Hypothetically, what would be the best cross loading carabiner?

[Chandler96]

For me it’s simple. I can envision several ways where turning around on the platform, leaning around the tree, adjusting my tether, etc. could possibly create some goofy situation that what @Nutterbuster demonstrated in his video might happen. I can think of no situation where my screw gate carabiner would be held in the perfect position to roll 1’ down my tether, then twist and unlock. The two aren’t remotely comparable.

I just can’t think of one Situation that his example would ever happen in the tree climbing or hunting. My carabiner or tether never moves. Never even gets close to the gate.

 

[Chandler96]

Anyway my original post was to just get carabiner recommendations and it turned into wire gate debate lol. I found my answer so if a mod wants to close the thread I understand.

 

[Dope on a Rope]

Why? Because you don’t use them? That’s the safety police coming out.

Maybe. I’m in favor of debate, exploration of options, and personal accountability so I don’t think so. I was just making a joke, not issuing citations… I’ll say after my own research I’m personally not convinced it’s a) safe enough(for me), and b) desirable(to me) to begin with.

 

[Chandler96]

Maybe. I’m in favor of debate, exploration of options, and personal accountability so I don’t think so. I was just making a joke, not issuing citations… I’ll say after my own research I’m personally not convinced it’s a) safe enough(for me), and b) desirable(to me) to begin with.

Well I apologize. I took it the wrong way.

 

[Andrew]

A Guide to Carabiners | Alpine Ascents International | Blog

There's a wide variety of carabiners available on the market. Some carabiners are built for very specific uses, while others are geared toward general use.

www.alpineascents.com

Thought this was a pretty good summary of the usage of locking vs non-locking.

Basically if the carabiner is keeping me from death or serious injury I’ll be using a locking carabiner.

 

[Plebe]

I never made those analogies lol. So the wire gates are good 100’s of feet on a rock wall but not twenty feet in a tree? Make it make sense lol.

Good…until they’re not.

“What caused the carabiner gate to open? It could have become wedged or constricted inside the crack because its short quickdraw would not let it lie outside the crack. Jammed in the crack, the carabiner could have had its gate pinned open. The short, stiff quickdraw could also have let the carabiner to rotate into a cross-loading orientation, another extremely weak position.”

The argument of ignorance is a fun play, but when the shadow sneaks up on those with far more expertise and capability than ourselves, maybe it’s time to turn the rock and roll down.

 

[samu]

Lighter, easier and smaller. I think it does because @Horn vid shows it can happen to any style carabiner. So why not a wire carabiner?

Heyy ho stop right there. There's a big difference in how easily screwgate/triact lock accidentally unclips vs. a wiregate. On a wiregate it can happen fast or slow. Get bit of slack on tether and if your bridge happens to be twisted, load it and boom. You can try to repeat what happens in the video few pages back but unless you use your hands to manipulate the carabiner you'll be sitting there 100 years trying to make it happen.

I never made those analogies lol. So the wire gates are good 100’s of feet on a rock wall but not twenty feet in a tree? Make it make sense lol.

Read my earlier post again. Wiregates are fine if you have two. If you're 100ft up on the wall, it's fine to have the second one 15ft below the other because you're still left 50ft above the ground if one fails.

 

[colin.704]

So, let's just say you did use a carabiner for your tether around the tree. Which one would you go with?

black diamond mini wiregate. love them

 

[colin.704]

For me it’s simple. I can envision several ways where turning around on the platform, leaning around the tree, adjusting my tether, etc. could possibly create some goofy situation that what @Nutterbuster demonstrated in his video might happen. I can think of no situation where my screw gate carabiner would be held in the perfect position to roll 1’ down my tether, then twist and unlock. The two aren’t remotely comparable.

I use a wire gate precisely because of the twist removal on tether/rappel. other scenarios I use other gear. but I like that "feature" for a rappel personally. is there a scenario it can fail? like everything else yes. knowing that keeps me aware of what I do. user error will kill u before gear failure is my view, and u can climb safely with a lot less than I use

 

[Chandler96]

Heyy ho stop right there. There's a big difference in how easily screwgate/triact lock accidentally unclips vs. a wiregate. On a wiregate it can happen fast or slow. Get bit of slack on tether and if your bridge happens to be twisted, load it and boom. You can try to repeat what happens in the video few pages back but unless you use your hands to manipulate the carabiner you'll be sitting there 100 years trying to make it happen.


Read my earlier post again. Wiregates are fine if you have two. If you're 100ft up on the wall, it's fine to have the second one 15ft below the other because you're still left 50ft above the ground if one fails.

What happens when you only use one? One with the same specs as a gated biner?

 

[Chandler96]

Good…until they’re not.

“What caused the carabiner gate to open? It could have become wedged or constricted inside the crack because its short quickdraw would not let it lie outside the crack. Jammed in the crack, the carabiner could have had its gate pinned open. The short, stiff quickdraw could also have let the carabiner to rotate into a cross-loading orientation, another extremely weak position.”

The argument of ignorance is a fun play, but when the shadow sneaks up on those with far more expertise and capability than ourselves, maybe it’s time to turn the rock and roll down.

You can say good until they're not about anything. It literally means nothing when it's about everything. Yeah, and some people think because they have been a "bigger" part or a more vocal part of this community, that they think they're the "experts" and more "capable" than the rest because of a difference of opinion.

 

[Plebe]

You can say good until they're not about anything. It literally means nothing when it's about everything. Yeah, and some people think because they have been a "bigger" part or a more vocal part of this community, that they think they're the "experts" and more "capable" than the rest because of a difference of opinion.

Argument from ignorance - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I’m just pointing out a potential problem with non-locking binders. A simple unidirectional non dynamic force will open them. In some applications that is a good thing. In others, not so much. In the case of this famed climber, it was the latter and cost him his life.

 

[samu]

What happens when you only use one? One with the same specs as a gated biner?

The two types are locking and non-locking carabiner. All of them are gated, it doesn't matter if the gate is wire or aluminum bar. Non gated biner would be a hook.

Locking gate doesn't affect the strenght of the carabiner and the UIAA standard is the same for both. 20kN on strong axis, 7kN on weak axis and 7kN gate open. Wire gates are just as strong as solid gates of same design.

Only problem is related to potential to carabiner unclip itself accidentally.

I now realize you might have also meant using non-locking carabiner instead of quick link etc. for closing the tether loop around tree. The risk is still just about the rope unclipping itself. Can't recommend it but let's say you 2TC a tree with lot of branches. If you have a connection from your harness to both tethers, technically you have a backup and I can see how using a non-locker would save some time and fiddling in process.

Using non-locker to attach Safeguard/Grigri/Ropeman etc. to the bridge is very very stupid idea because the rope grab being metal object can leverage the gate open much more easily than bare rope.

 

[Chandler96]

The two types are locking and non-locking carabiner. All of them are gated, it doesn't matter if the gate is wire or aluminum bar. Non gated biner would be a hook.

Locking gate doesn't affect the strenght of the carabiner and the UIAA standard is the same for both. 20kN on strong axis, 7kN on weak axis and 7kN gate open. Wire gates are just as strong as solid gates of same design.

Only problem is related to potential to carabiner unclip itself accidentally.

I now realize you might have also meant using non-locking carabiner instead of quick link etc. for closing the tether loop around tree. The risk is still just about the rope unclipping itself. Can't recommend it but let's say you 2TC a tree with lot of branches. If you have a connection from your harness to both tethers, technically you have a backup and I can see how using a non-locker would save some time and fiddling in process.

Using non-locker to attach Safeguard/Grigri/Ropeman etc. to the bridge is very very stupid idea because the rope grab being metal object can leverage the gate open much more easily than bare rope.

Makes sense.

 

[Chandler96]

Heyy ho stop right there. There's a big difference in how easily screwgate/triact lock accidentally unclips vs. a wiregate. On a wiregate it can happen fast or slow. Get bit of slack on tether and if your bridge happens to be twisted, load it and boom. You can try to repeat what happens in the video few pages back but unless you use your hands to manipulate the carabiner you'll be sitting there 100 years trying to make it happen.


Read my earlier post again. Wiregates are fine if you have two. If you're 100ft up on the wall, it's fine to have the second one 15ft below the other because you're still left 50ft above the ground if one fails.

Another question for you. If one were to use a locking carabiner would you be ok with it used as a tether instead of girth hitching it to the tree?

 

[samu]

Another question for you. If one were to use a locking carabiner would you be ok with it used as a tether instead of girth hitching it to the tree?

I can't figure out what you mean there.

 

[Chandler96]

I can't figure out what you mean there.

so you clip the carabiner into the eye and connect your carabiner to the tether around the tree. kind of like this

 

[GCTerpfan]

Yeah, and some people think because they have been a "bigger" part or a more vocal part of this community, that they think they're the "experts" and more "capable" than the rest because of a difference of opinion

Nobody thinks this. As a matter of fact I, and probably most here arguing against the use of wire gates are doing so precisely because we KNOW that we are NOT experts. However, there are experts in both the climbing and arborist industries that have been part of developing standards and best practices for decades. Those standards and best practices have most likely been developed as a result of people dying. I personally try to follow, and suggest everyone follows these practices until they become experts and understand all of the potential points of failure.

It is not the person who points out accepted best practices that needs to prove they are safe, it's the person that advocates for going against best practices that needs to prove they are safe. You haven't even attempted to do that. You've just asked everyone else to prove your method is unsafe.

I honestly have no problem with you deciding that reducing the chance you come home to your family is worth a few grams or miliseconds. That's everyone's personal decision. The issue is when you advocate that the method is just as safe as another method and then yell Safety police when people as you to prove it.

I feel so strongly about this because I have witnessed so many saddle hunters doing unsafe things over the years that they saw on the internet and when I pointed out the potential dangers of those practices their response was "I had no idea, I saw some guy on the internet say that's how he did it."

 

[Chandler96]

Nobody thinks this. As a matter of fact I, and probably most here arguing against the use of wire gates are doing so precisely because we KNOW that we are NOT experts. However, there are experts in both the climbing and arborist industries that have been part of developing standards and best practices for decades. Those standards and best practices have most likely been developed as a result of people dying. I personally try to follow, and suggest everyone follows these practices until they become experts and understand all of the potential points of failure.

It is not the person who points out accepted best practices that needs to prove they are safe, it's the person that advocates for going against best practices that needs to prove they are safe. You haven't even attempted to do that. You've just asked everyone else to prove your method is unsafe.

I honestly have no problem with you deciding that reducing the chance you come home to your family is worth a few grams or miliseconds. That's everyone's personal decision. The issue is when you advocate that the method is just as safe as another method and then yell Safety police when people as you to prove it.

I feel so strongly about this because I have witnessed so many saddle hunters doing unsafe things over the years that they saw on the internet and when I pointed out the potential dangers of those practices their response was "I had no idea, I saw some guy on the internet say that's how he did it."

I mean if you look back, I have done exactly that. Everyone is worried about the gate opening when it's shown above that locking gates can come open as well. We can look at statistics from the past but not the future. I'm not trying to change anyone's mind. The carabiners are rated the exact same and its only about the gate open. Every single carabiner gate can come open some easier than others but if that's the case no carabiner is safe.

A lot of people think that by the way. I can say I'm not trying to change people's minds till I'm blue in the face but those people I've described will be the first to jump in and scream safety, hence the safety police.

 

[Andrew]

I mean if you look back, I have done exactly that. Everyone is worried about the gate opening when it's shown above that locking gates can come open as well. We can look at statistics from the past but not the future. I'm not trying to change anyone's mind. The carabiners are rated the exact same and its only about the gate open. Every single carabiner gate can come open some easier than others but if that's the case no carabiner is safe.

A lot of people think that by the way. I can say I'm not trying to change people's minds till I'm blue in the face but those people I've described will be the first to jump in and scream safety, hence the safety police.

All carabiners open. It is that some open more easily and at potentially inopportune times. Its the reason locking carabiners exist.