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Rave About Your Rack Please do not post retail SPAM.

Topic Date User

Backing up your belay loop 11-Jan-2007 At 3:24:08 PM dougal

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Redundancy is a great guide as is simplicity. The most recent ROCKandICE has an article about the incident. Two points to note: the party (skinner and his partner) were both aware of the state of the belay loop (and the entire harness) before the accident. Skinner apparently had the habit of girth hitching his daisies through the belay loop and not through both the leg and waist loops. This habit plus the heavy use by Skinner led to the freakishly bad state of the loop. The article reiterated that belay loops should be used for belay or rappel.

Skinner should have retired the harness or replaced the loop which is likely what he was thinking on the way down.

IMO backing up the loop is like using double ropes because the rope you usually use is so frayed that you're are concerned it wont hold the next fall. Inspect your gear regularly and keep things simple.