Secure a water bottle to your harness
This tip is from the excellent book “Alpine Rock Climbing Handbook” by Austrian Guide Jürgen Reinmüller. Connect with Juergen on Instagram, @alpinstil.at, and get his book here (printed version in German, eBook in English).
Here’s an easy way to carry a small water bottle on your harness.
Clipping a water bottle to your harness? You need to be SURE it's firmly attached. If it's held on by some skimpy cord or plastic tab, and it comes loose, you create a big potential hazard for anybody below you.
If you have a small bottle (like my favorite, a 12 ounce / 350 ml Gatorade bottle) you can rig it as shown here.
Take some good quality tape (like Gorilla tape, not the cheapo gray duct tape) a small carabiner, and tape it as shown. This keeps your bottle secure to your harness without bouncing around or dangling too far down.
If you have a large bottle (like more than 500 ml), put it in your pack. For most people, that's too much weight to have clanking around on your harness, in addition to the obvious dropping hazard.
Notes . . .
The cap isn’t attached to anything. If you're worried about dropping it, bring an extra cap.
Remove any label on the bottle so the tape sticks better.
If you're on a longer route on a warmer day, bring a second larger bottle in the backpack and refill this one as needed.
Feel free to add any sort of electrolyte mix you like. If it gets smelly, you can recycle the bottle and start with a new one.
Not a fan of plastic water bottles? Use the same technique on a small-ish metal bottle.
While some people think they’re great, I am generally not a fan of “hydration systems” with a pouch and a hose. Here's an article all about that.
Managing and carrying water on a big wall is a bit more involved. Here's my article on that.
Here's a not-so-great (but still common) way to carry water on your harness. This has a couple of problems.
The bottle is too big and heavy; it’ll clank around and annoy you.
That plastic loop can break, and when it does you lose your bottle. Not good, and maybe dangerous for anyone below you.
