Commercially made rock climbing harnesses can be a bit pricey – but there’s a reason for it. In the case of mountain climbing gear, you get what you pay for. Having dependable and sturdy rock climbing gear has helped grow the numbers of those participating in climbing. If commercial gear is readily available, then why would you bother to make a rock climbing harness?
Extreme Situations
How about whenever you get stranded in a rocky or mountainous territory and have to get out in order to survive? Perhaps your plane crashed and yet you survived. Perhaps you were kidnapped and are escaping the kidnappers. Perhaps part of a military exercise is to make a rock climbing harness. There are all kinds of scenarios where you just may have to make a rock climbing harness. But the one thing all of these situations have in common is that they are extreme examples.
Down To Basics
The basic ingredients to make a rock climbing harness are rope, metal clips (called carabiners in the climbing world) and something to make handholds. Remember all of those cartoons where mountain climbers used a pickaxe to get up a mountain? There you go. Whenever you do not have carabiners, you could conceivably use more rope, but that’s really dicey.
The most simple way to make a very unreliable rock climbing harness is to tie the rope around your waist, tie the other end around a claw hook and throw it up to the top of the rock (or near enough), pull on it so it holds and then claw your way up, praying that the claw hook does not suddenly give way. Improvised handholds could be made from hardwood chopped into spikes or from metal that could work like spikes.
The Usual Situation
As you can see, having to make a rock climbing harness is a pretty silly thing to do if you absolutely do not have to. But still you may hear of a climber intending to make a rock climbing harness for a particular climb. What’s all that about?
In the modern sport of climbing, “make a rock climbing harness” can refer to taking bits and pieces of commercially made climbing gear and altering them when necessary in order to adapt to the climber’s unique situation. E.g., if supplies have to be hauled up a mountain, then two harnesses and pulley systems are used in order to bring the stuff up.
