Trad draws safety

Hey,

So in light of the news about the talented young Italian climber who sadly died from the improperly rigged draws (in which all the weight was taken by the rubber band), I have a question with regards to these runners.

Why do folks not pre-clove the rope end biner to the sling? Given the skinniness of modern dyneema, it really doesn't add any bulk. Mammut lists this as reducing the strength of the sling by ~35%, but thats on a 22kn rated loop anyways so is as strong as a lot of trad pro. All I've seen is people using either the rubber band (Petzl 'string' , etc) or not having anything (which makes it a faff to use). Have you seen people out there do this? Maybe I've just not encountered it. Any downsides you can think of?

Pics:

i was under the impression that they were quickdraws where the biner was clipped into the rubber retainer of the dogbone but not the nylon

it would be quite unusual IMO for those sport climbers to use a ton of trad draws

How does nothing make it hard to use? Every partner I've ever roped up with has done the "nothing" method and it's FINE.

Oh wow - I didn't realize that bearbreeder. Man that's really really sad.

Well I think it makes it a little trickier, but that's just my clumsy fingers... different strokes I suppose.

Chris Plesko wrote:How does nothing make it hard to use? Every partner I've ever roped up with has done the "nothing" method and it's FINE.

^^^^
That.

No thanks.

Why....

John Marsella wrote:Why even put any rubber bands or tape or anything on the slings? If you want the biners not to move, buy purpose specific slingy-doos like rabbit runners...

For a large, open runner you should avoid adding anything.

Ted Angus wrote:Why do folks not pre-clove the rope end biner to the sling? .... Have you seen people out there do this? .... Any downsides you can think of?

Haven't seen anyone doing this as a matter of routine.

I tried it just now. There's a couple things that jumped out at me that I don't like from a trad / multi-pitch perspective ...

• it can be less efficient to extend; the sling has half the freedom to extend because one section of the sling is 'fixed' to one biner; plus the hitch can end up being wrapped oddly around the biner; when this happens, just pulling harder often doesn't help the sling hang cleanly on the hitched biner;
• After clipping gear and the rope, I sometimes decide to flip one or the other biner so the gate is not against the rock; can't readily flip the hitched biner.

Both of the above increase the odds of having to hang out longer placing gear which is neither good for efficiency on a long multi-pitch nor for avoiding getting pumped.

One can probably find a routine to avoid that first bullet being a problem. Perhaps also for the second one. But, as someone said upstream, why? There seem to be only cons for doing this with a trad draw / open sling including the one that you mentioned: it weakens the sling.

Bill

Another point, when you knot the dyneema/spectra type of slings the fibers break down so you'll be replacing them more often.

I use trad draws often. I use them without encumbrance of any sort. Just let them swing free when I unravel the tripled sling. It hangs free and I can see that it is ok. I don't use a specific 'biner, just the one that happens to be free. It would definitely slow things down, something you don't want.

Buy specific long quick draws for sport clips and you'll be safer and happier.

Folks who don't like biners flopping around at the end of long trad draws could use the 20" Metolius long draw (the longest one in the picture) as a tripled trad quickdraw

Unfortunately, I think you have to buy the Metolius biners with the long draws.

From the few articles that I have read on this tragic subject, it seems like the issue involved a rubber or plastic keeper at the end of the quickdraw. Petzl sells a little device called the "String" which is designed to keep the rope-side carabiner oriented in the right direction. These can commonly be found on their quickdraws like the Ange QDs and the Spirit QDs. Petzl does issue a warning about a potential failure involving these keepers which can be found here.

The main question that I have (and others have brought up) is what type of draw he was using. As seen in the link, it is only possible for the keeper to cause a failure if the carabiner clips itself through one side of an alpine/trad draw. If the climber was using a sport draw (that is sewn in the middle section) this would be almost impossible.

Regardless, I would strongly encourage everyone to take a look at the manufacturer's warning and make sure they understand the potential cause of failure when using rubber or plastic keepers on their draws. Hopefully, similar accidents can be avoided.

Yup - I'm swayed and don't like the clove idea much now that I look at it. Too much going on. Thanks for all the input, both constructive and critical. Looks like there's a lot of passionate trad draw users out there! Happy extending.

From reading the articles this seems the likley cause of the accident.

youtube.com/watch?v=4kSaTOI…

Similar accident occurred two years ago at the New River Gorge. A girl used one of those rubber keepers on a sling she was using for a tether. She was at the chains, said off belay, leaned back and that was that.

If you cannot easily see what is going on with your equipment at all times then you probably aren't being safe. Don't over complicate things.

BrandonP wrote:From reading the articles this seems the likley cause of the accident. youtube.com/watch?v=4kSaTOI…

Haha, "the draw part, sorry, the webbing, I mean dogbone goes in the rubber part, I mean the quickdraw, ugh, the carabiner goes in the, ugh, rubber thing and not in the quickdraw, I mean, carabiner dogbone thing".

Reminds me of the gym.

Ted.... don't do it.

Just rig your stuff in the normal way and you will be OK.

I think the poor kid got killed cause they (the whole group of them) got complacent (sp?) did a funkey job of hooking up draws and didn't check any of it out.

A shame and a waste...

The draws in question: climbing.com/news/the-quick…