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Well shit, apparently I've been putting my harness on wrong for the last 10 years. Why didn't anybody ever tell me those are leg loops, and not arm loops!?!?

Why would you need to loosen the buckles before putting it on?  Wouldn’t you have loosened them when you took the harness off?  Do you even climb, REI??

in my experience-- at any given time,  10% of the people at the gym haven't put their leg loops on properly....

Stay tuned for the next installment in this series: How To Put On Your Climbing Shoes.

In working in climbing gyms and a gear shop over the past 10 years I have seen many many many people put on their harness improperly.  

Heck!  This past weekend at Vantage I saw a guy with his harness on upside down, so it's not even limited to indoor climbing.

(In case anyone is wondering, yes, I did point it out to him, and, fortunately, he was grateful that it was brought to his attention.)

Yeah aren’t you just born knowing how to put on this life saving device without any questions? Stupid noobs. We are so much better than you

Jake wander wrote: Yeah aren’t you just born knowing how to put on this life saving device without any questions? Stupid noobs. We are so much better than you

I think this is the kind of thing that should be taught in person rather than self-taught from an online article. Some skills and practices in climbing can be self-learned relatively safely through books and plenty of on-the-ground practice, but these are usually being learned by somebody who knows enough about climbing to recognize their own incompetence and avoid situations that are way above their skill level.

Generally, people already know how to put on a harness by the time they are knowledgeable and skilled enough to be ready to learn things on their own. Also, since there are a lot of different styles and idiosyncrasies specific to different harnesses out there, somebody showing you how to use your harness would be much better than reading how to put on a harness that may function slightly differently.

Yes the differences between most harnesses are pretty damn small and seem pretty insignificant to most of us, but to the beginner who has never even seen a harness in their life the little differences cam be huge and may cause confusion. Another reason why new climbers ought to be learning from people in person and not from the internet. 

Well.......

I remember the days, long ago, when this Discussion actually had relevant info on equipment and its use.

Is this thread a good example of that degeneration??????  

I found it had ZERO value except putting people down and what's that have to do with gear????

Even if we accept that one's first real use of a harness should be under supervision, the REI page has value - an instructor could send the link to their students as homework (so the students could pracitce it beforehand, to save time during the first class).

coldfinger wrote: Well.......

I remember the days, long ago, when this Discussion actually had relevant info on equipment and its use.

Is this thread a good example of that degeneration??????  

I found it had ZERO value except putting people down and what's that have to do with gear????

perhaps if anyone had actually asked a question about a specific harness and it's use, there would be something to discuss along those lines.

are you posting in the right thread?!?  is your post satire !?!?  
it's so hard to tell these days..

Alex Lombardo wrote: https://www.rei.com/blog/climb/how-to-put-on-a-climbing-harness

Seriously? 

Are you satire?

Oooo, can something me teach me how to buckle my helmet?

Well, there is a bit of variance....Some people have their harness waist about where their belt would sit, some have it above their hip bones all together. I have it in between those two extremes.

The high harness waisters often tell the rest of us that we risk falling out of our harnesses, maybe they're right.

I envision a REI post like this coming into being after some staffer saw a harness get put on wrongly for the millionth time in store. It's not a choose your own adventure book, there is a left and right. A front and a back. And why is your belay loop less of a loop and more of a belay twist.

Sounds like fat shaming to me

Darwinism is dead

It's articles like these that are messing with natural selection and contributing to overpopulation! You should have to figure that shit out on your own! It's sink or swim out in the real world. Whatever happened to adventure in climbing! Everyone's gotta have a step by step instruction for everything these days... shit.

Agreed, more people should "die by dumb".

Natural selection is dead....GovCo will keep you safe.

OrganicChemistry wrote: Agreed, more people should "die by dumb".

Natural selection is dead....GovCo will keep you safe.

never underestimate at what lengths stupid people will go to..

"how did you protect your fall?"  "well, I put a table ontop of another table, that's Redundancy, right?..they were the same size, so it was Equalized, right?....it held the weight of the ladder so it seemed bomber"
 if only he was properly wearing a harness...
at least he Decked on his own deck?

Hey REI, could you please edit your title to say "How to Properly Adjust Your Harness" so we can move on to the next hyperventilation?

I think I have drain bamage because after 40 years, if my harness is all twisted up in the pack, it feel like I'm trying to decode a Rubik's Cube.  And yes, I've put it on upside down.