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Carrying slings while climbing – Tip #26

By 20th September 2018October 9th, 2024Resources, Rock Climbing, Summer, Tips

Carrying slings while climbing

Here’s a tip on carrying slings while climbing. It makes a huge difference in winter but is equally useful in summer too.

One way of carrying slings is to clip them to a karabiner on your harness, and twist the sling round several times like a tourniquet. This is great for general purpose use and in particular it’s ideal if you are carrying rope coils around the body.

However, when actually lead climbing it can be handy to have slings more accessible than this. One very common way is to double the sling up and put it over your head and one shoulder. This is fine up to a point. However, to deploy the sling you have to take it back up over your head/ shoulder. This might be while you are hanging precariously from the very arm that the sling must come off. Therefore it has its limitations.

Instead, try passing one end of a 120cm sling around the back of the shoulder, behind the neck and under one armpit. Then join the two ends of the sling together with a karabiner at the chest. The sling now lies in the same position as the ‘over the head and shoulder’ method. But when you need it you simply unclip the karabiner and pull. Then, like a ninja, the sling will whip out ready for use. Much quicker!

A close up showing an effective way of carrying a climbing sling while climbing - it is run around the neck and underneath one armpit and clipped together with a karabiner ” width=

A close up showing an effective way of carrying a climbing sling while climbing - it is easily removed by unclipping the karabiner and pulling the sling ” width=

We teach you methods like this on our rock-climbing courses. You can also see one of other tips, which shows how to equalise slings when building belays.