The Camp XLH 95 is a minimalistic harness that weighs only 100 grams and is smaller than a tennis ball when rolled. The harness is comfortable enough to do rappels and short ascents. You wouldn't want to take a hard fall in this style harness...it's perfectly safe, however, with thin straps and little padding, any shock fall will leave an impression in more than one way. Last time we used a lightweight harness, the ropes expert looked skeptically and noted that "I wouldn't be going over that cliff with that!" Although the Camp harness looks more like lingerie than a climbing harness, it is UIAA/CE certified so you may feel exposed, but you are plenty safe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Many races will allow you to use your bike helmet for climbing.  For those that require a climbing specific helmet, you may want to consider buying the Kong Scarab. Most racers will permit the use of the Kong for climbing, horseback and whitewater.  It is important to note that although this helmet is “CE certified” for mountain bike riding, it is not certified by either Snell or ANSI as of the date of this note.  This means the helmet cannot be used for many adventure racing biking event, since more race directors will require a Snell or ANSI certified helmet.  (Short article on the CE standard for biking helmets).

The Kong helmet shape is well designed to accommodate a light, and is reasonably well ventilated. The helmet is also surprisingly adjustable, fitting a very wide range of head sizes, and all of our team members found the helmet to be comfortable.

 

Many race directors now require an autolocking carabineer for ropes sections. Camp continues to make some of the lightest and most effective gear for adventure racers. The Camp Base Twist AutoLock weights 49 grams, feather weight by autolock standards. All autolocks are susceptible to dirt interfering with the autolock mechanism, but the Camp is better than most -- even after being immersed in a variety of dust and dirt (including the microfine Moab dirt) we couldn't get the Camp to jam.

The Camp is smaller than HMS-style biners, but works well for all rappelling situations, and can be used easily with a munter hitch to rap without any other device. (If you don't know how to rappel using a munter hitch, it's a great skill to learn -- if you drop a figure 8 a few hundred feet off of the ground, you'll be happy to have the skill)