Gear Review of a Kid's Rock Climbing Harness: the Trango Junior Full Body Harness

(Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links I’ll receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. This helps support the channel and website and allows me to continue to make content like this. Thanks for your support!!)

As we’ve discussed elsewhere in this blog we are much more cost-conscious when purchasing gear that is specifically for use by the kids, such as the Trango Junior Kids Climbing Harness which you can find here, as opposed to equipment than can be used by everyone, such as a tent. For many items, that’s because the kids are likely to outgrow the item pretty quickly. But for the climbing harness, we explicitly wanted something that could expand and adjust with them. We’ve planned on having this harness for a number of years. We first put it on them just before they were three years old. So, in this case, the most cost-effective option wasn’t our primary consideration.

But as it turns out, due to having buckles you need to manually double back, and due to it being mostly webbing, the Trango Junior Kids Climbing Harness is actually at or near the bottom in costs for a full-body harness. So, it is proving to be outstanding value for our family.

We mention in the video that our kids’ abilities and interests might be the limiting factor on how long the harness will last. Again, that has to do with its lack of gear loops. These are connection points on the harness that allow you to clip gear (attached to a carabiner) onto the harness. This is important if the kids are going to begin doing multipitch climbs.

Just so we are all clear, including those who may be new to climbing…

A “pitch” is the distance between belay points. So, everything you’ve seen in the video has been us climbing one pitch, as there is only one belay point (the ground, in this case). This is known as single pitch climbing. A multipitch climb is just that, more than one pitch. This means you need to have more than one belay point on the route.

In order to establish a new belay position, higher on the route, this requires a form of both “lead climbing” and “seconding.” A lead climb is taking the rope up with you. As you climb, you will place draws on the bolts or you own gear that are attached to the rock. The rope then runs through the draws. But when the lead climber gets to the top of her or his first pitch, they are now going to stay there to establish the next belay point. That means the leader will now bring the “second” climber up to them.

Well, all of the leader’s draws and/or gear is still below the leader. The second now has the obligation to take the draws and gear that were left by the leader, and remove them from the rock and clip them to her or his harness, bringing it up the climb. This way, all the gear can be reused on the next pitch.

So, that’s why you need gear loops. If your child is going to do any seconding, they are going to need a place to store the gear.

Now, if you have a climbing team of three, you can get around this by having the child climb second and just unclip the rope from the gear as they go past, but leave the gear in place. The third climber can then clean the gear as she or he comes up. But, now you are getting into either multi-rope systems or are having to rethrow the rope from the top of the pitch down to the third climber at the bottom of the pitch.

As a team of two, however, there is no way around this need for the second to “clean” the route by bringing up the gear.

If you are interested in a full-body harness with gear loops, again the folks at Outdoor Gear Lab have thorough reviews. They recommend the Petzl Ouistiti. This harness has a lot of padding, and makes for a comfortable harness, but that padding is also in the way of some adjustability. So, this isn’t the harness for you if you have really small kids and need to adjust down the size. It does have those gear loops, though.

The other limiting factor in the life of the harness will be the kids’ own climbing abilities. Most kids move out of full body harnesses and into seat harnesses once they can hold themselves up reliably during a fall. Kids need to have some girth to their hips and legs before this is an option, too, so that seat harnesses can fit them properly. The reason you want a seat harness is that they are much less restrictive of movement. So, once the safety issue of tipping over is far less likely, the tradeoff of ease while climbing becomes a consideration. Depending upon your particular kid’s physiology, that could easily be between seven and ten years old.

If you are at the point where your kids are large enough to move into a seat harness, you are now in the world of tradeoffs depending upon the type of climbing they are going to be doing. Just as an example, you can get harnesses with two waist buckles. This allows you to pull each side of the harness inward to tension the waist belt. The alternative is only one buckle. With one buckle, you are only pulling one side of the waist around to tighten the fit. Why does this matter? If you pull only one waist side, then only one gear loop moves around with it. You end up with gear loops that aren’t in the same location on each side, relative to your hips. This can be annoying when trying to reach back to the one off-centered side to reach the right cam you need to place. The tradeoff with two buckles is weight. If you are a big-time competition climber, ounces matters. And it only continues from there. Adjustable leg loops? Great! My kids will be able to use them longer. Downside? One more thing to safety check and - again - weight! Does your kid want to ice climb? Then you need a harness with an attachment point for ice screw holders.

We’ll get deeper into the tradeoffs on different types of seat harnesses as our kids age into them. But right now, if you were looking for an all-rounder that makes a good transition from full body to seat-only, I wouldn’t argue with the Mammut Ophir Kids. It has big, stiff, easy to use gear loops. It has split webbing to distribute the weight across your body. It has adjustable leg loops to grow with your kids, and it does have the twin waist buckles. Its buckle system is always doubled backed, as well. One less thing to do yourself and have to check. Mammut uses a red threading under all the “hard points” (belay loop, tie in points, etc.) so that as the harness wears, you will have a visual check that it may be time to replace it. Finally, the Mammut Ophir has a slightly higher “rise” on it. That means that the tie in point is higher than other harnesses, but not as high as a full-body sternum tie in point. Again, this is so that the center of pull is closer to a child’s higher center of gravity, keeping them from tipping over when they fall. On a personal note, Jason has been using Mammut harnesses pretty exclusively for a number of years, now.

But, if you are like us and are just getting started with small kids, safety comes first. And the first rule of safety in a harness is having a harness that fits correctly. The supreme adjustability of the Trango Junior is just hard to beat.