How to Make a Rappelling Harness

This article is for people who either chose not purchase a harness for rappelling (or rock climbing) or who forget their harness. Be sure to check your skills with an expert before attempting to employ them on a rock.

Take a 20- to 24-foot piece of webbing, fold it in half and tuck the middle fold into your pants. Hold each strap in one hand, bend over forward and pass the ends through your legs and around your thighs, back to the front of your body. Thread the strap wrapped around your right thigh through the loop that you made on your right side when tucking the fold into your pants. Do the same with the strap on the left side. Pull your hands out and away from you and pull the fold out of your pants. When you do this, the webbing will be looped around your legs and you should see a triangle of webbing over your pelvis.

Keep your arms up and out and wrap the webbing back behind your waist, switching the ends of the rope so that they are in opposite hands. Wrap the webbing around your waist in this manner three times. Cinch the webbing around your waist so that it is fairly tight, but not constricting, and then secure it with a water knot.

To tie a water knot, first tie an overhand knot in one end of the webbing, leaving a tail of 6 or so inches. Keep the overhand loose and neat, i.e., no twists in the webbing. Thread the other end of the webbing in the reverse direction through the overhand knot, tracing the exact path of that knot. Make sure to pull the knot tight so that the harness is cinched around your waist.

Finally, using the 6-inch tails, tie overhand knots at the ends of the webbing as safety knots. In this case, you will tie the overhand knot using the loose tail of the webbing and tying it around the webbing that is now part of the tied harness. You should tie the knot in such a way that the tail goes out and away from the water knot.

You can then attach a locking carabiner through the top of the triangle (that makes the leg loops) and all three of the loops around your waist, and utilize that with your rappel device for rappelling.