of your hand to keep them in place
  4. Take another 2 full-width strips of about 3-4″ in length and place them over the back of your hand
  5. Start a 3rd full width strip over the same area, but this time loop it around the back of your thumb and back over the top of your knuckles
  6. Finally, take another full-width strip starting from the back of your hand, wrapping all the way around your wrist, over the top of the back of your hand, over your palm, and then tearing it near your thumb
  7. Optionally, add a layer just around your wrist, which will enable you to take it on and off easier

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