First padded sling? Rock lovers unite.

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Mighty Hiker

climber

Vancouver, B.C.

Jun 22, 2010 - 04:14pm PT

Why are we talking about padded cells here? It seems a bit too close to the truth for comfort.

Steve Grossman

Trad climber

Seattle, WA

Jun 23, 2010 - 10:36am PT

Trundlebum- Check out some other piton carriers here.

http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=1077283&tn=20

Steve Grossman

Trad climber

Seattle, WA

Jul 17, 2010 - 12:50am PT

First holster bump!

TomCochrane

Trad climber

Boulder Creek CA

Jul 17, 2010 - 04:26am PT

I custom built a padded gear sling in the early sixties. Then I soon started using a Kelty Pack strap for a gear sling. They were sold as a pair, so I'd use one and give the other to my climbing partner. You can see one that I gave Mike Hoover being used in the movie 'Solo'.

I have some early Chouinard gear slings. I also have a series of early hammer holsters.

Back in the days before harnesses, when we used swami belts, Royal and I discussed seat slings for hanging belays. He made two and gave me one of them that I still have. Then he made two of them large enough to use for a hammock and gave me one of those that I still have. IMHO the Robbins seat sling works better than the hammock.

But then I gravitated towards a home-made seat harness for roped solo aid climbing. The Camp 4 crowd thought it was sort of wimpy. But then memories of bruised ribs led to the common adoption of seat harnesses. Of course that was why I built my first harness; while practicing falls in a parachute rigging loft to test my secret solo belay device (a precursor to bungee jumping).

couchmaster

climber

pdx

Dec 8, 2011 - 05:31pm PT

Well, I went and lost my adjustable Chouninard gear sling (and all the gear attached too) and when I went to replace it by perusing the Fish site, it looks like Fish doesn't make an adjustable model now?

Am I high, or is Jaybro holding a rare museum piece now?

Where's that Fish poster?!!!!!

Knott this one.

tolman_paul

Trad climber

Anchorage, AK

Dec 8, 2011 - 06:04pm PT

Fortunately I still have my adj padded Choinard harness, and more importantly the associated rack. I don't recall it every dumping my rack, nor the padding rotating away from my shoulder.

I looked at Yates website and they make a pretty spiffy gearsling.

Fish Finder

climber

Oct 20, 2015 - 02:59pm PT

Hey Chicken Skinner
You want these?

Dolt Sling Padded medium blue and yellow
&
Troll Made in England Whillans style seat harness adapted for
Great Pacific Iron Works Chouinard
All white

Both used and pretty clean

Mungeclimber

Trad climber

Nothing creative to say

Oct 20, 2015 - 03:15pm PT

nice

Gnome Ofthe Diabase

climber

Out Of Bed

Apr 1, 2016 - 04:49pm PT

Bump, where is frog?

Ray Olson

Trad climber
Imperial Beach, California

Nov 23, 2009 - 11:12pm PT
this is the coolest stuff in a long time.
neat to know Dolt did the first padded
number on a gear sling - pin bins had
advocates, as Steve points out, and I
always thought the colorful "guitar
strap" effect on the regular Forrest
slings was pretty great too.

Bill Forrest was quite the creative force*,
and showed an uncanny eye for using
certain materials, and for some concepts
that were way advanced.

I still think of him as being, for the most
part, the father of the modern climbing
harness - in terms of its essential configuration,
then refined with the now standard "front loop"
when Petzl introduced the Jump harness, with its
then radical tubular webbing produced on computerized
Jaccard looms.

I cut up a Jump harness and sent swatches of the Petzl
webbing out to some major U.S. textile mills, they had
no idea what it was, or how it was done - it blew their
doors off! Pretty funny.

way cool everyone - thanks for posting.

*edit - as mentioned by Chiloe upthread :-)