Black Diamond Couloir UL Harness Review 2023

The Couloir UL is everything I like from a ‘less is more’ design philosophy. It’s light, simple and faff free. It works perfectly for the activities that it is designed for – namely ski mountaineering, glacier travel and glacier skiing as well as some basic mountaineering. It has zero padding and I wouldn’t wanna hang in it for hours, but I’m never going to. When it’s on, I forget it’s there. I can put it on over crampons or whilst wearing my skis (although I prefer to plan to be wearing it so not get to that point where I’m like “oh, maybe I should be wearing my harness now…”). It has 2 basic gear loops, which are more than capable of carrying my crevasse kit, elastics to tuck an ice screw into (to stop it jangling) and simple “bunny ears’ tie in loops which move away from the classic metal buckle harness design. Instead a simple plastic buckle keeps it up on your hips when you’re not hanging in it.