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Anatomy of a Climbing Harness
A climbing harness is an important piece of safety gear that climbers use to secure themselves to their rope or to an anchor. Before harnesses were developed, climbers would tie one or two loops of their rope around their waist, which would catch a falling climber but was uncomfortable and brutally painful to actually fall on. Modern harnesses are ergonomically designed with padding for comfort and safety features that ensure climbers can hang and fall without issue.
Sections
Anatomy Descriptions
Waist Belt
The bulk of a harness is in the waist belt, which sits over the hips and fastens around the waist. Modern harnesses are contoured at the hips to sit more comfortably, and they’re padded to help absorb falling forces.
Modern harnesses use locking-action safety buckles—made from aluminum alloy—that lock straps tight so they don’t slip and come loose. On old harnesses, climbers had to double back their straps through the buckle for a secure closure.
Leg Loops
Harnesses have two leg loops—one for each leg. These are also padded and secured with a locking-action buckle. The leg loops are attached to each other by reinforced, thicker material with a loop called a “hard point”. A bar-tacked loop called the belay loop connects through the other hard point on the waist belt.
Gear Loops
Most climbing harnesses have a couple loops for clipping gear on each side. These are important for sport and trad climbing when you have to carry a lot of quickdraws or cams on a route. For climbing in the gym, you can clip your belay device to your gear loop when you’re not using it. Some alpine harnesses have fewer or no gear loops to reduce weight and bulk.
Belay Loop
The belay loop is a thick loop of nylon closed with a bar tack that connects the hard points of the leg loops to the hard point of the waist belt. When one climber is belaying another, they use this loop to clip their belay device to their harness.
The belay loop is also used as the clip-to point when rappelling. It is NOT used for tying in as a climber. Climbers tie into their ropes through both the hard points on their leg loops and their waist belt.
Safety Standards
Manufacturers submit their harnesses to third party testing organizations that ensure safety standards are met. The UIAA, International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation, is the primary organization for testing climbing equipment. They have established safety standards for many categories of climbing equipment—including harnesses.
According to the UIAA requirements for a standard sit harness, all belay loops must withstand a load of at least 15 kN, which is more than 3,300 lbs. That’s a similar force to a small car hanging on the belay loop! If your harness can do that, then you can be confident it will hold your weight safely.
