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Mini rescue question 8-Oct-2018 At 1:17:14 PM IdratherbeclimbingM9

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On 8-Oct-2018 widewetandslippery wrote:
>In all seriousness what's wrong with a bowline around the waist for toperoping?
>Fancy knoted harnesses just sound like a step towards a proper phuck up.

WW&S you surprise me with that question as I thought you knew climbing history pretty well.

To answer let me first say that a rope around the waist can and does work, certainly better than no rope, but it has its issues.
Most early serious climbing was done this way and even our relatively recent by comparison early Australian climbing history is included. A great example being the classic photos of Dr Dark and his cohorts climbing at Boar’s Head and in the Warrumbungles.

The main issues being that with kids, most are slim with narrow hips and can easily slip out of the waist bowline, especially if involved in a sideways or inverted fall... even while toproping. Constructing a rope harness that includes going over their shoulders is a good way to solve that problem if making do with just a rope.

A far more important reason for not relying on a waist rope is when hanging free of the rock after taking a fall on steep climbing.
If such hanging around involved much time then it can setup a situation where blood flow to extremities is interfered with and toxins can be released that can be harmful if not fatal!
People have died from experiencing this, including an Australian, though the name of the condition and other details of that incident escape my memory at the moment, other than the fact that this can happen in a surprisingly short time, ie minutes!!

If that doesn’t happen to you then the other likely outcome is that the rope will ride up under the rib cage and cause considerable discomfort along with breathing issues.

The main reason harnesses were invented was to overcome these issues.

By the way, harnesses didn’t just happen in their modern form either. It was a transition to them and well I remember carrying a sling in reserve during my early climbing, to lay over the taught rope above the waist while hanging inverted to enable one’s feet to be passed through either side of that loop thus transferring one’s weight to it when you pulled yourself upright on the rope again.

I’m sure you have spent plenty of time hanging around in a swami seat made from the newfangled invention of nylon tape, so you already know how uncomfortable that can be, so it’s little wonder that manufactured harnesses like the Whillans became rapidly popular ... though I doubt you’d convince young folk of today that a Whillans is a comfortable harness by today’s standards.

Duang Daunk is right - consider yourself “schooled”! Heh, heh, heh.