Utility Belt

[gfish]

My major fashion affectation is my utility belt. It carries, going counterclockwise from the buckle: flashlight, sharpie marker, leatherman (Charge XTi), digital camera, monocular, PDA/cellphone. The exact contents and packaging have changed over the years, slowly being refined. I've put a great deal of thought into optimizing everything about it, mostly because I'm a big dork.

A couple of weeks ago I realized that I had been ignoring an entire component of the belt, leaving it completely useless -- the belt itself! Duh. So what can a belt do? Well, it's like a rope, but too short to be particularly useful. What if it was longer? What if it was a rope, but folded back and forth several times? I figured I could get at least 5, maybe 6 lengths before it got too thick to be comfortable. So I bought parts and started prototyping. This weekend I made the final version, which has a whooping 8 lengths, each 66 cm long, for a none-too-shabby total of 5.3 meters of 6mm climbing rope. Dorky? Certainly. Useful? ...maybe. Removal would be annoying, so I'd have to really need the rope before I did it. But if I ever do need it, I'll have it. So there.

Comments

[frobzwiththingz.livejournal.com]

the rope needs to be thick enough to be grasped without cutting into your fingers

no, it doesn't! For ascending, climb up with prusiks; make them from 4mm Spectra/Gemini cord, and then attach small webbing slings to them for your hands to hold. For descending, you would use an old-fashioned munter hitch or carabiner wrap. I have a similar "utility belt" that i made years ago out of seat belt webbing; it has an inside zipper that hides a diaper-seat climbing harness inside. 80 ft of 5-mil cord and a couple of biners fit into one of the outside pouches. I would take this skiing with me just in case i needed to self-evac out of a stuck ski lift. Which, in fact, i did need to do once, at Waterville Valley, when they suddenly had to close the lift down in high winds. I didnt feel like waiting for their evac team to get to me, and used my own stuff.

[gfish.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about something like that, and I might still try it. It's been years since I've done any climbing, though. I'd also like the rope to be useful for things other than climbing.