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I've been looking at big wall harnesses and I've been noticing that a lot of them come with two belay loops:

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I know that it isn't there as a back up. What's the advantage of having two belay loops on your harness when aid climbing?

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It's simply for organization sake.

Aid climbing on big-walls involves lots of gear, and you'll very quickly realize how much of a mess your perfectly racked gear will become.

With two belay loops you can separate your aid ladders and daisy chains a little, which helps to keep them from wrapping around each other (and keep things a little bit cleaner too).

Pete's picture from MP showing gear quantities

Couldn't find a good close-up picture for you, but Pete's picture from MP is a good visual indication of exactly how much is going on around your belay loop sometimes when climbing big-walls.

Chris McNamara talks about it a more in his book on big wall climbing also. http://www.supertopo.com/a/How-To-Big-Wall-Climb-Table-of-Contents/a139n.html

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  • 2
    Aid climbing: the "siege tactics" version of climbing...
    – Michael Borgwardt
    May 11, 2015 at 21:15
  • 2
    That's a terrifying picture! My risk management head just keeps picturing a tangle at a critical moment...
    – Rory Alsop ♦
    May 12, 2015 at 8:30

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