You really don’t need all those extendable alpine draws in a pure ice climbing setting.Warning: This carabiner is not for everybody. It’s geared towards the most ambitious 1-2% of the climbing market. The author on Black Pudding Gully last season before he upgraded his rope end carabiners to all Petzl Ange L’s- photo by hope this short post gets you thinking about your “ice kit” a little. I also carry one cordelette and two “ Mini-Quads” that can be used for slinging trees, building anchors, etc. If you climb with two ropes often it may be worth going for the larger rope end carabiners.Ĩ Petzl Ange Finesse Quickdraws with Petzl Ange L Carabiners on rope endĢ “Alpine Draws” made with Petzl Ange S Carabiners and Mammut Dyneema Contact 8mm Slings These pre-built draws will save you about $5 per quick-draw, you just give up the larger rope end carabiner. You can definitely save some money but getting the pre-built Petzl Ange Finesse Quickdraws. At retail this set up runs about $30.85 per quick-draw. The above set up isn’t the cheapest quick-draw solution out there but I think it is the nicest. Petzl Ange L Carabiner- manufacturer photo Rope end carabiner- Petzl Ange L Carabiner– The larger carabiner on the rope end facilitates both clipping with gloves on and those who climb on double ropes occasionally. “Dogbone”- Petzl 17 cm Finesse Sewn Sling– Super lightweight but the real advantage of this over other nylon sport quick-draws is the Dyneema won’t absorb water like nylon so you will experience less “frozen draws” when using these. Petzl Ange S Carabiner- manufacturer photo Since it is the hanger side it does not need a large gate opening and the MonoFil Keylock wiregate system adds security and clears ice easily. Screw hanger end carabiner- Petzl Ange S Carabiner– the smaller Ange here is about the lightest most compact choice you can make for the screw hanger side of the quick-draw. The rest of my “draw” rack is 8 ultralight quick-draws set up like this: I typically carry 1 or 2 alpine draws on these routes and know where I will use them. There are definitely outliers when a few alpine draws would be a good idea (not straightforward ice climbing, mixed routes, traverses, etc). Just because your system is dialed for traditional rock climbing and alpine doesn’t mean the same system is optimized for waterfall ice climbing. Efficiency is also gained when the second cleans the screw, as like sport draws rack quicker and easier than alpine draws, especially if they have been “extended” due to perceived friction. Having a rigid rope-end carabiner on your ice quick-draws is ideal, and I prefer the larger gate ones like the Petzl Ange L on all my “ice draws”. moderate trad climbing where you could probably just use both hands if you needed to. Clipping while ice climbing is much more similar to sport climbing where you want a quick fluid clip vs. An alpine draw flops around and does not stay put making clips with gloves on more difficult. Convenience/EfficiencyĬlipping the rope to the draw after clipping the screw is a place where I often see new ice leaders struggle. The average quick draw offers almost a foot of extension, giving you a 2 foot wide “corridor” of protection with zero increase in friction. On most ice routes you almost never need to extend an alpine draw to mitigate friction. Second, it is easy to arrange protection on a pure ice climb so that it runs almost straight from belay to belay. First, rope running over ice/snow creates almost no friction unlike rock. Rope drag is not as much of an issue when ice climbing for two reasons. So if you are an “alpine draw” user anyways why should you do anything different for ice climbing? I’d suggest you consider the following Drag Carrying “shoulder-length” nylon runners over our head with or without a carabiner pre-attached has largely fallen out of style in the last ten or more years (and for good reason IMO). Most of us year-round climbers have converted over to these sleek “alpine draws” featured on the left side of the photo above for our traditional and alpine style rock climbing kit. In this short opinion post, I aim to convince the majority to re-think their winter “draw” set-up and hopefully gain a bit of efficiency in the process. I wasn’t too surprised to see the overwhelming majority was using alpine draws (two carabiners and a thin style Dyneema sling clipped in a fashion that allows it to be used short or extended to full length). I recently conducted an informal survey on a climbing focused Facebook page to determine if what gear I perceive out on our frozen cliffs is an accurate representation of what people are actually carrying.
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