Backcountry Beacon

Skiers often buy a whole new kit every season. Mountain bikers get new frames with surprising regularity. Rock climbers, on the other hand, often use the same cams, carabiners, harnesses, and even ropes year after year after year. This is pretty ironic, considering the fact that of all these groups, the climber are the ones whose lives literally depend on their gear. Nearly every climber out there has at least one piece of gear that would fail an inspection by an industrial rope access technician (the closest thing to climbing that actually has guidelines on retiring gear).

Nylon has an ideal shelf life of about 10 years. This is how long a harness will maintain it’s strength if it sits in a climate-controlled room without ever being used or exposed to sunlight. Clearly, your climbing gear does not live an ideal life. UV rays, dirt, abrasion, falls, heat, cold, water, and all the other hazards reduce your gear’s life. By how much? Well, it depends on infinite variables. The important thing to know is what to look for when you’re inspecting your equipment.

Harnesses

Climbers tend to use harnesses way too long. While a harness may last several years under ideal conditions, climbing does not take place in ideal conditions. A harness may see a really bad day on the rock or in the mountains and need to be retired the day after it was purchased. One squeeze chimney pitch may be all it takes to thrash your brand-new harness. Take time into consideration, but put more faith in a visual inspection.

• Tie-In Points: First, check the leg and waist tie-in points. These are your connections to the rope, so they need to be in tiptop shape. If either of these points has enough wear to make you feel the slightest bit uncomfortable, then you should retire the harness. Some models use a non-load-bearing cover on these points to fight wear and tear. If this piece gets worn all the way through, then your harness is done.
• Belay Loop: Like your tie-in points, belay loops should be very closely inspected. While the belay loop is the strongest part of the entire harness, it’s subject to the same wear and tear as everything else. If your belay loop is compromised, then it can put your life and your partner’s life in danger. Check the bar stitches and look for any signs of fraying or wear. Then look at the rest of the belay loop for uneven wear. Like ropes, nylon can get a touch fuzzy without compromising strength, but if one section is worn more than the rest, then it’s time for the garbage.
• Buckles: Now take a look at the buckles. There should be absolutely no corrosion and none of the metal should be worn enough to create anything that even resembles a sharp edge. Either of these, and your harness goes in the trash.
• Stitches: Next, go through all the load-bearing stitching. All load-bearing stitching must be a different color than the fabric it’s sewn into. Industrial rope access guidelines state that a single picked thread is grounds for retiring a harness. This may be a bit harsh, but it should give you a good idea of how little it takes to compromise your harness’s strength.
• Overall: Once you’ve gone through your checklist, give the rest of the harness a good once-over with an eye for serious abrasion on the rest of the nylon. Remember, a harness costs far less than an emergency room visit, and you can’t really put a price on being able to walk.

Slings

Checking slings is essentially an easy version of checking a harness. You have the same basic components without the buckles. Slings get loaded over edges, wrapped around horns, and subjected to falls over and over again, so they can get wrecked pretty quickly. Another important consideration is that Spectra (a.k.a. Dyneema) does not last as long as nylon, so anything that’s even remotely worn should find it’s way to the trash.

• Stitching: Like harnesses, start with the load-bearing stitching (different color than the sling fabric). Look for any abrasion or picked stitches, and remember that the industrial standard is one-picked stitch before it’s in the garbage.
• Overall: Slings can get a bit fuzzy, much like a rope, but still be in usable shape. What you want to look for is a singular piece on the sling that has more wear than the rest. If you see this, get rid of it. Slings are cheap. Ankles are not.

Ropes

Ropes are one of the few non-redundant pieces of gear you have, so a rope failure means a ground fall no matter what. I’ve seen people climb on ropes that I wouldn’t use to hang a hammock, but that doesn’t seem to bother some climbers. Do not mess around when it comes to checking your ropes. Always err on the side of caution, and retire your line if you’re worried at all.

• Core: The core is the load-bearing part of the rope, which makes it the most important thing to check. Unfortunately (from an inspection standpoint), it’s underneath a sheath and can’t be seen. This means that you have to inspect a core with a tactile test and trust what you feel. First, go end to end feeling every inch of the rope for soft or hard spots. These indicate a place where the core may have been damaged. Flat spots usually mean that a strand of the core has been damaged. Once you’ve done this test, go end to end again with the radius test. Take a bite of rope in your hand and rotate it to feel how tight you can make the arc. Go down the rope a couple inches and do it again, and again, and again until you’re at the end. If you find a spot that’s stiffer or softer than the rest, then it’s an indication of damage to the core. Go HERE for video examples of how to perform these tests.
• Sheath: Fuzzing of the sheath is normal. What you should be worried about is one section that’s worn more than the rest. This indicates a trauma to that piece of the rope, and you can often find a corresponding section of core that’s damaged as well. If the sheath has abrasions nasty enough to expose the core, then your rope is finished. Tie it into a rug or something. You should also keep your eyes open for any singeing of the sheath. While this may not be an issue by itself, it’s an indication of trauma to a singular section of the rope and should be inspected very closely.
• Falls: Ropes are designed to take lots and lots of “normal” falls, but some falls cause more damage than others. The forces created by a fall have virtually nothing to do with the length of a fall and everything to do with how much rope is available to absorb the fall. A fall factor is calculated by dividing the length of the fall over the amount of rope which absorbs it. For example, if you climb up 10 feet, place a piece, climb another 10, and fall 20-feet, you get a fall factor of 1 (20-foot fall on 20 feet of rope). If you take the same fall without the gear and go past the belay on a multi-pitch route, you fall 40-feet on 20-feet of rope and create a factor 2 fall (as bad as falls get). Anything much over a factor 1 fall should have you thinking seriously about retiring your rope, even if you bought it last week.
• Trimming: If a rope is damaged in a single location, then you may be able to cut off the damaged end and keep using the rope. If you do this, make sure that you re-seal the end by melting it with a lighter. This keeps the core from slipping inside the sheath. It’s also important to mark both ends of the rope with the new length. Lowering off the end of a newly trimmed rope is a very common climbing accident.

Helmets

Of all the climbing gear out there, helmets are probably the most common to be used well beyond their prime. Many helmets in use these days won’t protect from anything more than a small pebble falling from the top of the cliff.

• Shell: Look over your shell for any scratches or marks deeper than 1mm. Lines of discoloration (usually lighter than the helmet’s color) are known as crazing and indicate that the shell was under enough pressure to deform the helmet. Some climbers replace broken strap attachments with pop rivets. Unfortunately, this decreases the shell’s structural integrity. Any one of these things can cause a shell to split under a fraction of the impact force that it was designed to absorb. Even a crack at the ends can propagate across the entire lid from a straight-on top impact.
• Webbing: For helmets without a foam liner, the webbing works in conjunction with the shell to absorb an impact. If the webbing is torn or frayed, then it can fail under impact. If this happens, the only thing protecting you from a falling object is a 3mm piece of plastic. Obviously, this is not going to get the job done.
• Foam: In-mold helmets use foam to absorb impacts. It’s designed to deform when an impact occurs, which makes it good for only one hit. The foam almost always cracks when it takes a big enough hit to come into play. For really light helmets, this can even happen inside a duffel or your backpack. Check the foam regularly, and don’t ignore cracking just because your helmet has never taken a hit while you were wearing it.

Stick Around

In part two, I’ll discuss carabiners, cams, stoppers, and how to properly dispose of the gear that you retire. For a very detailed guide, including photos and videos of the inspection process and rejected items, take a look at Petzl’s PPE Inspection Site.

Related Posts:

• When To Retire Climbing Gear – Part 2: ‘Biners, Cams and More
• Is Fixed Gear Safe?
• Daisy Chains: Anchor Link or the Weakest Link?

Tags: climbing, climbing gear, gear maintenance, rock climbing, safety, sport climbing, trad climbing