Petzl Luna Harness - hot garbage juice

I've had two Petzl Luna harnesses in the last two years and both have had torn gear loops. The reason: a terrible design and shitty fabric(?). Gear loops are a hard plastic with fabric sheathing, pretty typical design. The hard plastic loop that sits inside the fabric have a slight gap between harness waist and the structural part (plastic part), leaving a small section of just fabric sheathing. So when the gear loop is weighted with gear, the pull is on the skinny bit of fabric holding the loop to the harness waist. Each incident tore in different spots causing loss of cams. Prior to them ripping there was some wear but not cause for reinforcing with tape. Petzl's response is to return the harness and look for defects and a "sorry about your cams." I climb a hearty amount year round with a partner who does the exact same routes I do - from offwidth to alpine to cragging on a variety of rock types. His harness has lasted him many many more seasons ( different brand). 

Why did I buy it again? I wear an xs in women's harnesses and for those of you who have no idea, that size of harness rarely has more than a couple gear loops and if they do, they're tiny. Gear loops are less crucial if I were sticking to sport, but in my case that doesn't cut it. Petzl Luna is one of the only harnesses that I've found that has five gear loops that are reasonably sized and it comes in xs. 

If you're a size xs woman, buy this harness if you don't anticipate hanging much gear on it. The loops are for show. Their design is clearly thoughtless and I can only assume the gear loop fabric is low budge.

I'm curious about other Petzl harness wearers. Any issues? 

Ended up going with an Ocun ladies XS for my partner. The gear loops are normal sized and have been very durable. 

Hi Jenna, I love my Misty Mountain Women's Cadillac in XS.  

Here are the pros and cons:

Pro

• 3 gear loops on each side
• padding is super comfy in hanging belays
• waist adjustment buckles on both sides means that the harness and gear loops are always centered properly on your hips
• durable (mine is 6 years and over 3,000 pitches in, and only just starting to show signs it's ready to retire)
• gear loops lift up/out, making it easier to clip gear
• haul loop

Con

• bulky, heavy
• MSRP $170

I bought two recently because they can be hard to find in XS, and mine is getting close to ready to replace, so I have an extra one NWT that I can offer you.  

The tag indicates that XS fits 24"-26" waist, 18"-20" legs.

I've seen multiple stories on MP about petzl harness loops failing. I believe that was specific to the adjama harness but it's the same construction as the Luna as far as I can tell

I used to use an adjama. I switched to a Misty Mountain Cadillac, I love it 

The misty MTN Cadillac seems to be the go to for xs and checks the durability, gear loops and comfort boxes. I don't love the bulkiness, especially on lonnnnng alpine car to cars but at this point, they seem to be the best option. And yikes, maybe I can't get my hands on one!?

I don't know much about ocun, but I'll check em out.

Anyone have experience with edelrid Solaris?

I wish I could test the fit on these suckers. Measurement charts are cool n' stuff but there's an element to trying them on that seals the deal. Thanks y'all.

I've sent a few emails to Petzl regarding that shit design. My aim is to both shame them (selfish endeavor), but mostly encourage them to change their design because it's garbage. I won't pretend to understand the nuances of harness technology and construction. At the same time, it's hard not to think that with one minor adjustment, that would not likely compromise the integrity/safety of the harness could be made. I'll leave room for ignorance on my end. But sheesh.

Without naming names, I have seen basically brand-new gear loops break twice, luckily both times were during low-angle butt-scoots at the base of climbs.   I learned to advise people to be careful about that, and haven't seen it since.  I do still worry about it happening in more consequential terrain, especially off-widths.   I've also seen fabric-over-plastic-core loops fracture a few times; when that happens I reinforce them with tape to get through the day.

My hope (pipe dream?) is that manufacturers start building/testing their loops to at least 25kg (not so that users can put a quadruple rack onto a single loop, but in order to help them survive snags while scrambling/thrutching/etc).

We ordered both the Eldelrid and the Ocun. My partner found the Ocun to be more comfortable. ocun.com/product/neon-3-lady

mbk wrote:

Without naming names, I have seen basically brand-new gear loops break twice, luckily both times were during low-angle butt-scoots at the base of climbs.   I learned to advise people to be careful about that, and haven't seen it since.  I do still worry about it happening in more consequential terrain, especially off-widths.   I've also seen fabric-over-plastic-core loops fracture a few times; when that happens I reinforce them with tape to get through the day.

My hope (pipe dream?) is that manufacturers start building/testing their loops to at least 25kg (not so that users can put a quadruple rack onto a single loop, but in order to help them survive snags while scrambling/thrutching/etc).

Excuse me? 25kn snag?
How hard you going bro, thats like 5700 pounds of snagging protection...knock about 20kn off that pipe dream and you have some functionality.

If you wanted rated gear loops get the waldo from metolious.

Edit: Thanks Ricky! KG vs KN kinda a big deal!
Also....I do feel like a lit of harnesses could hold 25-ish kg on the gear loops as is.

Mr Rogers wrote:

Excuse me? 25kn snag?
How hard you going bro, thats like 5700 pounds of snagging protection...knock about 20kn off that pipe dream and you have some functionality.

If you wanted rated gear loops get the waldo from metolious.

Kg not kn there good sir

Ricky Harline wrote:

Kg not kn there good sir

Imagine if it was 25kn though dude

*slaps harness loops* "you know how many Honda civics I can hang off this bad boy?!"

You want your gear loops to handle 25kn, you'll just have to wear a harness made of steel chain links, no big deal.

chastitybelt.png

You'll just have to use your imagination there fellas

Metolius Safe Tech harness manage 10Kn gear loops

All petzl gear loops have this issue, this is a well known design issue that they still haven't fixed in the over a decade it's been an issue. 

Cosmic Hotdog wrote:

Imagine if it was 25kn though dude

*slaps harness loops* "you know how many Honda civics I can hang off this bad boy?!"

Listen, the descent gear beta was pretty specific.

mbk wrote:

Without naming names, I have seen basically brand-new gear loops break twice, luckily both times were during low-angle butt-scoots at the base of climbs.   I learned to advise people to be careful about that, and haven't seen it since.  I do still worry about it happening in more consequential terrain, especially off-widths.   I've also seen fabric-over-plastic-core loops fracture a few times; when that happens I reinforce them with tape to get through the day.

My hope (pipe dream?) is that manufacturers start building/testing their loops to at least 25kg (not so that users can put a quadruple rack onto a single loop, but in order to help them survive snags while scrambling/thrutching/etc).

"Without naming names" means nothing.  It does a disservise to everyone who owns one of those two harness's and has a full gear loop break half way up a long multipitch. Furthermore, some Mfg already do build their harness's to the 25Kg point you noted. But lets not mention them. Now where are we? Nowhere and with nothing. 

So name some names and call them out. Here's one: Metolius. They have gear loops you can hang your car off of. Solid and strong. Here's another, Misty Mountain...solid build, but don't hang your car, just let your kids hang off of them.  So good luck with your "hope" and "pipe dream", but naming names will get us progress so name some names MBK. BTW, I have an Adjuma which has not had the gear loop break yet. Yet...but I'll be more careful now after reading this thread. I feel that we need to be as specific and complete as possible, including full names, so that mfgs can have feed back and we can all learn how to improve things which need improvement. 

Best advice for harness users is to find a local shop of climbers (NOT REI) and try them on via hanging in there. We had some great local guys (Climbaxe) who, when they were open for business, ran a screw hook into the ceiling with a rope off of it. Hanging on that hook I learned that a Black Diamond (which was painful in the extreme) vs a Misty Mountain Sonic (which was comfortable) despite appearing identical, were not identical where it counted. 

Good luck all!

Harnesses with the woven fabric gear loops with the plastic inserts are prone to breaking.

My buddy, had a Mammut harness, the gear loops did not look bad fraid, but they unraveled ed like a sweater and we lost gear.  
Wild country also uses that design as well as Petzl that I know of. I’m sure there are others.

Seems like European harnesses often use that design. That may be fine for climbing on limestone where your body rarely touchs the rock. In America, you regularly wiggle up corners and chimneys, causing abrasion on the gear loops.

I would not buy any harness that has the woven gear loops as it is just not worth the risk of losing all of your equipment.

Junk.