Mountaineering as a pastime began in the early 1800’s and for the following 100 years or so the exponents of the art attached themselves to a rope by simply tying it round their waist. This was fine when everything was going according to plan, but if you happened to fall off a rock face or tumble into a crevasse things got rather painful around the midriff! Wrapping several coils of a separate rope around your middle and attaching them to the main rope with a karabiner helped spread the load a bit – then along came nylon tape or webbing around 1960. A piece of wide tape would do the same job as several strands of rope and if leg loops were incorporated, which they soon were, a harness could be made. Troll Equipment perfected this system by sewing sewing waist belt and leg loops together to create one of the world’s first sit harness – the Whillans. So the waist harness we have here in the collection seems to be a fairly early one, probably 1970/80’s and would have been attached to the rope with a karabiner. Lots of these waist belts were used where a serious fall was unlikely such as scrambling – which is why many have survived. This one was kindly donated by Mountain Guide, Dave (Smiler) Cuthbertson.