Mammut Togir Click Harness

Mammut Togir Click Harness

Stated Weight: 450g

Sizes: S-XL

Size tested: Medium

Reviewer Info: 5’11”, 165 lbs; Waist: 29.5”; Quad circumference: 18″

Color: Basalt – Endurance

Harness Type: Sitzgurt

Leg Loops: Adjustable

Features:

• Innovative Split Webbing technology
• Fully adjustable leg loops and waist belt through click buckle
• 4 overmolded gear loops
• 4 loops to attach an ice screw carabiner
• Very strong haul loop (5kN rated)
• Functional Drop Seat buckle

MSRP: $85

Days Tested: 30 days

Test Locations: Sawatch Range, CO; Mosquito Range, CO; Wild Iris, WY

Climbing harnesses come in all shapes and sizes, and though pretty much any harness will work for any sort of climbing, most are designed for fairly specific uses. The Mammut Togir Click harness is aimed at multi-pitch trad, mixed and ice-climbing, and alpine objectives. While the harness has features to support these types of climbing, the Togir Click can work for sport climbing, too.

The Togir Click’s most distinctive and attractive feature is the “click buckle” system, which allows its hip belt and leg loops to open fully. The harness’ click buckles look like a smart, helpful feature, but in practice, I experienced some issues with their design.

Fit

Given my height, smaller waist, and larger legs, I usually fall between a Small and Medium for harnesses. Although my Arc’teryx S240 harness fits me perfectly in a Small, I don’t have any room for additional layers beneath it. And since I like to have the option of adding layers, I usually opt for a size Medium harness, though his generally requires me to tighten the straps almost all the way.

Compared to other Medium harnesses I’ve worn (the Misty Mountain Sonic and Black Diamond Momentum), the Medium Togir Click fits true to size. I found myself with a little extra room, so when sport climbing in shorts and a t-shirt, I had to tighten the leg loops and waist belt almost completely. Even though I have a little extra room when sport climbing, I like being able to add more layers in the alpine.

Design

The Togir Click harness is part of Mammut’s Togir series, which is geared for multi-pitch and alpine objectives. Like other Togir harnesses, the Togir Click features a split webbing waist belt and has minimal padding in both the waist and leg loops. The split webbing in the waist belt distributes the load between two independent pieces of webbing, meant to provide more comfort with less padding. I found that the Togir Click is generally very comfortable to wear, except when it comes to hanging in the harness for extended periods of time (i.e. at a hanging belay or ascending a fixed line to shoot photography) when it can be very uncomfortable (more on this below).

Click Buckles

The Togir Click employs Mammut’s new click buckles on the waist belt and leg loops. The buckles are designed for quick and easy use in alpine environments and to allow you to put the harness on without removing skis or crampons.

The Togir’s click buckles combine the technology of speed-buckles and traditional double-back buckles. To close the buckle, a pre-threaded latch slides through a hole in the metal plate, folding back to lock into the plate (see slideshow below). To remove the harness, simply unsnap the latch, slide it back through the metal plate, and the whole harness opens up.

[portfolio_slideshow id=9985]

At first glance, the click buckle system looks great; since the latches are pre-threaded, you never have to fiddle with straps and buckles like on a double-back system. Plus, the legs and waist open up completely, so getting into and removing the Togir Click is much easier than dealing with a harness that has speed-buckles or fixed leg loops.

In practice, however, I found that the Togir’s click buckle system has several drawbacks. The black latch has two small plastic tabs that snap and lock into place through a slot in the blue metal plate of the buckle. Although none of the plastic tabs have broken off, after only four months of use, the lips on the tabs that secure them in the slot have worn down some so the tabs now sit more loosely in the slot. The tabs no longer firmly snap into place, and are significantly easier to unclip than when I first started using the harness. Even though the buckle’s design makes the possibility of a complete failure close to impossible, feeling the tabs loosen is not very confidence inspiring, especially in off-widths and chimneys where the buckles are more likely to catch on a piece of rock.

The click buckles also have a larger profile than double-back or speed-buckles, and they can snag on rock protrusions or other pieces of gear more easily. This was pretty inconvenient when the buckles caught just as I was pulling the crux move or scumming up a chimney.

In addition to occasionally slowing me down, the webbing in the buckles sometimes loosened when the buckles caught on things, though the webbing never got so loose that it lost its tension around my body. Surprisingly, while the webbing loosened easily, re-tightening was often quite difficult. To be fair, speed-buckles are also known to loosen themselves in chimneys but, in my experience, not much as the Togir’s click buckles did.

Other Features

Over the past few years, I’ve primarily used Black Diamond harnesses, almost all of which have rigid molded gear loops that sit away from the body. Since I’ve never liked how the rigid gear loops feel under a pack’s waist belt when alpine climbing, I thought the Togir Click’s flat loops might be a good solution.

The Togir Click has four molded plastic gear loops that are attached to the waist belt with small pieces of webbing. The webbing allows the loops to lie flat against the hips, but they can also fold upwards when unclipping gear from your harness. While unclipping gear was never an issue, unsurprisingly, racking gear on the flat loops was a little harder since they sit directly on the hips.

The Togir Click’s flat gear loops were more comfortable under a pack’s waist belt than other rigid loops. The flat loops sit a bit higher on the harness than rigid loops, and occasionally my pack slid down and blocked them. This was easy to fix with a quick pack adjustment, though.

On all of their harnesses, Mammut includes a wear indicator on the belay loop, which I really appreciate. An awareness of the condition of your belay loop is critical, since it is one of the few places in a harness system that isn’t redundant. Todd Skinner’s highly publicized death from belay loop failure underscores the necessity of checking your belay loop consistently. Mammut makes this check easy by sewing a layer of red fabric into the belay loop that appears when the outer fabric gets worn too thin. When the red appears, it’s time to replace your harness.

The lower tie-in point is another location that typically wears significantly. Since repeated lead falls tend to cause more wear on the lower tie-in rather than the upper one, Mammut added a small plastic cover on the lower point to increase the harness’ longevity.

Performance

Mammut recommends the Togir Click for multi-pitch trad and alpine climbs. While the harness worked well for climbing in the alpine, I was also happy with how well the Togir Click performed for single-pitch sport climbing. It is a bit heavier and has more features than many sport climbing-specific harnesses, but was still comfortable to wear when taking multiple lead falls at Wild Iris.

The harness opens up completely, making it easy to put on over crampons or ski boots. It is also possible to put on the Togir Click while wearing skis, but it’s not quite as simple to use as a harness like the Black Diamond Alpine Bod in this respect.

The only place where the Togir Click didn’t do well was while I rigged and ascended fixed lines for climbing photography. Because of the harness’ minimal padding, I could only hang for five minutes before my legs went numb.

Durability

Like I mentioned above, the plastic tabs on the Togir Click’s “click buckles” have begun to loosen over time. Besides that, the harness has held up well to multiple lead falls, scumming up off-widths, and some fourth-class butt sliding down snow and ice. The waist belt and leg loops don’t have any abnormal scuffing or scratching.

Packability

As an alpine-oriented harness, the Togir Click to packs down pretty small for long approaches. The flat gear loops help the harness fold up to a bundle about the size of a standard paperback book.

Bottom Line

The Mammut Togir Click’s unique click buckle system makes it really easy to use while wearing crampons or ski boots in the alpine, or when adjusting layers in variable weather conditions. However, despite their ease of use, due to their tendency to catch and loosen, I feel less confident in the click buckles than double-back or speed-buckles. Ultimately, I think I prefer a harness with a traditional buckle system.

However, if you know you like this click buckle system and are an alpine climber or enjoy long multi-pitch routes without too many hanging belays, the Togir Click is a comfortable and versatile option.