Suspend Chest Harness for Top Rope Soloing

 Suspend Chest Harness

Want to improvise or make a simple chest harness similar to the Petal Torse? I’ve been using the Petal Torse for a couple years to suspend the upper device when Top Rope Soloing to separate from the lower device and also improve the feed of the rope. I interchangeably use a MiniTrax, Trango Vergo, or Taz Lov2 as my primary device and it’s worked great with all of them. The reason that I prefer the Torse is any weight or pressure is only felt on the tops of the shoulders similar to carrying a pack and it's adjustable on the fly.

                                          Improvised sling              custom made                  Petzl Torse

Some people use a cord around their neck or a full blown chest harness to accomplish the same thing. For me both of those have drawbacks. The cord/sling around the neck has the possibility of strangulation (though very remote) and depending upon which device it’s used with, it can be uncomfortable putting pressure on my neck. The full chest harness for me is constricting and a bit overkill just to hold up/suspend a TRS device. It doesn’t need to take the weight of a “fall”. I've seen other people use two-2’ slings over the neck/shoulders and cross them, while others use a 4’ sling in a crossed (figure-8) in the back and wrapped around to the front. I've also seen 4' slings tied off bandolier style. I found all these to be more constricting and less comfortable than the Torse.

While the Torse is an excellent lightweight chest harness and quite reasonably priced, something similar can be improvised with a 4’ dyneema sling or easily custom made for a few dollars for webbing and a couple plastic connectors. The Torse is also overkill IMO for a light weight devices like the MicroTrax or Vergo. For the Lov2 a custom made harness or the Torse is probably better.

Improvised Suspend Harness

A 4’ sling can easily be configured similar to the Torse. Maybe others are doing this but so far I haven’t seen anyone. All it takes is the sling and an optional rubber band and clip. The sling is first secured to the back of the harness with a girth hitch. Optionally you could use a small clip or ‘biner on the end if you want to make it easily removable like the Torse. Usually when I go out TRSing I don’t need to put it on and off the harness multiple times so I just girth hitch it from the start. The rubber band/O-ring is optional instead of the overhand knot to hold the two strands together in the middle of your back similar to the Torse. This keeps it more secure on the shoulders. It can easily be adjusted by moving it up or down. I use the fat little rubber bands that come with a bundle of broccoli or a tiny O-ring. Once secured to the back of your harness, the sling is then place over your head resting on your shoulders so that a loop hangs down in front. I use a small stainless figure-8 clip to join the sling to a small loop of cord on the device. 

Using a sling set up you can either vary the size of the cord loop attached to the device; vary the size of the ‘biner/clip or by using different ways to connect the sling to the clip/‘biner. Since the sling is a fixed length there are several ways to shorten the harness. The drawback is that it is not able to be adjusted on the fly like the custom version below. The amount of shortening will vary depending upon the width/thickness of your sling and the type of connection you used (‘biner or clip) but the following will give you an idea how much shorter you can make it using a setup like mine:

                       Extra loop: 1”            Girth hitch: 1.5”           Girth hitch with          Overhand knot: 3”           Figure-8: 4-1/2"              Figure-9: 6”
                                                                                            extra twists: 2”
   

Custom Suspend Harness:

The advantage of making a custom version is that it can be adjusted on the fly and you can make it any width from 1/2”, 5/8”, 3/4” or 1”. Personally I'd recommend 1/2" or 5/8". Even't though I've chosen 5/8” for the one shown, I think 1/2" webbing with 5/8" connectors would work better for ease of adjusting. 

7' of webbing is needed plus a slider ladder-lock plastic adjuster and a wide tri-slider. These are fairly common and you can do a search of the web to find them. Unfortunately many places only offer them in quantity. Using this type of slider-adjuster, both ends of the webbing are secure, however I've chosen to glue the short non-adjustable end down with a bit of shoe goo. Stitching with thread would probably also work.

 

Note: This version of the harness is not made to sustain a fall. The plastic parts will fail in the event of a fall. However that is not its purpose. Its sole purpose is to suspend your upper/primary device and does not need to be fall rated - it only needs to hold the weight of the device and rope hanging below it.

Note 2: I've seen someone else do an elastic cord version of this which could work for small/light device. I personally tend not to like the tension it creates. YMMV