UKC

I recently visited an outward bound centre that has a purpose-built climbing wall as one of the activities.

To use this wall, you have to wear a sit harness - nothing special about that.

However, at this centre, you also have to wear a chest harness, connected to the belay loop by a steel screw-gate (regardless of age - even adults).

You are then connected to an auto belay device with 2 more steel screw gates - one on the chest harness and one on the belay loop.

The actual climbing is no different to pretty much every other wall in the country, including the "Clip 'n' Climb" centres.

Now, while I agree there is a case for a chest harness for very small kids (who would be better in a full-body harness, but let's not go off-topic), this is wildly excessive - even the instructors are wearing the same.

I've never seen this anywhere else in >30 years of climbing/~25 years instructing, including at several outward bound centres both in the UK and abroad.

Surely their risk profile can't be different enough to anywhere else to warrant this, so I'm struggling to understand who came up with this concept and why it's being used at this centre. I'm guessing it was someone who's background is industrial rope access, rather than climbing.

If they're doing it to work in multiple fail-safes, then I'd say their instructor training/supervision program and/or equipment monitoring program are inadequate and they have no confidence in it.

I'm also puzzled as to who/which national body ultimately signed off on all this without taking them to one side and saying "steady on, folks".

Quite apart from anything else, it just multiplies up the time (not to mention costs) required for the instructor to kit up the participants in uncomfortable gear, which is no-one's idea of fun and means they get less time actually climbing.

In reply to Ian_Cognito:

It's probably an in house sign off (instructors with minimal experience), so risk is managed by beefy systems and a one size fits all approach (instructors might not have the experience to differentiate appropriately).

Chest harnesses are good at keeping people upright and are quite common for centers with activities like Jacobs ladder, crate stacking, king swings etc... They are also used when people don't fit well into a standard sit harness, for example young kids don't fit well into sit harnesses, likewise for larger adults.

With regard to a sign off, it would probably be done by a technical advisor (could be MCI, Irata or Erca), this could be in house or external. People could also operate using an appropriate qualification, but at the end of the day need to work within the operating procedures of the venue.

Outward Bound is a specific brand of outdoor center, but I assume in this case is just referring to outdoor centers in general.

TLDR 

Some centers operate like this because it's the cheapest way to train staff, chest harnesses are fairly common especially where multiple activities require them.

In reply to Ian_Cognito:

Consider their clients as well,  children and groups with disabilities, mostly people who have no experience with climbing at all.

In reply to Ian_Cognito:

Good! And I hope those kids had to attend a 3 day course at working at heights before they are allowed to enter the wall area (relaxed to 2 days if only a bouldering wall). Can't be too careful you know.

In reply to Ian_Cognito: It seems excessive, but if indeed their user base does include the disabled or similar groups then less so, and then the procedure is extended to all groups to minimise the discussion ' well they need this, but this lot are ok with that', and safeguard les experienced staff from need to make that judgement

IWhich national body normally 'signs off' on such things?  Were you visiting in an instructor role - you perhaps could have asked?

In reply to Alex Riley:

I think this is most likely - I'd just expected better from a centre of that size and experience.

Agreed, and I've done similar at other centres for those activities. I've just never been to a centre that had those activities AND a climbing wall and used chest harnesses on the climbing by default - went to one such centre just before the summer holiday, as an example.

Yes, outdoor centres in general.

I think that if I hadn't been helping put the kit on the kids in my group, freeing up the instructor to get on with the actual activity (they double-check all kids before they leave the ground anyway), the kids wouldn't have got anywhere near as many goes.

In reply to Ian_Cognito:

Did they wear helmets? Would be more concerned if the answer to that was yes.

In reply to Ian_Cognito:

Ours doesn't, but quite a lot of Scout walls operate a "keep it simple" policy of using the same setup for everyone rather than the instructor having to judge whether a given kid's hips are wide enough for them not to come out of a sit harness if they invert, or whether they would be "top heavy" or not to control the risk of inversion itself.  Kids are much more likely to "trip" either of those, so any wall where kids are the most common users is more likely to go that way.

If you do the same thing every time there's less chance of errors, and adding a chest harness doesn't pose added risk for someone who doesn't need one.