Daisy chain - where to attach it

Having a daisy chain (aka personal anchor, personal protection or leash) greatly simplifies connecting yourself to an anchor on technical terrain. A lot of newbie climbers learn this technique, but what is not always shown is exactly where to tie this into your harness.  Daisies should generally be girthed hitched to both of the rope tie in points on your harness.  Reason:  Same reason you tie the rope into two points - redundancy and because it spreads the load of your body weight equally between your leg loops and your waist loop.  (To test this, attach the daisy to just the waist loop of your harness, and try hanging on it with full body weight for a minute or two - preferably just a foot or so off the ground.  You’ll likely find that with all the pressure on your lower stomach, it’s really hard to breathe!)

So, while hitching your leash to just your waist loop is acceptable, avoid putting full body weight on it.  Also, don’t attach it to the waist belt of your harness somewhere off to one side, and for gawd’s sake do NOT girth hitch it to the gear loops!!! (Yipes, I’ve seen it done. Gear loops are made for the weight of a biner or two, not a body!)  The belay loop is also acceptable, but as it tends to interfere with the belay, it’s not as good as the tie in points.