Inspecting climbing gear in a club: who does it, how often, and what gets recorded

If you manage equipment for a mountaineering or climbing club, the uncomfortable question arrives sooner or later: when was this rope last inspected? And if the answer lives in someone's head, in a spreadsheet nobody updates, or in a WhatsApp group, you do not have an inspection system. You have good luck.

This guide sorts out what is actually settled, separates legal obligation from best practice, and proposes a system that works even when the club is run by volunteers.

First: climbing gear is PPE

Ropes, harnesses, helmets, carabiners, belay devices and anchors are Personal Protective Equipment under Regulation (EU) 2016/425, which replaced the old Directive 89/686/EEC.

Specifically they are category III: the one reserved for risks that can cause very serious or fatal consequences. That is why they carry CE marking with the notified body number, and why the manufacturer must supply instructions for use, inspection and retirement.

That last part is the one almost nobody reads, and the one that matters most.

The legal obligation is not what people think

Precision helps here, because there is a lot of confusion around.

In a work context — a rope access technician, a professional guide, an activities company — Spain applies Royal Decree 773/1997 on the use of PPE at work. The employer must ensure maintenance and withdraw damaged equipment, and the EN 365 standard establishes that fall-protection PPE undergoes periodic examination by a competent person at least every 12 months.

In a sports club lending gear to its members, the situation is different: the club is not the employer of its members, and that labour framework does not apply directly. What does apply is civil liability for damage caused by its negligence — and there, an expert witness will look at two references: the manufacturer's instructions and the industry standard, which is precisely that annual inspection.

Plainly: you are probably not legally required to inspect every 12 months, but if something happens and you did not, you will have to explain why you departed from what everyone else does.

I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. If your club lends equipment regularly, getting your specific case reviewed costs little compared to what is at stake.

The manufacturer's instructions govern

There is no universal service life. Each manufacturer publishes its own, and it overrides any general rule you read elsewhere, including this one.

As a rough guide, makers of textile equipment (ropes, harnesses, slings) tend to quote up to 10 years from the date of manufacture if the item was never used and was stored correctly — figures that drop sharply with use: a heavily used harness may be due for retirement within a year or less.

Above any deadline sits immediate retirement, which does not depend on the calendar:

• a high fall factor, or a load dropped onto the rope;
• contact with chemicals, especially acids, even with nothing visible;
• cuts, deformation, burns, a visible core on a rope;
• broken or frayed stitching on a harness or sling;
• deformation, cracking or abnormal operation in any metal part;
• unknown history: if you do not know where it came from or what it has been through, do not lend it.

That last one retires the most gear in clubs, and is the hardest to enforce when someone has just donated a whole bag of ropes.

Who counts as a "competent person"

The standard says competent person, not a specific qualification. In practice it means someone who:

• knows the manufacturer's instructions for that particular model;
• has had specific training in PPE inspection — many manufacturers run it;
• can decide without pressure, and has real authority to retire gear even when there is a trip this weekend.

That last point is organisational, not technical, and it is where most clubs fail. If the inspector is also the person who will have to justify cancelling an activity, the system has a conflict of interest built in.

What has to be recorded

An inspection that leaves no trace did not, for practical purposes, happen. The minimum record per item:

Field	Why it matters
Unique identifier	Without it you can trace nothing. Tag, engraved number or textile marking
Model and manufacturer	Determines which instructions apply
Date of manufacture	Starting point of service life
Date first put into service	The real clock starts here, not at purchase
Date of each inspection	The full series, not just the latest
Who inspected it	A name, not "the club"
Result and notes	Pass, pass with monitoring, retired
Next inspection due	What turns a record into a system

Add the loan history to that and you get something far more valuable: you can find out who had a rope on the day of a hard fall, even if nobody reported it.

The system matters more than the tool

Four rules that work in volunteer-run clubs:

1. Identify every item physically. If you cannot tell two identical ropes apart, you do not have an inventory. Heat-shrink tag with a code, end marking, whatever — but unique and durable.

2. Inspect on return, not only annually. The visual check when gear comes back is what catches real problems. The annual one is the safety net, not the front line.

3. Make retirement easy. If writing off a rope needs three people's approval, nobody writes anything off. And retired gear means destroyed or disabled, not "set aside in a corner": retired equipment finding its way back into circulation is a classic.

4. A calendar that reminds you. Nobody remembers an annual inspection. Either the system prompts you, or it does not happen.

Where this comes from

Working with clubs we keep meeting the same pattern: a spreadsheet that started well and was abandoned, bookings over WhatsApp, and one person who knows everything by heart and takes that knowledge with them the day they leave.

That is why we built RocNest: inventory with per-item history, inspections with your own checklists and due-date reminders, and loan traceability. It is free and open source, with no paid plans and no artificial limits.

But the tool is not the point. Even on paper, keep a unique identifier per item, a record with dates and a responsible name, and a clear retirement rule. That alone puts you ahead of most.