Hey, l just have an easy question. l love to climb and l went a couple times and l wanna continue doing it. l can not find a belayer and belaying charges are insane. Is there anyway l can belay myself or is there a special harness so l can do this myself? Thanks.

Very carefully. just kidding, l know that at Lifetime Fitness, they have auto belayers that you can practice with, but other than that, l cant help you.. sorry

You can buy a belay device specifically for belaying yourself, & it is really fun. For around $100 the best one l believe is called ''The Soloist but I've used a Gri Gri before (although Gri Gri does not reccomend using it for solo belay). You can either set up from the top & drop a single line (which means a full rope length instead of half if u were top-roping), or even build a bottom anchor & lead with it! It is also an ascender.

Of course solo belaying has been around for a long time, many great routes have been done this way, but the traditional method involves leading with a coil of rope on ur harness & tying into protection as u go, which is more difficult. But, it is a good skill to know for self rescue.

Self belay requires a lot of experience - a gri-gri or ascender should do the trick - if you are climbing top rope, simply anchor the belayer end of the rope, and attach the Gri-Gri or ascender to the climber is end, and pull out the slack as you go. Be sure to use backups.

You can use a GRI-GR l but you would need to set up a top rope first. My suggestion would be to join a centre and get a partner. Climbing is not a thing you do a couple of times then go solo. Think about the people involved, scraping you off the deck after you crash land. Have you seen anyone deck out, l have and it aint a pretty sight.

dont most places have auto belayers?
also wehre l go they have a course u take to belay urself (at edge)