Carrying a rack

Hey all, second question for me today.  Just discovered my ability to use a forum on the app, so getting around to some questions I’ve been sitting with.

Same story, been climbing for 29 years.

I am curious, what advantages versus disadvantages people are seeing between using a shoulder sling and carrying a rack on the harness. I’ve always used a shoulder sling, and the advantages always seemed clear to me. First, it’s easy to transition the rack when swinging leads, you don’t have to re-clip every piece from the previous leader. Second, I find it much easier to grab a piece from an elevated position instead of having to reach all the way down my harness, especially if my hand is well above me.  All I have to do is swing and splay the rack out in front of me and I have the whole selection at low chest level. I still have the same Metolius multilooped rack sling that I used in the late 90s. Often, if I’m caring a couple extra larger pieces I’ll clip them to the back of my harness since they make swinging the sling a little more difficult. The disadvantage as with caring a pack is that it increases your ability to get flipped backwards if you’re carrying a large and heavy rack. The only time that I have eschewed carrying a rack sling altogether is when there’s only a handful of pieces that need to go into a climb and usually it’s a single pitch that’s at my limit.

Curious peoples thoughts.

Tnx 

As permagumby/punter/shitty climber I find that on 5.9 and under they really suck, as on low angle terrain it always swings around in front of you. 

For more vertical terrain I'm kinda in two minds about them. All the gear goes into the middle which makes it harder for me to grab pieces than the harness, but having the weight off your harness on a long day is also really really nice. 

Love them for aid. 

Yeah, for aid I’ve always gone with a double-sided shoulder sling with room for a pack of cigarettes in the back. But I gave up on aid climbing about 15 years ago, and smoking :-). 

I've always (since the '90s) put my pro on a sling for the reasons you cite.  I just recently acquired a harness with 6 gear loops and tried racking my pro on the front 2 and 'draws one the middle ones.  It's super nice!  I finally get it.  Harness racking FTW.

FTW - For The Win

Most of the time I do a gear sling for the reasons mentioned, and I don't like all the weight of the rack on my harness. If there's a long approach I ALWAYS have a sling because I hate hikes with a bunch of weight on my harness. I usually have some gear on my harness even with a sling (trad draws, self rescue kit, a few pieces of pro especially big cams, but I move everything to the sling for hiking.

If it's hot and/or I don't need much gear I'll rack on the harness. Another benefit of the harness is there's no risk of dropping the entire rack and getting stranded, however I'm always careful when transferring the whole rack and say "you got it?" before letting go.

Personally I would only rack on a sling for chimneys. Otherwise it’s way too annoying for the 5.10a and under terrain that I climb.

I'm a gear on a sling guy, but it doesn't save time when swinging leads because everyone else racks on their harness. I also carry 60cm slings over a shoulder and when I hand them off they get turned into alpine draws.

Some good points raised so far. I used a sling all the time as newbie leader. I experimented with racking on the harness when I started climbing harder. I noticed pretty quickly that on steep climbs with an overhang, having the weight lower down, by racking on the harness, helped reduce pump because my legs were taking more of the load than my arms. But I also hate clutter on the harness, so I continue to rack draws on a single sewn sling that is looped over a shoulder. Draws just weigh a lot less than cams and nuts.

Lots of good pros and cons here. BITD, everyone I knew carried the rack on a sling. I still have mine, in fact… it’s a fairly small (but comfortable) racking sling that kept the gear fairly high on my chest/armpit area. These days, though, with modern harnesses, I have gotten used to (and mostly prefer) racking on the harness with maybe some slings over the shoulder.

A compromise:

If you rack on the harness, then have the misfortune to encounter a nasty off-width or chimney situation, you can always just use a 60cm sling temporarily to rack your pro on the appropriate side to make things easier for that pitch. Not as comfy as a dedicated gear sling, but it works.

BTW, aren’t there some good big wall stories about dropping almost an entire rack from 1000’ up? Thought I remember at least one such “situation”. 

I almost always carry my rack on my harness, but I will clean gear to a single length sling wrapped around my chest pretty often. I find I can clip nuts to it especially and yank on them without having to worry about them popping out of my hands when they come loose. 

Ken Tubbswrote:

FTW - For The Win

or.....F The World

cams/nuts on harness, and alpine draws/draws/slings on a runner over my shoulder...but I dont actually climb, so take it with a grain of salt

When I started I’d rack on a shoulder sling. It’s been a long time, for reasons discussed like dragging the gear on low angle rock. Another point is that the weight sitting on the hips seems better from a balance standpoint and you don’t have all the gear weight swinging to one side or another.

As far as swinging leads, you largely get the gear transitioned onto the harness while cleaning the previous pitch. I don’t see a gear sling as an advantage, and, perhaps it’s a hindrance depending on how you do it.

In any case, it doesn’t seem nearly as common as it once was.

Always used a shoulder sling, never liked gear on my harness, hangs too low and is in the way. Actually I cut the useless gear loops off  of all the harness's I have owned. Cut the belay loops off as well as they were in the way and extends  the belay gear out too far. Old school guy.

Kevinmurraywrote:

Always used a shoulder sling, never liked gear on my harness, hangs too low and is in the way. Actually I cut the useless gear loops off  of all the harness's I have owned. Cut the belay loops off as well as they were in the way and extends  the belay gear out too far. Old school guy.

So I’m assuming you do that goofball thing and attach the belay device through the hardpoints, putting the device at a 90 degree angle? 

Eric Craig wrote:

What is "goofball" about it?

Or maybe he uses a hip belay. A hip belay used by someone who knows what they are doing is as effective as anything else.  Safer I would say, than any belay method being operated by people who are lacking in knowledge/understanding (Formerly known as savvy).

Have fun catching big whips with a hip belay. Sure it’ll probably work but it ain’t gonna feel great. And lowering on a hip belay, yea that’s super comfortable. When’s the last time you saw a pro climber hip belaying someone on anything harder than 5.6? Or hell when’s the last time you saw anyone at a sport crag hip belaying at all? 

It’s goofball because it puts the ATC or Gri Gri in an awkward position, for belaying, and especially for rappelling. Why do you think they invented the belay loop? So Big Harness could sell you more shit?? 

Enough with this old guy trad dad shit. They invented belay devices because they’re BETTER. They invented belay loops and leg loops because they’re BETTER. You can choose not to use it, but it’s like saying a horse and buggy is just as effective as a car, or a tin can and string is just as effective as a cell phone.

Tony Danzawrote:

So I’m assuming you do that goofball thing and attach the belay device through the hardpoints, putting the device at a 90 degree angle? 

This is the preferred configuration for me, it puts the device at exactly the right angle. It will be different for different people, and it’s dependent on the length of their arms.  

I was an early adopter of the first Gri-Gri ever produced. It worked great in my harness of that time, with locking biner through upper and lower attachments, which was before belay loops were common. When I replaced that harness with a new one that had a belay loop, I started using it, and immediately noticed I was having trouble belaying with my Gri Gri.  It took me a couple of weeks to realize this was an ergonomic/positional effect. I started looping the biner through the top attachment plus the belay loop and that works perfectly.

I was climbing adjacent to a woman at a popular sport climbing area near me, who had just been taught by her two male partners to lead belay with the GriGri, and was having an impossible time. I saw that what was happening with her shorter arms was exactly the positional issue I noticed, and with the guys permission, showed her my method.  She had zero problem belaying after changing the configuration.

where do you think all this stuff came from???????

Old people. And old people are, so gross. 

The only way to prevent old Is to constantly invent new.

Gloweringwrote:

Another benefit of the harness is there's no risk of dropping the entire rack and getting stranded, however I'm always careful when transferring the whole rack and say "you got it?" before letting go.

This discussion of “belay loops” which originated as the manufactured solution to the piece of 1/2 inch sling we used to use, secured with a water knot, to keep your harness from falling down, prompted me to return my thoughts to the original topic.

I use gear loops for sport climbing, and gear slings for alpine/trad climbing. But if you are going the gear loop route for all your trad gear, it’s advisable to use a harness with rated gear loops, such as the Safe Tech. There have been several threads from people who lost a bunch of gear on route from an abraded gear loop on their harness that they had not noticed. Certain Petzl harnesses were notorious for this weakness. 

Still using a gear sling 90% of the time. On low angle slabs you can tether the rack behind you by clipping a quickdraw to a gear loop. 

Personally I really only use gear slings to organize my gear, and I rarely climb with it. On low-angle it slides around too much, on steep its too far away to grab the gear I need quickly. And it gets in the way of the single-length slings I wear over the shoulder to use as extensions. But definitely useful for wide stuff, if you're trying to go pack-less for an approach, or if you don't have enough space on the harness.

Still using a gear sling 90% of the time. On low angle slabs you can tether the rack behind you by clipping a quickdraw to a gear loop.

This is a good trick though I'll have to try this- might prevent the losing the whole rack in a lead fall thing too haha