Gifts For Climbers: 12 Ideas That Are Not Chalk

Every climber already has chalk. They have three chalk bags, two brushes, and a drawer of carabiners they will never use. So buying a present for one is harder than it looks.

I make gear out of retired climbing rope in a workshop in Aberdeen, which means I spend most weekends at a market stall watching people pick things up for the climber in their life. I see what gets bought and what gets put straight back down.

So here are twelve that land. Prices are what they are today, September 2026.

Gifts for climbers under £5

Stocking filler money. All of these started life as rope that held somebody on a wall.

1. Heart keychain, £3. The one that sells out first every single market. Tiny, daft, and people buy three at a time.

2. Climbing hold keychain, £3. A wee hold on their keys. Gets a laugh at the wall, which is half the point.

3. Loop keychain, £4. The plainest thing I make and the one I use myself. See the whole lot in climbing rope keychains.

4. Rope coaster, £4. No two match, because no two ropes did. Rope coasters here.

Between £8 and £20

5. Recycled plastic hexagon coaster, £8. Melted down from milk bottle caps. Ugly first batch, much better now.

6. Rope bracelet, £10. Made to their wrist, so you need to know the size or guess well. Climbing rope bracelets.

7. Carabiner keychain, £15. A real working clip with rope through it. The one blokes buy for themselves while shopping for someone else.

8. Rope earrings, £18. Light, bright, and nobody else at the wall will have the same pair.

The proper present, £28 to £55

9. Rope belt, £28 for two rope, £33 for three rope. Cut to their exact waist, 22 to 50 inches, so measure a belt they already wear. This is the thing people still message me about a year later. Recycled climbing rope belts.

10. Dog lead, £30. Climbing rope is built to catch a falling human, so a labrador seeing a squirrel is not a problem. Climbing rope dog leads.

11. Cup cosy and can cooler, £30. For the one who takes a cold tin to the crag and a hot brew to the belay.

12. Rope bowl, £55. The big one. Hours of coiling and stitching, and there are three left.

Three I do not make, but they always work

I would rather be useful than only sell you my own stuff.

A block of sessions at their local wall. A guidebook for the place they keep going on about. A rope bag, which is deeply boring and always needed. None of those come from me and all three are good calls.

If you genuinely have no idea

A Forma gift card starts at £10 and lets them pick. No shame in it.

And the one nobody thinks of: if they have a retired rope sitting in a cupboard, send it to me and I will turn it into a belt made from the rope they actually climbed on. Their own rope, round their own waist. Nothing off a shelf beats that.

One last thing. Order the made-to-size stuff early. Belts and bracelets are cut by hand, one at a time, by me, and December gets daft.

Less waste. More miles.

Stay classy and remember,
Make Waste Useful.

George