MY FAVOURITE KIT
my favourite kit Tony Howard
MY FAVOURITE KIT
Tony Howard
TROLL SIT HARNESS
Anyone who knows me won’ t be surprised if I say it’ s a climbing harness.
It all started in 1963. At that time many climbers were getting into aid climbing, partly as it was essential on the big walls in the Dolomites. Aid climbing makes carrying a lot of equipment( pegs, carabiners, etriers, hammer etc) essential. And just having a rope knotted round your waist, or seven or eight wraps of a knotted twenty foot length of thin nylon line with the rope attached to it by a big screw carabiner was no longer adequate.
Both Tanky Stokes and I came up with very similar waist belts, thick and about three inches( 75cm) wide. Both were leather, mine being made from old drive belts used in local wooden mills, and both served the same purpose, enabling a rack of carabiners and pegs to be carried and easily accessible. With the rope held in place round the pad, it was more comfortable to fall in too!
Then in 1965, Norway’ s Troll Wall was climbed Norwegian lads. They had chest harnesses as ideal for big walling. And quite by chance, some at the same time, and by another new route. Our certainly carried a lot of pegs!
for the first time by some elsewhere in Europe, but not friends and I also climbed the wall waist belts were excellent, and we
Before that climb I had been selling a few belts to other climbers, but they then started selling so well we had to make a padded nylon version as we couldn’ t get enough leather. It was known as the Troll Belt. Then Don Whillans called in one day in 1969 asking for a harness for Chris
Bonington’ s 1970 Annapurna expedition. After lots of trial and error, we did it, and Don approved it. Then, following their successful climb, and despite a review in a climbing magazine saying,“ If you want to be trussed in tape this is the thing for you”,‘ The Whillans’ became a best seller worldwide. And that, it seemed, was that, until in the late 70s when we heard rumours of a competitor also designing a harness.
Time for a rethink! Hanging in the Whillans harness from a beam in what was now the Troll mill, I had a‘ eureka’ moment- to change the harness crutch strap to a belay loop, and alter the legs accordingly. Et voila- the Troll Mk5 was born: a waist belt with gear racking as before, but now with separate leg loops connected to the waist by a new idea- a belay loop. It took the world by storm in 1979 and other than minor variations nothing much has changed since. I still use my Troll sit harness.
TOP Troll MK5.2, MIDDLE Padded Belt, LEFT Troll Mk5 TH, ABOVE Top- Belt 1964, Middle- Troll Belt 1967, Bottom- Whillans Sit Harness 1970
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6 OUTDOOR FOCUS Winter 2025