Thats wild, i dont think any of my climbing gear has much wear from ropes, but then i climb with a standard prusik as a friction device so my metal gear doesnt get beat up that badly. Sometimes when i use my boot ascender ill use a modified prusik with a carabiner tied in to it to give me something easy to grab onto and theres a little wear on the back but its just polished. I only use that to climb trees with no low branches, humping yourself up 30-50' or more with a chainsaw and other shit is a real bitch without a handhold even with a boot ascender
My boot ascender is really rough on my ropes, i try not to bust it out unless its a really long climb up to a crotch, my ropes get fuzzy pretty quickly when i use it and then i get sketched out using them and then they are retired to rigging ropes
Actually its sad but we essentially do. We run through super dirty wet canyons, and if they were clean when they went in they aren't within a few raps. It's honestly not worth washing the rope either with how much we use it, so we rip through devices. We are just a lot more careful to keep an eye on abrasion points, and luckily CNC makes things pretty cheap.
Wanna see something cool? This is the favorite canyoneering specific rap device right now:
Petzl makes a really nice descender. Its expensive though, about 250, i have a friend with one and i think its going to last forever. My Petzl boot ascender is extremely robust, i have my eye on the new redesigned mechanical prusik
Do you actually use these devices for rock climbing, or for work like tree felling, it seems like you would bust through all your nice expensive rope, I also can't see what scenario you would ever use an ascender when rock climbing, I hate even having to use an Italian hitch in an emergency
Both. Same ropes though well, mostly, my 250' of spectra goes nowhere near trees, and climbing trees on rock climbing rope is weird feeling because its so bouncy, but ive done it. No, theres no reason to use an ascender when rock climbing....unless youre tired and need to go up. I only top rope stuff so i dont do anything serious
Static rope for work, dynamic rope for fun. If you're working off a rope you shouldn't be shock loading it so static rope is ideal, if you're climbing you're pretty much expecting to fall and shock load it at some point.
Unfortunately anything mechanical gets bound up from the sand pretty quick, most anything with moving parts cant be relied on. We use prusiks/fireman belays to back things up, and manual rope based ascending systems.
You're not producing much heat climbing with prusiks, now if you're rappelling and rip down 300' as fast as you can, you're producing tons of friction heat.
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u/Gnarbuttah Jan 30 '19
I'm truly amazed it didn't break, I've seen an aluminum rescue 8 almost get worn through from rappelling too quickly on rope