.

Just wanted to add that I am another Alpine Up user who is really pleased with the versatility of this device. Of particular interest is the smooth and easy lowering in guide mode.

However, it is definitely not a device for larger ropes. I lead on Mammut Genesis doubles.

rgold wrote:

"I would urge anyone who thinks a modern Reverso or BD ATC is adequate for 8.5's and below to do a single-strand free-hanging rappel with their thin rope and their device and evaluate the control effort involved, realizing the loads involved in big falls are many times greater (but of course of much briefer duration). If you are satisfied with the effort required to control the rappel, and I for one am not, then carry on with your ATC."

Running the rope through two carabiners rather than one takes care of this problem. Once a year, I go through rappel practice and do a free rappel on a single strand of an 8.5 mm half rope using an ATC type device (Trango Tuber)and two carabiners. No especial effort is requied to control the rappel. With one carabiner a lot of effort is required. Also, when belaying with the Tuber on thinner ropes, I always use two carabiners.

rob.calm

In my opinion the biggest downside of the Alpine Up is the moving parts and complex order of operation. I have reservations about using that device under stress and exhaustion. The biggest advantage of the ATC-G is the simplicity.

rob.calm wrote:rgold wrote: "I would urge anyone who thinks a modern Reverso or BD ATC is adequate for 8.5's and below to do a single-strand free-hanging rappel with their thin rope and their device and evaluate the control effort involved, realizing the loads involved in big falls are many times greater (but of course of much briefer duration). If you are satisfied with the effort required to control the rappel, and I for one am not, then carry on with your ATC." Running the rope through two carabiners rather than one takes care of this problem. Once a year, I go through rappel practice and do a free rappel on a single strand of an 8.5 mm half rope using an ATC type device (Trango Tuber)and two carabiners. No especial effort is requied to control the rappel. With one carabiner a lot of effort is required. Also, when belaying with the Tuber on thinner ropes, I always use two carabiners. rob.calm

Rob seems to have missed my point. I wasn't alerting anyone to a rappel problem that needed to be taken care of, and at this point most everyone knows about doubling biners to solve the inadequate friction problem for such rappels.

Unlike rob.calm, most people use their belay plates with a single locker, not two, when belaying the leader. His comment about "a lot of effort" being required for controlling a single-strand rappel underscores the observation that the plates, as typically used, are inadequate for holding high-impact falls.

rgold wrote:Wow Jim, what an effin' mess! Is certification a voluntary thing? Can I legally sell a non-certified frozen turkey as an assisted locking device? Do you know if the Mammut Smart has any certifications? Are there reasons why Climbing Technology would not certify the Alpine Up as an assisted locking device (besides the obvious "it can't pass the test," which seems unlikely in view of its field performance and the video I posted earlier)?

Certification voluntary? The whole business of compusory certification of climbing gear is covered by Directive 89/686/EEC on Personal Protective Equipment (the EU issue directives telling the member countries to create laws). There are three categories of PPE and climbing equipment is all cat.111 (the highest level of manufacturing control) except helmets (cat.11) and all these items must conform to the relevant EN and then carry the CE mark to show this. They cannot be sold in Europe without this.
Fixed anchors (bolts), ascenders, abseil devices, hammers, belay devices, crampons and so are uncategorised and don´t carry the CE mark (there can be exceptions to this however).
Bolts are an exception to the above as they are not PPE (the user has no influence on them)so cannot carry the CE mark but must be certified to EN959 to be sold.
Belay devices are also an exception. They are not PPE as they are used by someone else to protect a faller. The difficulty in producing an EN is that the standards are a manufacturing and performance one and while the manufacturing (strength) issue is easy the performance of manual devices is completely reliant on the operator so cannot be included. It´s debatable whether the performance of assisted devices can be assessed (which is one current difficulty)since they only assist a manual operation and as there isn´t an automatic category there we are.

Since belay devices are uncategorised they have the lowest assurance level in the EN system and can be self-certified by the manufacturer (how they are reconciling this with the lab drop-test requirement I have no idea). You can sell anything as a belay device, even a slice of toast but you might get problems with other consumer rights legislation regarding suitability for the purpose, I´m pretty sure I could get a frozen turkey through the system though since I could do the tests and certify it myself though only as a manual device, as an assisted device might be more of a challenge!

If you think the above is a mess then you should see some of the ideas proposed for the new bolt standard!

The Smart is listed by the UIAA as holding a safety label which means it conforms to EN15151, as what who knows since they aren´t telling. This is the beauty of the system, the manufacturer gets the UIAA symbol to put on his product so the punter shopping at REI thinks (as the poster earlier did) that an Alpine Up is equal in performance to a GriGri2 and there is no way for him to find out otherwise.

I´ll ask the guys at CT next time I see them but personally I expect it´s probable it wouldn´t pass the drop test, there´s a few other locking-assist´s out there that definately don´t!

Thanks Jim.

On further thought, there is no way the Alpine Up, Mammut Smart, or Edelreid Mini and Mega Juls can pass the drop test as diagrammed by the UIAA, because that test requires that the device be suspended from a fixed point and hold a factor 2 fall (no intermediate protection point).

UIAA test set-up for locking belay devices, theuiaa.org/upload_area/cer…

If an assisted locking device is to hold a factor 2 fall, the brake stand must be held up above the device, just as in the case of ATC-type devices. The UIAA test doesn't allow for this brake stand position and so none of the assisted locking devices would provide anything more than a carabiner for the rope to run over in the UIAA test. If the EN standards are analogous, then this would explain the lack of anything beyond manual certification for the assisted lockers.

This seems to me to illustrate some of the difficulties involved in writing helpful standards and shows how tricky it can be to interpret them without detailed knowledge of their content.

There´s a reason I stick with a Grigri!

Some of the stuff that creeps into the provisional standards stretches credibility a bit. The UIAA put out a revision for the bolt standard in maybe 2006 which did adress the issue of safe lower-offs. The test was a loop of cord and was supposed not to able to be removed from the lower-off. My 4 year old boy managed it in under a minute. The entire standard was axed anyway with the exception of the meaningless repeat pull test which was left in out of indifference.
To be fair though, if an assisted locker has to work "unassisted" then it must work in any orientation otherwise it´s just a assisted braking device which is what the German call them, Grigri´s being semi-automatic. Since testing human intervention is out from the EN point of view then what else is their to test?
As I said earlier, they are different functionally and should have different categories.

Yes, perhaps it is worth mentioning again that, just as in the case of ATC-type devices, none of the assisted-braking devices (doing my best to use the appropriate terminology) will work for a factor-2 fall unless the belayer pulls the braking hand up to chest level. This is, by the way, much easier and more natural if you are belaying palm-up, and the Alpine Up is the only device that really accommodates the palm-up position.

That said, the good folks at Climbing Technology have put a specific warning about avoiding factor-2 falls in the instruction material, presumably because the brake hand up reaction is too hard for climbers to master?

Just to check my memory (it´s been a few years since we looked into all the SRC/Smart geometries to see what power you could achieve) I dragged out the Smart Alpine I´ve got to see if it would get through the test if one arranged it the other way up as if abseiling or belaying upwards. This was a simple pull test to see what it held since I read all about `bomber lock-up´ all the time.

The thing is rated for 7.7mm- 9.5mm and the test requires the smallest rope to be used but doesn´t say whether as a single or twin but hey, who cares about the details anyway!
Single 7.8mm - Slip 16kg
Double 7.8mm - Slip 50kg
Single 9mm - Slip 42kg
Double 9mm - Slip 118kg

The Alpine Up is rated for 8.9mm single ropes and unless CT have done something incredible with the holding power neither the Smart Alpine nor the Alpine Up would even hold the test weight up let alone stop it and it´s hard to imagine the big brothers are any better. Since it won´t even hold me up using my twin 7.8´s I remember why it was put into the cupboard to gather dust!

So far as I´m aware only the GriGri and Edelrid Eddy pass the test and while Edelrid don´t give the details they certify to EN15151 and it´s hard to believe they tested it as a manual device.

Interesting Jim, although not grounds for me to put mine on the shelf. The thing definitely locks even under low top-roping loads when there is a hand on the brake strand. For dynamic loads, there is at least some evidence, given by the video I posted earlier, that the device will lock up totally unattended, although I don't personally care about this at all.

One of the many things I like about the UP is that you can lock it up manually without any load and it then stays in that configuration. I don't know if this is true of the Smart and Juls. It would be interesting to know what the slip loads are for these devices if they have been deliberately locked in this fashion.

Since I'm migrating from an ATC and since Gri-gri performance is irrelevant to half-rope use, the potential inability to hold slowly applied loads without a hand on the brake strand isn't something I need or even care about. In fact, I really have no interest in hands-free belaying under any circumstances, because test or no test I don't trust the technology to perform 100% of the time. I tie off a Gri-gri (it takes about 3 seconds) if I have to let go while belaying too.

I think the distinction, "assisted braking," as opposed to "assisted locking," makes lots of sense. My interest is in assisted braking. I want a device that allows for rope management at least as good, preferably better, than an ATC while supplying a lot more braking when a really big impact occurs.

The only real argument for genuine locking devices is the idea that the belayer could be knocked out. This can happen, but it is rare, and I view it as one of the intrinsic risks of our activity.

Thanks again for all the valuable information you've shared!

Of course that test was relating to the standard, neither really reflecting real life anyway except if your going rope-soloing.
That said I do lead out from the belay often without a runner so buying a belay device that says I´ve got to use one is out for me, I could buy something else.
The assisted braking part is the unknown, how much does it assist? The only test I´ve done is at abseiling forces not belaying ones and with a 6kg hand force/single 9mm you get:-

Reverso³ 62kg
ATC XP 66kg
Smart Alpine 82kg
Reverso³ (2 HMS biners) 93kg
DMM Bugette 103kg
DMM Chicane prototype 120kg
ATC XP (2 x HMS) 141kg

So there is some assist but not so much that I could put up with the using the thing, if I need to I just use another biner instead which doesn´t work with the Smart. Abseiling controlling both this finicky device and a klemheist was too much for my skills!
The good thing about the Smart is the ease of pulling the rope in guide mode if you use this.

Jim Titt wrote:...That said I do lead out from the belay often without a runner so buying a belay device that says I´ve got to use one is out for me.

I do was well, and mostly with an ATC or Reverso belay, which won't work either for a factor 2 fall unless the belayer knows what to do. Same for the sadly ill-fated Chicane, right? So for ATC's as well as the assisted braking devices, the belayer has to have technical and decision-making skills. I'm more than ok with that, and am in any case stuck with it as a habitual half-rope user for whom a Gri-gri is not an option.

Jim Titt wrote: The assisted braking part is the unknown, how much does it assist? The only test I´ve done is at abseiling forces not belaying ones and with a 6kg hand force/single 9mm you get...

Again, interesting results. I don't know how to interpret them in the context of the way the UP, which you didn't test, behaves. If I engage the "lock" (a better term is needed here) on a rappel, I can not only hang but also vigorously bounce on the rope with my hand off the brake strand with no slippage, even with very little rope weight. Since a bounce will develop more force than you get from 160 kg load, I don't know how to think about this relative to tests which suggest slippage should occur.

When I get a chance, I'll go down to the basement, hang on a "locked" UP, and add weights to see if I can induce slipping.

IME there is much more "assist" than your numbers imply

the alpine smart especially is much more dependent on the rope/biner configuration ... more so than the regular smart ... on some combinations the rope will zip right through, on others it holds pretty darn well

generally i use 10mm+ ropes on the alpine smart ... on a dual strand rap for example there is enough locking with the combination i use that when i want to go hands free i just tie off with an overhand, not a releasable knot ... there may me some minor slippage, but not enough to load the knot ... with my ATC guide even with dual biners, you cant do that at all

on whippers ... which i generally catch 5+ per session, at least a few hundred a year ... the device locks up pretty well, especially on 10mm+ ropes, even with just a light break hand

one thing no one ever mentions on the smart/alpine smart if that a flatter biner seems to produce "better" braking ... but at the expense of smoother feeding

rounded biners such as the boa, williams, attache/hera are less "grippy" on the smart/alpine smart, but are generally recommended for lead belaying ... now something like the rocklock has a flatter geometry and is quite "sticky", but catches much easier

and stiff ropes such as mammuts and maxims lock up MUCH easier than slick and supple ones such as beals, edelrid boa/pythons, tendon ambitions

the rope/biner makes so much difference that often with a 9.9mm maxim glider + rocklock the sucker wouldnt slip at all ... while with a 10mm python + petzl william you really needed to keep your hand on the brake ... of course its harder to feed stiffies

as to rock fall what is "safer" ... for the combination i use the smart holds "hands free" 90%+ of the time ... the rest of the time it slips slowly, and very rarely it slips quite fast, its not hands free, but if your belayer gets smacked by a rock then its better than an ATC ...

a gri gri will hold most of the time "hands free" much better ... yet we still have accidents reports of "hands free" operations, and the BMC has come up with scenarios where it aint "hands free"

the issue is that in many places where rockfall is a serious issue, and im looking at you the canadian rockies ... the rock is limestone, choss and your placements have a decent chance of blowing, even perfect ones ... in squamish with the solid granite i can whip on microgear while being belayed on a gri gri all day ... on limestone, might not be the best idea

the smart allows for some slip in a fall, which in crap rock, may mean the difference between you blowing off that flake that hits people below, or it holding

and of course the biggest advantage of the alpine smart is that its as smooth as butter chicken in autoblock

all these devices has tradeoffs ... there is NO perfect device ...

note that the DAV has recommended the smart and click up as suitable for all ages and beginners in their 2010 review of assisted locking devices

at the end of the day all these devices require a SOLID brake hand which is the basis for all belaying tecchniques (even the gri gri with the "hands free" accidents, and especially if the cam gets blocked or bumped)

one MAJOR issue i see with the smart is that there plenty of newbs out there who are buying them to make up for crap belay technique ... and they end up dropping people just like on a grigri ...

ive seen even "experienced" climbers on the intrawebs say the smart is "hands free" and quite a few get upset when i absolutely insist its not ... if you act like its hands free youll drop your climber in the not too distant future

;)

I would like to thank everyone who has positively contributed to this post and the previous post that lead into it. I am returning to climbing after focusing on other things for a number of years and while it has been relatively easy updating my rack, the changes in ropes and what is required from belay devices was not so evident. it has been an education.

The difficulty with this design has always been the balance between a more agressive angle of the slot which gives more assist but makes them jam up or less angle, better handling and less power. CT try to reduce this problem by cleverly adding the plastic clips which discourage the rope moving into the braking position so it is entirely possible that they can use a more agressive angle and get better holding power. (Still plenty of reports of poor handling with thick ropes out there though). Until someone tests one who knows, I´m not sure I can justify the price of 8 cases of beer to find out myself!
Try hanging on yours with a single strand of 9mm and see what it holds, if it does slip a crude way of measuring the force is to stand on bathroom scales and see what they read as you slide down and take this off your weight.

The problem with this type of device is they don´t suit the kind of things I do (nor most of my friends). One can read glowing reviews in the magazine "tests" where they go down the gym for the evening BUT they don´t stand at the top of a cliff with a rucksack full of gear, clip into a worn out single 9mm and wonder "is this going to work".
If they do what you need then fine but they are hardly a better device in general terms. To improve one aspect they worsen others and thus become less versatile than other devices.

I rap normally on a single strand like most sea-cliff climbers and route developers to access routes and CT specifically prohibit abseiling on a single strand in self-locking mode so it is reasonable to assume it isn´t going to hold me up anyway and the Smart definately doesn´t (and only describe abseiling on two strands as well)so I´ll need a back-up and this means both operating the device and the back-up. Since I want at least one hand free both the UP and Smart are vastly inferior to any conventional plate or a GriGri if the rope suits.
The rest of the time I use twin/double 7.8´s for adventure climbing and since the Smart won´t hold me up then either then it´s again inferior to any conventional plate with a klemheist.
All that´s left is improved braking power which is easy to provide using 2 biners so what´s the point? For some they may be better but for many they are not.

Bearbreeder:- There is no more assist than I measured, I doubt my strain guage lies! That two 10+ ropes lock doesn´t suprise me, they do in my old Sticht plate as well but that isn´t the point for many, the one I have is rated for two 7.5mm ropes and doesn´t lock sufficiently so is immediately no better than a conventional plate but with added complication.
Having to select the right brand of rope and swap biners around to get reasonable results is hardly the sign of a good device. Versatility in a belay device is an extremely desirable characteristic and a normal ATC XP type plate gives the option of at least 6 different braking powers by addition of a second karabiner to accomodate different ropes and climber weights, something neither the Smart or the UP can even begin to compete with.

Jim,

My experience with slippage does not match what you have published above. I changed from a reverso 3 to the alpine up because the reverso 3 and my partner's ATC guide was unable to comfortably hold body weight with a new 9.5mm dry rope, so much so that I was very concerned about stopping a serious lead fall. The alpine up holds the weight with no effort every time. The smart had slow continious slippage but was very easy to control. I also had to wrap the rope around my leg to safely repel using double 8.2 mm ropes while carrying a large pack. The alpine up repelled nicely under similar circumstances.

I find this experience hard to reconcile with your numbers for the 9mm rope. Are you using CT carabiner in your tests? Are you configuring the alpine up in dynamic mode rather than click up mode?

Additionally, CT directions do not say anything about single rope rappeling. Where did you get the idea that they do not approve of single line rapelling.

I do agree with the comments by others that the complexity of the device is a drawback. I carried my reverso the first few outings until I was completely comfortable with the device.

The tests are for the Smart Alpine (the one for smaller ropes), I said so in an earlier post. I haven´t tested the CT device and don´t intend to at the moment because in the instructions is written (and underlined):- "Attention! the self locking abseil with a single rope is not allowed.

I was getting smart alpine confused with alpine up and also searching for rappel in the directions and did not think to look for abseil. I agree that a grigri is a far superior tool for some activities such as hanging on a rope while installing bolts. Thanks.

As I remember, mammut does not trust the smart in self locking abseil stating that a prussic backup is essential. CT advises using a prussic backup for the first few times.

As far as using two carabiners with an ATC type device, it certainly works to increase the friction and I see people using two carabiners to rappel but I have never seen someone use two carbiners to belay where you might really need more friction. And it is not like you can change the number of carabiners in mid fall. My opinion is that if a device needs two carabiners to rappel safely then it is unlikely that one carbiner is adequate for belaying.

There is no mention that I can find in the CT instructions banning single-strand rappelling, and the instructions for the Click Up (the single-rope version of the Alpine Up) actually depict single-stand rappelling and do not contain any warnings about doing it on 9mm ropes. EDIT: Jim is right, of course. See posts below.

That said, if I was doing a lot of dangling and drilling, I'd use a Gri-gri for that too, as Jim does. And tie it off for protracted hanging sessions to boot.

Of course Jim is right, the device has to suit the climbing you do. Personally, I've tried to made it clear that I like the Alpine Up for managing half-rope belaying. The Gri-gri isn't even an option, and the Smart and Juls are notably inferior for that application. Beyond that I personally have no experience and make no claims.

Jim also raises the issue of limited versatility. I think this is much more of a feature of all devices than the manufacturers are prepared to admit. The recommended rope ranges are frequently optimistic at both ends, in my opinion. Device friction is inadequate for the small end of the range and handling sucks in the large end of the range. I find this to be especially true for the Reversos and BD ATC's. I think climbers who climb in many different styles with single ropes, half ropes, and twin ropes will need several belay devices to have optimum performance in all situations.

The Alpine Up does not work well with ropes at the upper end of its recommended range (handling is awful and forget about rappelling). I think the maximum for it is 10mm, maybe a bit less if the rope is fuzzy. I don't have experience with the low end; friends who use it are very satisfied its performance with 8mm half ropes. The Up works well enough for ordinary multipitch rappelling in which the goal is to get from one station to the next without a whole lot of faffing about in between. It tends to twist the ropes a bit more than my Reverso does, but not as much as the Smart did. There is a special rigging trick to deal with situations with very high rope weight, but rigged that way rope twisting is much worse. This is all for double 8.5's, I don't have enough experience with other diameters to comment. So yes, the UP is relatively specialized, but I think most other devices are too.

One thing that CT did right was to sell the device with a dedicated carabiner that meets their specifications, so as to eliminate the ridiculous amount of variation in performance that seems to characterize both the Smart and the Juls. You shouldn't have to experiment with a pile of carabiners in order to discover one that actually makes your device work.

Climber Pat re two biners:-
Sort of useful to know though since the plate you´re carrying might be faced with a rope it doesn´t like! Cragging it´s not an issue but anywhere bigger it could be, especially retreating or you´ve chopped one of a pair of ropes.

We tested the configurations once. Single 9mm rope in abseiling configuration (so the rope straight down, belaying it is angled to the side) and using a 6kg weight (this is chosen to represent roughly the weight of a full-weight rope hanging below so tells you whether you will slide down if you let go!). ATC XP, 12mm Petzl Attache karabiner(s). Double karabiners , one loose means the second karabiner is clipped through the rope and plate like usual but not into the belay loop.
We didn´t test 2 biners with a wrap for some reason, probably thought something was going to break!

Low Power Side
Single karabiner 34kg
Double, both clipped to belay loop 76kg
Double, one loose 30kg
Single karabiner, one wrap 122kg

High Power Side
Single 84kg
Double, both clipped 154kg
Double, one loose 77kg
Single karabiner, one wrap 240kg

At belaying forces the numbers are a bit different and I only tested a few and no idea where the files are, needless to say belaying with a wrap on the karabiner is appalling!