UKH

My granddaughter is showing an interest in rock climbing and wants to have a go on grit so we'll be doing Grotto Slab and hopefully on up the grades from there as soon as the opportunity presents. She's a skinny 11 year old. I've been looking at various harnesses online but would welcome UKC experiences and recommendations .

Thanks

DMM Tomcat would be a good starting point, loads of adjustment and one of the bigger of the kids harnesses.

If you're near a Decathlon, their standard Simond sit harness is less than £25.

If you want to go with a big name harness, then look at the DMM or Black Diamond Wiz Kid.

UKC did a review of full-body harnesses a while back, but I don't think they've done anything on children's sit harnesses and your granddaughter will be too tall for most of the full body harnesses.

Have a look at women's harnesses in Small or XS size - at that age, she'll be out of a kids one before too long.

Have taken a friend's daughter climbing - she's 12 and was ok in my spare men's size small WC Syncro, but she's not at the skinny end of things.

I'd have thought most 11-year-olds would be big enough for an extra-small sit harness (perhaps the DMM Tomcat, as mentioned above), and overall that's preferable in terms of comfort and freedom of movement. But depending on her size, it may be worth still thinking about a full-body alternative. I've used them on kids of 11 before, even fairly big ones.

Our skinny 10-year-old still very much fits a full-body harness, and I don't feel confident that she has the hips for a sit harness yet. The Petzl Ouistiti is designed for kids up to 30kg, and we still have a couple of cm spare length to go in ours:

https://www.ukclimbing.com/gear/climbing/harnesses/petzl_ouistiti_kids_harn...

If hip size is an issue with a sit harness, you can always back it up with a chest harness, or even improvise with a sling.