Scarpa Instinct S

Excellent edging shoe, great heel. Beautifully made.

Front half of shoe is stiff - you can put lots of weight through the pointed toe - great for edging, pockets and woodies with bad feet. For refc, forefoot bends way less than the VSR, midsole flexes about the same. Heel is solid - had a few hard pulling heel hooks and no slipping yet. It’s not a natural smearing machine due to forefoot stiffness when new-ish ( I’m 76kg ) - drop your heel more on volumes and sticks like glue tho’ ( xs grip 2 ). Easy to pop off the heel between boulders. Beautifully made. Def a resoler. I’d recommend for everything bouldering unless you pad around on big comp style macros a lot when you’d probably want something with a more flexible forefoot.

Best out the box shoes I’ve climbed in

On a whim decided to go same size S instead of my regular orange VS. Was concerned that the S would be to soft as I had previously come form a VSR. However, the fit is perfect and for me an improvement on the VS in every way.

One of my favourite climbing shoes for indoor bouldering so far! Look forward to getting outdoors to test them out.