Helmets : Tips for Choosing & Caring for Rock & Mountain Climbing Gear

Video Transcript

" Hi! My name is Dan, and I am here with Expert Village today to talk to you about a very important piece of safety equipment for climbing—and that is your helmet. When trying on a helmet, you want to make sure that when you put it on your head, it is tight enough. There is a variety of different tightening mechanisms on different helmets. You’ll have to figure it out when you get your own helmet. A good test to do to make sure your helmet is on tight enough is to, before putting on your chin strap, put your helmet on and hang your head upside down. If your helmet is not uncomfortable on your head but also didn’t fall off, then it is probably tight enough. Next, you want to put on your chin strap, and adjust it so that you can speak and open your mouth easily and comfortably without feeling choked. Now you should be able to shake your head in just about every direction and not have your helmet move. One thing you will notice a lot of climbers doing is tilting their helmet back so they can look up a little bit better, but that doesn’t protect the front part of your brain which is where your personality is stored, so opt out of the fashionable tilted back helmet and go for the square looking, although correctly placed, helmet. When you take off your helmet and you are not using it, you want to put it down right side up. If you put it down on a steep slope on its top, it can slide away very easily. You also want to make sure that your helmet is in good shape. This one is a prime example of one that should head to the dumpster. It is quite old and it is getting sort of flimsy. As with a lot of pieces of safety gear, if you have been in an accident with your helmet, or it has been struck hard with a rock, even if it was lying on the ground, it is probably time to discard it. So those are a few of the things you want to keep in mind when trying on, buying and replacing your climbing helmet. "