Having covered the climbing industry for the past couple decades, I can attest that it’s not often that I see something genuinely new and different. But the Metolius Roll Up Stick Clip Kit—or, as I call it, the Rolly-Poley—really surprised me as one of the ingenious pieces of gear I’ve ever seen.

The Rolly-Poley completely re-imagines what a stick clip looks like: it is a roughly 10-foot pole that rolls up into a 3.75”x 4.5” package and weighs under two pounds. If you remember snap bracelets as a kid, this design is kind of like that. Made from some kind of futuristic composite material, the Rolly-Poley unrolls and cups itself into a concave shape, forming a rigid, sturdy, hollow pole. At the top end of the pole, you affix a universal threaded end piece with a quarter turn, snapping it into place. This threaded end piece comes with the best stick-clip head on the market, the Superclip. But it also comes with a thread for attaching other things, like brushes for highball boulders or a GoPro, or even any universal-mount camera, turning the Rolly-Poley into a 10-foot handheld filmmaking boom.

When you’re done, simply remove the head piece, and roll the poll back up. Simple, easy, awesome.

Metolius Roll Up Stick Clip Kit

  • Weight: Kit = 28 oz., Pole = 21 oz.
  • Pole length: 3 meters (9.8′). Made from composite.
  • Kit includes pole, thread adaptor, camera mount adapter, and Superclip. Comes with carrying bag.
$225 at Backcountry

Setting up or breaking down the Rolly-Poley takes about a minute. It feels like “more work,” as compared to other stick clips, which are always ready to grab and go. But it’s really not a big deal. And of course, those other stick clips can’t and don’t easily fit into the bottom of your pack, but the Rolly-Poley does.

I’ve only used the Rolly-Poley during a few climbing days so far, so I haven’t put this rig through the ringer yet. Already, the bottom end of the pole is showing faint signs of scuff marks and wear from putting the pole down onto rocky ground, etc., which somewhat concerns me about its longevity. A lot of people, including myself, wonder if, after the thousandth use, the composite material will lose its rigidity and/or shape. Hard to say … It seems quite solid at the moment, but time will tell how long the Rolly-Poley lasts.

This isn’t just for sport climbers. I could see boulderers wanting to use this for brushing holds and capturing sweet top-down send-footy of their uncut V-gnar boulders. I could also see the Rolly-Poley getting surreptitiously thrown into haul bags, in the event a big-wall climber finds himself in a pickle that he wants to stick clip past.

At $225, the Rolly-Poley seems like a piece of gear that’s pretty hard to justify considering you can get a Superclip for $25 and a painter’s pole at any hardware store for about $40. Will climbers be willing to pay two and quarter bills for this kind of small form factor and lightweight design? For me, personally, I could imagine shelling out $100 or so, but I probably wouldn’t spend double that. I’d be happy to be proven wrong, but I think many climbers would agree. That said, if Metolius can figure out a way to make this very cool design more affordable, I think it would quickly become the stick clip that every climber owns and uses.

I’m genuinely impressed with the creativity behind this idea, and the resulting performance it delivers. Hats off to the team at Metolius for creating perhaps the most innovative piece of climbing gear of the year.

This article contains affiliate links that help support this site. This gear was provided to the reviewer by Metolius, but in no way influenced the content of the review.