The first stick clip I ever used (an astonishing 19 years ago this past April) was an actual stick. My friend showed me how to loosely tape a carabiner to the end of a long, curved oak branch and how to use a small twig to hold the carabiner’s gate open. Then I stick-clipped the first draw of my first 5.11, Three Easy Pieces, in Rumney, NH.
Since then, I’ve used (and discarded) countless sticks and painter’s poles. Flying to the Red River Gorge for my first climbing trip, I packed a humble rubber clamp in my bag and bought a painter’s pole at a hardware store in Stanton. A week later, I left the pole—but not the clamp—at Miguel’s Pizza with a “free!” sign on it. Flying to Rifle the following summer, I did the same thing, this time packing my shiny new Squid (one of the OG stick clip attachments and still one of my favorites) and, a week later, donating my brand new Walmart painter’s pole for community use at the Arsenal.
Several years ago, I finally invested in a climbing-specific telescoping pole, which was small enough to fly with if I was packed a very big bag. But even though the pole was only only nine-feet-long at full extension, it was very flimsy when extended, and when strapped to the side of my backpack, it still stuck up high enough to grab annoyingly at branches during approaches.
A few weeks ago, I donated this last pole to a friend, having replaced it with Metolius’s remarkable new Roll Up Stick Clip. It’s easily the most portable stick clip on the market. It’s also one most impressive climbing innovations since Organic teamed up with Mystery Ranch to put backpacking support straps onto crash pads. (The biggest innovation of the last ten years, though, still goes to Ben Moon for inventing the app-driven, LED-lit training board.)
The Roll Up Stick Clip is made of some sort of stiff composite material whose selective flexibility gives it just two stable positions: It can be rolled into a tight cylinder for storage, and it can snap into a stiff pole when unrolled. It reminds me—and basically everyone—of those snap bracelets we used as kids.
The Roll Up Stick Clip comes with the standard and ever-popular Metolius Superclip, but it has standard painter’s pole threads, so it’s compatible with other stick clip heads. It is also compatible with various types of brushes (the pole could be useful for boulderers, though the pole isn’t stiff enough to withstand intense scrubbing) and with a standard GoPro mount.
Serious kudos are due to Metolius’s R&D team for getting the mixture of stiffness and flexibility right. The pole is astonishingly easy to assemble and break down (some of our testers complained that putting it away required a bit of elbow grease, but I’m not very strong, and I’ve never found it even remotely as tiring as coiling a rope). Yet it’s also astonishingly sturdy. Indeed, it’s far stronger at full extension than the telescoping pole that I’ve been using for the last few years. And the composite material seems very durable, which may help justify the high price.
Lengthwise, the pole unfolds to 9 feet 8 inches long, which is more than long enough for most crags. First draws in places like the Red River Gorge and Smith Rock may occasionally be hard to reach. And those of you who prefer pre-clipping the second quickdraw may at times wish you’d hauled that cumbersome 15-foot painter’s pole to the cliff. But I’ve used the Roll Up Stick Clip at seven different crags in New Mexico, and I have yet to encounter a situation where I wanted to pre-clip a draw (whether first or second) but couldn’t reach it.
When rolled up, the stick clip and head weigh less than two pounds and store easily in a small nylon bag. For me, this has been a bit of a game changer. I frequently used to forget my old stick clip at home since it didn’t live inside my pack; now, the Roll Up Stick Clip never leaves my pack except at the crag, living between climbing days right next to my quickdraws, Grigri, and kneepad. I’ve never once forgotten to bring it climbing.
Both I and my fellow tester, Anthony Walsh, find that the prongs on our accompanying Superclips were far too stiff—noticibly stiffer than the Superclips we’ve previously used. This makes it unnecessarily difficult to nestle standard sport climbing carabiners between the draws (smaller draws were easier than bigger ones), and we both frequently pinched our fingers or palms between the draw and prongs. More lamentably, this stiffness also makes it nearly impossible to retrieve a quickdraw from the wall using the standard method. I had rather hoped that the prongs would loosen up with use, but after 10-12 days I’ve seen little change. The Superclip also lacks any sort of hook that makes it easier to pull the rope down while leaving the first draw clipped. Lastly, my Superclip is already showing worrisome signs of wear.
Luckily, it’s the roll-up pole, not the head, that’s the great innovation here, and the pole is compatible with other heads. Now that I’m done with this review, I think I’ll throw my Squid on it for old times sake—though it seems ridiculous to consider replacing a part on such an expensive piece of gear.
The Roll Up Stick Clip’s design allows the Metolius Superclip attachment to function exactly as designed if you have a Superclip that isn’t ridiculously stiff. But when retrieving quickdraws from the wall with my previous stick clips, I’ve often preferred to use a trick that does not require having a rope clipped to the quickdraw. Basically, using my method, you slip the Superclip prongs around the carabiner’s gate, twist the stick clip until the gate opens, and then continue twisting until the carabiner’s now-open mouth comes out of the hanger.
This isn’t possible with a Roll Up Stick Clip because, though it’s plenty stiff on its vertical and horizontal planes, the pole turns into a wet noodle under any sort of torsional stress. This is not a huge deal if you’ve got a loose enough Superclip; you’ll just need to do things the traditional way and clip a rope into a quickdraw before removing that quickdraw from the wall (the technique outlined in minute three of this video).
But with my super-stiff Superclip on my Roll Up Stick Clip pole, I’m currently unable to retrieve quickdraws at all, which is annoying.
In the end, all gear reviewers have to ask themselves one simple question: Would you buy this product?
In the case of the Roll Up Stick Clip—which costs a whopping $225—I’m truly not sure.
On the one hand, the Roll Up Stick Clip is a legitimately innovative and highly functional piece of gear that has made my climbing safer and earned a permanent place in my kit. On the other hand, $225 is a lot of money, especially considering that you can get a perfectly fine telescoping stick clip for less than half that.
The most I can say is this: If I had not been sent a Roll Up Stick Clip for the purposes of a review, I definitely would not have bought one; but now that the Roll Up Stick Clip is part of my quiver, I’m not sure I can go back. Honestly, if some grungy dirtbag were to steal mine, I’m pretty sure I’d agonize for a few weeks and then buy a replacement.
I think that’s pretty high praise.
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