Need advice on comfortable harness

• I have a few harnesses that I use while bolting and hanging and they both make my right leg numb after 10min.  I have a misty Cadillac and Petzl that do the exact same thing.  It gets to the point where my leg is completely numb.  

Anyone have a solution to making a comfortable seat so I can get the weight off my leg loops?   Thanks for the help! 

Get one of those small plywood seats.

Kobalt kneeling pad(convenient handles to pass rope through, but you could always cut your own), 1/2in x 12in plank cut to length, and a bit of rope is all you need.

I will always assert that the Arcteryx harness is more comfortable than the Misty Mountain.

Most harnesses consist of a load bearing nylon webbing strap about 1-1.5 inches wide covered in padding. Regardless of the amount of padding this webbing tends to dig in over time.

The Arcteryx design takes the webbing and spreads it apart so that the entire ~4 inch wide load bearing belt evenly distributes the pressure. They have no padding because it’s unnecessary. This saves a lot of bulk when packing the harness.

YMMV.

The wood plank idea is great too. Really easy to make. +1 for a 12 inch width. I made one with a 10 inch plank and want to upsize. Round the edges with sandpaper and optionally cut up some foam sleeping pad and glue it on. Drill a hole in each corner and thread the rope through so it crosses in an X shape underneath which makes the board stable and angle adjustable while seated. 

Assuming your bolting top down, I like to use a light weight  work harness, like the Petzl Felcon .  Along with helping with leg numbness, it feels way better to hang everything off your harness.  A seat would also help with your problem.  

Thanks for the advice yall.  Anyone have. Pic of the wood seat solution?  I.e. how are you attaching to your harness and working rope?

Chris L wrote:

Thanks for the advice yall.  Anyone have. Pic of the wood seat solution?  I.e. how are you attaching to your harness and working rope?

 If I’m rap bolting, I might jug a fixed line w the seat, put my grigri on the line and hang the seat directly off the grigri and lanyard myself to the grigri. Now I have no pressure on my harness.  Then I can hang everything off the seat and grigri.

If I will be going up and down i will likely hang the seat off an ascender and lower myself onto it, staying on the grigri.

I like a wider board (16”) than some. I like using old climbing rope to rig it vs light cord. Then everything is “rated” and unlikely to wear out this millenia.

Pro Tip: The next time you’re playing support crew for someone like Honnold on their mega multi proj, take the seat as a portable stance. 

Rprops wrote:

 If I’m rap bolting, I might jug a fixed line w the seat, put my grigri on the line and hang the seat directly off the grigri and lanyard myself to the grigri. Now I have no pressure on my harness.  Then I can hang everything off the seat and grigri.

If I will be going up and down i will likely hang the seat off an ascender and lower myself onto it, staying on the grigri.

I like a wider board (16”) than some. I like using old climbing rope to rig it vs light cord. Then everything is “rated” and unlikely to wear out this millenia.

Pro Tip: The next time you’re playing support crew for someone like Honnold on their mega multi proj, take the seat as a portable stance. 

This is great info and I’m going to try it out asap! 

I would recommend using a product like the Open Ring: https://www.petzl.com/US/en/Professional/Connectors/RING-OPEN

This connects to your belay loop.  You can then connect your seat and descending device to it separately.  You can also connect an adjustable lanyard / other crap to this.  Its nice to have things separate in case if you need to get out of the system 

Chris L wrote:

Thanks for the advice yall.  Anyone have. Pic of the wood seat solution?  I.e. how are you attaching to your harness and working rope?

I put the seat rope around my waist above the harness and use a grigri on my belay loop to rap in, tie a quick overhand below, clip the seat to a rescucender and adjust for height, and then I lower myself onto it, kinda clunky, but it works for my occasional scrubbing needs.

Also, sorry about the dimensions on the plank, 3/4 x 11+3/4 cut to whatever the length of the pad is, just a scrap from the cull lumber bin at Lowes.

Just in case it's useful to someone experiencing numb legs. I recently bought a Metolius Safetech Waldo for route development, and find it ridiculously comfortable to hang on. Sportier harnesses always made my legs go numb, and often bruised my hips and tweaked my back when working in weird sideways positions. Waldo is thickly padded and takes up a lot of room in the pack, but that's not a big issue for me. I also like the fact that the gear loops are rated; it's nice to be able to drop a drill or crowbar on a long sling and not worry about the loop breaking. While far from necessary for my purposes, I imagine the double belay loops could be helpful for complex rigging applications.

Thanks all for the tips on plank seats. That's a neat hack that I might try someday.

I have also been using a Metolius Waldo for years and it’s great. Many days of 8 hours hanging around in that harness. I’ve built and tried a seat,  but never found a need to continue to using it.

Yup, Metolius Waldo is great. Belay seat is smart. Maybe some Pranayama breathing and basic yoga as well

Just wanted to close this out for any future reference…..

On the recommendation of those above, I purchased the Waldo harness and it’s incredible.   If you dislike the comfort of hanging while bolting and cleaning, spend the dough as this harness was a game changer for me! 

I'm glad it's working for you too, Chris. Thanks for your work!