20 Best Trad Climbing Harness (2022 Updated)

I was eager to try this harness as it was advertised to be a comfortable all-arounder for top rope, sport and multi-pitch trad climbing days at the crag. Over the past three years, I’ve worn a few other harnesses for a mix of top rope and sport climbing.

I found them all to be comfortable for long days in variable conditions. So far I have only used the Adjama for sport climbing at the gym but I was surprised that I experienced noticeable pulling and bunching with the adjustable leg loops while lowering from the anchors, both as the climber and while belaying.

The issue improved when I tightened the leg loop buckles down significantly but that provided for less freedom of movement while climbing. One possible contributor to this concern is the thickness of the padding around the back and sides of the leg loops.

The thicker padding may provide some additional comfort on the back of the thighs while lowering but the additional material on the inner thighs seems superfluous and increased the opportunity for bunching when the leg loops were not tightened to the point of immobility.

One feature of the harness that I preferred over my daily workhorse Wild Country harness is the angled placement of the gear loops. I found that on a quick test for load capacity that I was able to easily fit six quick draws on each loop due to their offset positioning.

It’s not often that I find myself needing more than 12 quick draws for a typical single pitch climb but this capacity would prove beneficial for trad climbers who like to bring a variety of cam options for each climb.

All gear loops are easily accessible and their size allows for good organization of draws and cams. Overall the harness fit was true to advertising with a sufficient range in the waist adjustability.

I received this harness for free in exchange for an honest review. This is my first experience with a harness designed specifically for women, and I’m never going back. When I first put the harness on, it felt odd because I was used to using my boyfriend’s old harness, and there is a definite difference between the “standard” harness made for men and a harness made for women.

But after my first climb I was a convert. The waistband is curved and padded, which results in a supportive, more comfortable fit. I love the elastic on the leg loops, which give a secure but not overly tight fit that still allows for maximum movement.

I’ve comfortably spent several hours at a time in this harness (and those are words I never thought I would type). And most importantly (to me), the belay and tie-in loops are incredibly sturdy — thick and durable, with multiple rows of reinforced stitching.

I’m looking forward to using this harness for years. For reference, I’m an athletic size 4, and the Small fit me perfectly (waist 28-30 inches, leg loops 20-24 inches). Although I’m a size 4, I do have curvy hips and a butt, which is perhaps why I find this harness so much more comfortable than those designed for men.

On a completely superficial level, I also like the violet color, which is a pretty light purple with dark purple accents. Isn’t it great when useful things are also beautiful?.

First, I loved the plethora of racking space, but would never recommend this harness to any trad climber who finds themselves in chimneys or offwidths. This is because of the gear loop failure issues that have also been highlighted by a couple of the other reviewers.

The issue originates from the fact that there’s hard plastic on the *inside* of the fabric for the front gear loops, but only the fabric itself is actually stitched into the harness. This means that abrasion of the fabric (which can happen quickly if you’re one who enjoys the wide) on the outside will break through to the plastic core, which doesn’t have any connection to the harness other than being sheathed by the (now gone) fabric.

Think of it as if you only tied into the sheath portions of your rope, but the core was still there. Luckily i caught it before it was able to dump a bunch of cams off my harness on a multipitch climb.

Beware!.

I did not attack any steep ice, rime crusted alpine faces; nor did I send any granite big walls or limestone sport routes in this Black Diamond Technician Recco Harness. I was able to strap this RECCO around my undercarriage for some sick gym grabs though, and my standard is the Black Diamond VISION ($174.

95) so I may be BD biased, bear that in mind. Easy on, easy off. Very uncomplicated. Felt settled and secure. Good support under the biceps femoris and did not compress the iliotibial tract. Weight comes in almost twice as much as the VISION, but you won’t notice it when it’s on.

So if you’re not ultra-lightweight portaledge packing, so if you’re only hitting the local gym to for social hour or trying to score a date with your gym crush, you won’t care this harness is heavier and you can feel accomplished that you’re in the >$100 harness crew now.

What I liked: The integrated Recco safety reflector passive transponder is a well thought-out addition. Waist belt is comfortable and provides good range of motion The four pressure-molded gear loops feel rugged and are convenient with their pre molded flared, offset position.

What I did not like: Nothing comes to mind. Happy to own. Do recommend. A solid middle market addition to the arsenal.

Comfortable harness that strikes a good balance between sport/trad and alpine use. The padding is more minimal than other harnesses (that are geared towards sport), but it’s still pretty comfortable to hang around in all day.

It has gear loops galore – four with a rubberized coating on the left and right, and one on the rear that is a thin black loop. The speed adjust buckles are pretty common these days, and very easy to use on this harness.

I do wish that the leg loops had a ‘keeper’ loop where you can tuck away the excess of a long leg loop strap. I really like the thin belay loop design – when you have a lot of stuff tied into that area, it makes it a bit easier to manage.

RECCO is a nice bonus that I hope to never need, but the antenna/reflector weight are negligible, so there’s no downside to having it. I appreciate the low key black and white color scheme when most harnesses are typically flashy colors.

The harness comes with a lightweight zipped mesh stuff sack, and it’s easy to pack the harness down and stash in in your pack.

I bought this harness for the leg loops. The part on the inner thigh is wider than almost all harnesses out there. Also bought it for the gear loops. BD has my favorite gear loops. Rigid and sticking out.

Most of their harnesses have kid size gear loops, but the front ones are SLIGHTLY larger. Only improvement I would want is for the leg loops to have padding go all around. There’s none on front of the inner thigh, but since the webbing is wide, it doesn’t feel bad at all, but having the padding go across more would’ve made the leg loops perfect.

Waistband is a little stiff till it gets broken in, especially right in the back where the haul loop is. As far as fit goes, fixed leg loops harnesses fit best if you have small waist and big legs. Otherwise the leg loops will be a little loose.

I’m very happy with this harness since these usually go for about $130. Right now this is my gym harness since it’s a pretty snug fit right now and I’m wearing thicker pants when I climb outside in winter, but in spring and summer I look forward to taking it outside.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I am.

To start my frame of reference is the Petzl Corax (original). It’s 6 years old so decided it was time to replace it. We went with Corax LT based on our results with original Corax. My wife got the Womens version.

The difference is very dissapointing. We both felt that the fit was wrong. The leg straps fit nice for me and don’t move around. The single adjust for the harness on the waist is nice. To stand or walk around they are fine.

For me the legs and waist do not have enough padding. I could not get the adjustment right on my waist and it was painful both climbing and belaying. The leg straps adjusted ok but were not comfortable hanging on the wall or on falls on top rope or leading.

I just didn’t like it. My wife didn’t like the leg fit and was unhappy with it climbing and belaying. When belaying she said it was rubbing into her crotch to the point that she just wanted to take it off.

Especially when I was hanging on a take or a fall. Niether of us had these issues with the original Corax. It has more padding and better fit. This new LT version we assume means “light weight” and they stripped out padding.

It seems that this new version is their cheaper version at $60. Which is about what we spent on the original one. We returned them and ordered the $80 versions. Petzl Adjama and Luna. Those seem to have the padding and fit of our original.

If your budget won’t allow the $80 version then this one will work as long as you don’t mind it being more uncofortable.

I have been climbing for 30 years in total and in various iterations of this harness for a long time now. It ticks all of the boxes in terms of function, fit, and durability, and especially price. One of the things that I like most about it are the gear loops.

A lot of brands put their loops too low on the harness in my opinion, which causes gear to hang down around your lower leg. I prefer things to sit higher so that everything is tighter to my body when I move.

The harness trad climbs and sport climbs equally well. The only downside to it is the weight being a little on the heavy side. I prefer a 32 inch waist in pants and wear a size medium in this harness, which puts me at the bottom end of the fit and allows me to cinch the waist within a cm of all the way down.

This puts the gear loops more towards the front. When you look at the size range for a harness, always make sure to consider that the measurement will be smaller than your waist size because you wear it above your hips.

Despite its low price Petzl Sama harness is a very comfortable harness and it fits great. I own Petzl Sitta, Hirundous, older Sama, and BD Bigwall harnesses to compare. This latest Sama has improved from the older orange color Sama I have, especially the leg loops are much more comfortable once they got rid of the tighter elastic ‘webs’.

I’ve been using Hirundous a lot for sport climbing but their main webbing inside the hip belt is skinnier and started to feel uncomfortable when I take large whippers. Sama is more comfortable with wider structural webbing and the outside padding.

It says “Sport Harness” but I use it for any trad/multi-pitch routes without any problems. The price is awesome at about 1/3 of Sitta price. I only use Sitta for alpine stuff. If you are climbing grade V routes with long hanging belay or aid pitches BD’s Bigwall is hard to beat, as a ‘free climb-able’ big wall harness.

I think Sama is a great all-round harness for beginners and experts alike. *Also the main buckle does not slip like Hirundous!.

An ok harness, fits well is incredibly light and looks cool (LNT might disagree. ) However the gear loops are much much smaller than they look in pictures. The front gear loop with the divider is about the size of a regular gear loop.

The back gear loops can fit a Grigri and an atc before feeling crowded. The divider on the front gear loop is a novelty at best, and I wish it could be removed. To make this harness even worse, the gear loops are very awkwardly placed with the front left gear loop hogering over my left butt cheek (not anywhere close to where I think a front gear loop should be).

Finally I’m about a size 30 (men’s) waist and the small felt like it was made for a child so the upper end of the small size range is definitely a stretch I would not recommend this harness for anything but sport routes with the draws pre hung.

I really wanted to like this harness, all of my previous harnesses have non-adjustable leg loops—I love the minimalism. However, those were all female-specific and accommodate for larger thighs + smaller waists.

I wear a size S in both the BD Solution and the Arcteryx C-Quence. The size M Petzl Sitta juuuust fit my thighs but unfortunately was too large in the waist even at the tightest point. As soon as I weighted it with gear, the waist sagged on my hips.

I loved all the features and how lightweight it was, but unfortunately it’s just not the harness for my body.

This harness works perfectly for me. It is comfortable, light, and holds gear very well. I enjoyed using this for some all-day outings. The medium fits me perfectly. The only downside is the leg loops are not adjustable.

Although I prefer this design because I never had to worry about adjusting it and it always fits nicely. I am a bit concerned it won’t fit or be as comfortable if I put on some weight. Make sure you get the right size and it will fit great.

Used in gym for rock wall climbing. Thigh straps and fit of medium harness are glove-like and prefect for me. Size 30” waist. 70 kilo. Build quality looks ok, but the steel adjuster for the waist strap is much thinner than my issued military harness which uses beefy and smoother aluminum.

The manufacture is outsourced to Vietnam and it not made in Germany by Edelrid. One thing that makes me worry are the popping sounds from the tie in when descending after a climb with this harness. I wouldn’t trust this for real-world climbs.

I’ll use my issued emergency repelling harness for that. Made and designed by the same company, in North America.

The gear loops on this harness are so small that they are essentially unusable. The miniature loops seem like they are made for a child, or as a laughable decoration. I bought this harness for trad climbing, and I can barely even use it for sport climbing.

The gear loops are so small and tightly appressed to my body while the harness is on, that it is difficult to even get one quickdraw on and off, let alone an entire rack of draws. Forget about using this harness for a double rack of cams and slings! It offends me to think a company would make this as an adult “woman’s” harness.

I honestly could have believed somebody was pranking me when it came in the mail. Get out of the 1960’s, Edelrid. Women climb and need gear loops that are not there for decoration.

This is a very comfortable harness with a lot of features. However, there are 2 major problems that made me return it. The gear loops are too narrow and they are placed really weirdly. There is a gap between each par of gear loops on each side to accommodate an ice clipper.

The result is that there is some dead space around your harness. Combined with the narrow gear loops, this makes it such that you can miss a gear loop when you go to place gear back on your harness if you aren’t being super careful.

I am not a clumsy person. I have been climbing for years. I have never missed so many clips reracking in my life. Also, the top hardpoint of the harness is really uncomfortable. It twists down in a way that makes it lumpy and when you are standing it digs in uncomfortably.

This might work for you. Try it on in stores. try and clip 5 quickdraws into one of the rear gear loops on your non dominant side and see how that works for you. Normally I am a big Edelrid fan and I was looking forward to using this, but it just doesn’t work for me.

I got the wrong size initially. 5’6″ and 150 pounds – the m/l is not for me. Great quality product. I recommend.

The harness well well made. Comfortable, easy to adjust, durable, excellent overall.

From the perspective of a route setter these are the best and other setters I’ve worked with agree. I have to spend most of my time hanging in the harness and the other 10% of the time trying out moves.

A burly chest harness is more comfy but you can’t really work hard moves wearing those. This is comfortable enough to hang in for a couple hours at a time. The gear loops are full strength for clipping into the wall at weird angles to find the perfect angle to remove a tight hold.

Two belay loops because sometimes it’s nice to have an extra. Extra gear loops because you’ve got to carry so much crap up the wall with you. There isn’t really an other harness like it and it’s much better than every other climbing harness for route setting.

I have used it climbing outside a few times when I’m in a bind and I need an extra harness and it is admittedly bulky for some climbs outside. I can see how it could make a tight chimney just a bit tighter, but you do definitely appreciate that cushion while belaying for an extended period of time.

In a low key setting where I’m belaying kids or teaching a friend it’s my preferred harness. The thing is like climbing with a sofa to sit in, actually comparable to the comfort offered by a bosun chair.

It’s definitely not the harness I use for projecting, but for 50% of the climbing I do, and 100% percent of the gym work I’ve done this is the best by a wide margin. I’ll be buying an other one here soon once mine finally wears out.

I’ve been using it for about 4 years heavily and I’m excited to get a new one.

I have BD, Misty Mountain and predecessor Safe Tech harness and prefer this one for trad climbing – it’s comfortable and robust. The gear loops are just right for me. The keeper for the elastic rear risers for the leg loops is fiddly and loose – I used wire twisties to keep it in place.

I don’t really see the point of the double belay loops but others seem to like.

First, if you’re looking for a really light sport harness or a harness for the gym, then this probably isn’t for you. This harness is really geared towards climbers putting their harness to the test on the crag.

As a crag harness, the Safe Tech Trad really excels. Technically, you can feel safe that all the loops on the harness are rated strong enough to clip into just in case Murphy’s law steps in and your A-game doesn’t.

The gear loops are large enough for at least 12 draws, a set of stoppers, a dozen extra biners, and half a dozen cams if you load your gear well. The harness doesn’t need to be doubled-back, it just needs to be tightened enough for the waist clips to auto cinch.

Comfort-wise, I’ve hung on the crag for up to an hour consecutively and climbed in the harness for up to five hours without any pain; this was the major draw for me as the fit was so cozy.

Awesome package that should give you everything you need to start climbing. The harness is great, lightweight, unconstructive and comfortable for hours – but I’ve never been able to use the belay device.

I learned upon first attempted use that my gym requires belay devices with assisted braking. So if you’re just starting out in the gym like I was when I bought this, check to see if your gym has any rules like mine did, and if they do I’d recommend just getting the stand-alone harness, a karabiner and something like a Mammut Smart 2.

0 – that’s what I got, and honestly I’m really glad I did, it’s fantastic.

This harness has poor padding in the inner thigh and when I pulled on the loops, the material instantly dug hard into my inner thigh and crouch. I can’t imagine what it would feel like once all my weight was being lifted by it.

A short session of climbing would probably leave my skin raw and would not be worth it. I am going to return this and invest in a higher quality harness. I do not recommend.

Started climbing at a local gym as part of my weight loss journey and needed my own harness. Loved the climbUSA harnesses, but wanted a double system as they allow for a great range in size. This is important to me as I’ve been losing weight and didnt’ want to have to buy another harness shortly after.

Great shipping times from MooseJaw and climb in this harness 3-4 times a week. It’s light and comfortable, perfect for the gym. I’ve worn it for about a month now and have no issues or complaints. All is good.

I have had this for a couple months. Wearing it is comfortable, and the gear loops work well. I really like having two belay loops too. It is uncomfortable to hang in for long periods of time, and because part of the waist band is not stitched to the tightening strap, it can be a little annoying to get on just right.

For trad climbing or multipitching without hanging belays, it’s great. It just won’t replace a sport climbing harness.

This harness is perfect, it seems to be wearing nothing, it is super light, every time I like Ocun products more.

Excellent harness, really well done.Perfect fits with wide adjustment range, stainless steel buckles! Very satisfied.

Excellent !!! Very good quality !!! Comfortable!!!