Scarpa Drago Review

The Scarpa Drago is essentially a rubber sock, which lets you use your feet like hands to pull into tiny features on steep climbs. The thin outsole and precise toe help you feel every bump in the rock, while the ample rubber coverage allows you to hook on even marginal features. For steep bouldering and gym climbing, the Drago offers best-in-class performance.

Comfort

The Drago has a very supple upper that quickly molds to your foot shape, creating a second-skin feel when sized properly. With that in mind, having a comfortable upper is necessary to make up for how precise and asymmetric this shoe is. The extreme shape really pushes your foot to the front of the shoe, at the cost of comfort. Some climbers, especially folks not used to specialty shoes, may find the Drago's aggressive shape too constricting.

The Drago uses a thin elastic mesh on top of the foot to help you pull your foot into the shoe. While getting into the shoe wasn't much of a problem, this mesh did bunch up and pinch the top of our foot when we cranked the power strap down. Aside from this minor issue, we found the Drago to be a comfy shoe (at least relative to its performance fit).

Smearing

The Drago's precise fit and thin outsole give you the ultimate platform for feeling every ripple in the rock. For hard technical smears on short climbs, this shoe is a dream, precisely covering holds in its sticky rubber. If you are looking for a shoe for long routes, though, you will likely find the Drago incredibly fatiguing due to its lack of support. We enjoyed climbing smeary granite boulders in the Drago but lamented having to climb even moderate slab routes in it.

Aside from outdoor climbing, this shoe is an excellent choice for pasting your feet all over flat volumes and sloping holds in the gym. The sticky, 3.5 mm Vibram XS Grip2 rubber outsole makes precise footwork easy, and provides ample friction to push off small, plastic holds with maximum confidence. The high toe angle and a touch of support from a small Flexan midsole give you just enough support so you don't feel like you're about to ooze off the hold. Due to the general lack of support, our lead tester, at 175 lbs, found he was right on the limit of how much he enjoyed pure smearing in this shoe. Lighter climbers or those with stronger feet may have no problems.

Edging

Such high-performance smearing characteristics often come at the cost of edging performance, and the Drago is no different. What makes this shoe so useful for smearing makes it hard to use for technical edging. The soft flex and the soft rubber compound offer little support for standing on dime edges, and it often feels like your foot could roll off the hold at any moment.

The one benefit is the toe's precision, which lets you toe in on even the smallest features, but the lack of support doesn't help you stay there. If you're climbing in the gym, though, where our weight isn't always entirely on our feet, this precision helps you dig into tiny foot jibs. For board climbing, we found we could compensate for the softness of the Drago – because boards are so steep, and we don't press as hard into our feet as we would on a vertical face climb.

Pulling

Steep and gymnastic climbing is where we reach for the Drago almost every time. When you need to curl your toes and pull into a steep wall, or catch a foothold quickly after cutting feet, the soft flex of this shoe lets you grab holds quickly, and the sticky rubber keeps you there. The Drago offers the best flexibility of any shoe we tested, allowing you to curl your toes and flex the rubber outsole so you can grab onto features with your feet. A stiffer shoe won't bend and deform from your toe strength alone, but these soft shoes will. The outsole rubber under your toes is even cut to flex so that you can grab holds more effectively.

The upper of the Drago is wrapped in Scarpa's proprietary M70 rubber, which they say is their stickiest rubber compound. This coverage on the upper allows powerful toe hooking. But that rubber patch is also very thin, so you can feel exactly where you're placing the top of your foot. The heel is also very thin and precise, making it easy to find small technical heel hooks. For all of these reasons, the Drago is our go-to shoe for overhanging boulders.

Crack Climbing

The Drago is not known for its crack climbing prowess, and we are here to tell you that we found no reason to recommend anything to the contrary. We felt every rock feature we jammed into with this super-soft shoe, which was quite painful. The high toe angle, which cramps your toes and arches your foot, left us wishing for a flatter shoe during these tests.

For the odd jam here or there on boulder problems, you will surely be able to get by with the Drago. For a thin toe jam on a short problem, you may even like how precise the toe is, but you won't be choosing this shoe for your next Indian Creek trip.

Should You Buy the Scarpa Drago?

On steep boulders and routes, the Scarpa Drago is one of our favorite shoes for employing creative footwork and pulling ourselves into the wall. If you're looking for a super sensitive, sticky shoe that will allow you ultimate freedom of movement, this is your answer. We enjoyed climbing steep boulders in Rocky Mountain National Park, and once afternoon thunderstorms rolled in, we still had plenty left to go a muerte on our gym project.

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