Ask a room of climbers when they last retired a harness and you will get a lot of careful silence. Not because anyone is reckless — because textile hardware fails in a way that is almost invisible until it is not, and because “it looks fine” is a genuinely persuasive argument right up to the moment it stops being true.
A harness is running three timers at once, and the shortest one wins.
The manufacture clock. Nylon degrades on its own. UV, humidity and simple oxidation break down the polymer whether the harness is on a wall or in a cupboard. Ten years from the date of manufacture — not the date you bought it — is the outside limit for most textile hardware. Check the tag; a harness that sat in a warehouse for two years is already two years old on the day you buy it.
The use clock. Frequency and severity of use compress that ten years hard. Weekly use on coarse granite will finish a harness in two to three years. Heavy use, sport falls, and hanging belays will do it faster.
The event clock. One significant fall, one crampon point, one weekend in the back of a ute next to a jerry can. Any of these ends the harness immediately regardless of the other two clocks.
This is the one that catches people. Battery acid, petrol, solvents and some cleaning products destroy nylon without leaving a mark you can see. A harness stored loose in a car boot next to a fuel container has a plausible claim to being unsafe, and there is no inspection that can clear it. If you cannot account for where a piece of soft gear has been, retire it. This is also exactly why nobody should buy used life-safety equipment, and why we will not accept it back once it has been used.
Write the purchase date on the harness in permanent marker the day it arrives. Inspect it properly — not glancing at it while you rack up — every few months. Then set a hard rule and follow it rather than relitigating the decision each time.
When it is done, cut it up before you bin it. A harness in a skip is a harness someone fishes out.
If you are unsure, send us photos of the tie-in points and belay loop. We will look at it for free and tell you plainly, including when the answer is that it is fine and you are being paranoid.
Keep reading
The hardest part of retiring a harness is that it still looks fine. Here is what actually determines its life, and how to make the call without guessing.
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