Vertical caving terminology and methods > Personal SRT gear
Adjustable harness or straps on your chest/shoulders, which is used only for prusiking. A chest harness is used for all prusiking systems, but can serve different purposes depending on the prusiking system, so some designs will only work in certain systems. With the frog system, the singe system, the inchworm system, and when using the another prusiking system with a chest jammer, this is used to pull the top of the chest jammer upwards, so that the rope passes through it cleanly. Kept tight when prusiking. Kept loose when not prusiking. In these systems, it is not essential for safety, and mainly helps to keep prusiking efficient. With rope walking, the Mitchell system, and when using a chest roller with the another prusiking system, this is used to hold the chest roller close to the chest, and is essential for support. With rope walking and the another prusiking system when using a floating cam, this is also used to pull bungee cord upwards. With the three Gibbs ropewalker variation of rope walking, and the pygmy system, this needs to hold the shoulder jammer close to the sholder, and is essential for safety and support. With the Gérard Alpine technique, this is used to connect the chest prusik loop, and is essential for safety. With the Plummer system and the hands and feet system, this is normally used to connect to the top jammer, and is essential for safety, and normally also support in the Plummer system. With the Texas system, the safety cord of the top jammer is often passed through a carabiner that is clipped to the chest harness to try to pull the body a little closer to the rope, where it is optional for efficiency. This is the same for the Plummer system if the top jammer's safety cord is connected that way. With the Jumar system, the footloops are passed through a carabiner clipped to the chest harness, in order to avoid falling backwards. In both cases, the chest harness needs to pull the carabiner close to the chest, and is essential for support.
Several different designs, including a dedicated chest harnesses, neck loops, sashes, wrap-around straps and figure of 8 straps. Most designs are not intended to be load bearing, since their purpose is provide stability and to hold other equipment in the correct positions, rather than to support the weight of the user. However, when using a chest roller, when using a shoulder jammer, with the Gérard Alpine technique or the Jumar system, the chest harness can be required to support heavier loads while pulling tightly towards the chest, so a more sturdy harness may be used. For chest rollers, the chest harness normally needs to be a strong, wide belt wrapped fairly tightly around the chest, with some shoulder straps to hold it in place.
The most commonly suggested version for use with a shoulder jammer is a Howie belt ("shoulder strap" in the USA). This consists of a wide webbing belt or strap which is connected to the D-ring or front of the sit harness, runs under one armpit and up the back to the opposite shoulder, then back down the front to the D-ring or sit harness again. On the shoulder, a thinner webbing loop is sewn to the Howie belt, which is tied or permanently sewn to the shoulder jammer. The Howie belt should normally have an adjustable buckle on the back and front, or use some other approach so that the length of either side can be adjusted. The one on the front allows it to be looser while not in use, since it can feel like it is trapping the neck and back in an uncomfortable way. The one on the back alters the position of the shoulder jammer on the shoulder. A Howie belt has to be strong enough that it can replace the need for a safety cord. Traditionally, they would be home made, using very strong buckles, such as a sliding bar buckle. If connected to the D-ring, they would have sewn loops at each end. If the sit harness were also home made, then the Howie Belt could just be sewn directly to it. Home made load bearing harnesses cannot be PPE rated, and their working load limit cannot be known. While there are many PPE rated chest harnesses made for rope access work, these almost never have load bearing attachment points on the correct part of the shoulder straps, and instead have one on the back and front, which is not helpful.
In China, the earliest known depiction of a Tyrolean traverse from 250 BCE showed a loop of rope around the chest as part of the harness. In 1664, personnel and their children in the Covolo di Butistone cave and fortress in the Republic of Venice, now Italy, used a leather strap to prevent them from falling off if they let go of the rope. It was not described as a belt so may have been worn as a chest harness. It may have been used that way for centuries. Mountaineers would originally have used a loop of rope tied around the waist, which would have pulled up under the armpits during a fall, so their support would have been around the chest. In 1875, British caver Joseph Plumley was lowered into Plumley's Hole, using a full body harness made from the rope looped around his thighs and chest, an approach commonly used by miners. In 1876, French/Austrian explorer Charles Wiener explored an archaeological cave in Peru, and used separate ropes to each shoulder for safety. In 1878, German inventor Ed. von Mengden described using a rope looped around the chest as a safety harness, as part of the hands and feet system for climbing telegraph poles. In 1879, this had advanced to being a chest harness, and a separate configuration using a full body harness, with its main component being a chest harness. The first dedicated climbing chest harness was made in the 1880s by Dutch mountaineer Jeanne Immink, and while the details of its design were not recorded, it seems to have consisted of straps over the shoulders and around the chest. French caver Gaston Vuillier used a shoulder strap called a saltire to loop around the rope used for lowering manually or with a winch, to provide more support, some time around 1889-1892. French caver Édouard-Alfred Martel then used this technique.
In 1907, the mountaineering booklet Anwendung des Seiles published by the Bavarian section of the German Alpine Club, depicted a chest harness made from a rope tied into a loop using an overhand on a bight, then divided it into two loops using an overhand on a bight tied in the middle of it. The first loop went around the chest, and the second was worn over one shoulder as a saltire, with the two loops joined by a knot under the opposite arm. Only the chest loop was used for support, the saltire stopped the chest loop from falling down. Antoine Joseph Marius "Paul Cans" Barthelemy used a chest harness as part of his invention to paint buildings, which consisted of a chest belt and shoulder straps. It was first demonstrated by prusiking up to the first platform of the Eiffel Tower in France at the start of 1921, but was developed in 1920. In 1922, Anwendung des Seiles described how a bunny ears version of the overhand on a bight could be used to make the chest loop and shoulder saltire. The knot can capsize into a configuration where the loops can more easily change length, allowing the saltire to tighten during use, and would have been a liability. The next approach was to take the loop of rope that was originally tied around the waist but had been lifted up to the armpits, and force it to stay in that position by adding another loop of rope that went around the head, tucked under the chest loop at the front and back. This was proposed by Austrian mountaineer Karl Prusik in 1931. Henri "Kiki" Brenot's team developed a full body harness in the Grenoble region of France somewhere between 1929 and 1944. This included shoulder straps that were very similar to braces. Chest harnesses remained the main type of support used in mountaineering for several more decades. During the 1930s, Austrian mountaineer Raimund Schinko developed a load bearing harness. American cavers Cord H. Link and Dan Bloxsom added shoulder straps to a chest loop in 1955, described in The Troglodyte volume 1 number 9. In 1942, Anwendung des Seiles described how a an incomplete bunny ears overhand on a bight could be used to make the chest loop and shoulder saltire, with two loops going around the chest. This would have allowed the saltire to easily shorten during use, more than the original configuration, and could have potentially resulted in strangulation!
Adolph Jüsi and Walter Marti from Switzerland developed a method to wrap a sling around the chest as a chest harness in 1958, which was suggested for use with the Jumar system, which is still the basic method used for webbing harnesses today. German company Edelmann & Ridder (EDELRID) released a commercial chest harness made of rope in 1961. Several other companies released load bearing chest harnesses during the 1960s, typically made in the same way, but British company Moac made a webbing version in the mid 1960s that could alternatively be used as just a belt. Other companies also started to make webbing strap chest harnesses in the 1960s. During the 1970s, cavers experimented with several different types of chest harnesses for the different prusiking systems, with some being manufactured for arborists. American caver Charles Gibbs and Cleveland Grotto members including Warwick Doll and Lee Watson developed the basic Howie belt approach some time around 1966, even though in Britain it is named after American caver Will Howie. These developed into the multitude of designs that are in use today.
This history section only covers chest harnesses. This article also has a detailed history of many of the other devices and techniques that are used for vertical caving.
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