A few years ago when I was first learning to climb, a friend, who was also a novice, taught me to ignore the belay loop when attaching a carabiner for belaying or rappelling. When he explained that it was "an extra piece in the system," no alarms went off in my brain. I accepted that "explanation" blindly. Imagine my confusion when I advanced to a local climbing gym, where one of the employees informed me that this was incorrect-and that I needed to use the belay loop to avoid risking life and limb. That was only the first of many such contradictory instructions I was given on the use (or lack of use) of the belay loop.

As a Basic student, it seemed to me that there was some sinister plot to insure that once I had gotten all set up with my belay biner threaded through my waist and leg loops (ignoring the belay loop) for one instructor, that I would shuffle off to the next instructor who would give me that "look" that indicated I was close to flunking out of the class because I "still" didn't know to use the belay loop. Of course all of my teachers had equally convincing reasons that theirs was the correct set-up. At some point, tired of perpetually feeling like an idiot, I set about to discover the "truth" for myself.

I began by emailing several manufacturers of harnesses, and oddly enough, every one of them had pretty much the same message for a change. Follow the manufacturer's instructions. In every case, that meant that when the harness has a belay loop-USE IT! Why? The primary reason is that by using the belay loop, you are insuring that the load will be along the carabiner's axis, its strongest orientation. If you thread the biner through the waist and leg loops you risk cross-loading the biner (or worse, creating tri-axial loading-which I'll ignore here for simplicity's sake). Take a close look at one of your biners. Most have little diagrams on them giving the strength in different orientations. The one that I use has 28 kN longitudinally, but only 7 kN laterally (cross-loaded). Which orientation do you want your belayer's belay biner to be in (say that quickly five times) when you take the big screamer? The answer is an easy one for me.

Over the last few years I have heard two primary reasons for not using the belay loop. The first is that it "adds" an element to the system and that fewer links in the "chain" is always better. Right - and by using the belay loop you have one connection point, while using the leg and waist loop requires two connection points. Additionally, although CE standards require the belay loop to hold 15kN, most manufacturers design them to hold 25 kN. The second major objection that I have heard is that moving the belay device farther away from the belayer (when using the belay loop) makes it difficult for people with short arms to take in rope. To these objections, I can only say again-think about what can happen. It may not happen all the time, it may not happen most of the time, but it CAN happen that your biner becomes cross-loaded„and when it does, it has a fraction of the strength that it would have in the correct orientation. Is compromising the safety of the belay setup really worth the "convenience"?

I have become a proponent of the view that one of the best ways of maximizing safety is by setting up our systems with a HUGE margin of error, and that one of the ways of doing this is to use all climbing equipment in accordance with the manufacturer's instructions. In this litigious age, it makes good sense these recommendations are for the strongest, safest possible use of the equipment. I would also argue that in an organization such as ours, we have no business teaching anything but the safest methods. In particular, this means that when there is a belay loop, I will use it-and so will my belayer and students.