Clove hitching carabiners on alpine draws?

Hey all,

I'm a sport climber/trad newbie who is currently building up his first trad rack. I was putting together some alpines using shoulder length slings and two things occurred to me about alpines vs dogbone based quickdraws:

1) when you extend an alpine, there is a moment where the QuickDraw is fully off the sling and could theoretically be dropped,
2) with the sling fully extended, the QuickDraw is pretty free to move, potentially working its way into dangerous positions and/or unclipping.

So, an idea that came to me was: why don't people clove hitch each of the carabiners? That would prevent a biner from dropping as you extend (you would unclip the loop used to double the biner, NOT the hitch), and the clove should prevent the biner from moving around and causing trouble, acting much like a dogbone. Is there a particular reason why people DON'T do this, or is there a conceivable problem with the idea?

Don't bother. I've never dropped a biner when extending an alpine draw. Also, the clove hitch can weaken the strength rating of the sling, but probably not by that much. I don't know the specifics regarding that. If you are concerned about it, I've seen people use tape or rubber bands to create a dogbone effect on the sling. Also, I think Petzl makes a rubber gasket device to add to slings to give it the dogbone effect. petzl.com/en/Sport/Carabine…

If you use a manufactured product similar to Petzel's, just make sure you use it correctly. A young teenage Italian climber was killed in fall when using them. The person that assembled them did it incorrectly and only the rubber was attached to the biner and not the rubber and sling. climbing.about.com/b/2013/0…

There are a few different ways to keep such issues from happening. You should not have to completely unclip the carabiner from the sling when extending it.

Below you can see that the rope end carabiner is clove hitched, along with other options to help avoid issues of unclipping.

Options to keep alpine draws from coming unclipped.

See this thread, credit bearbreeder: Clicky

The draw does not need to be off of the sling. Clip the sling on the cam or the wire on the nut, then remove the rope end biner from two strands of the draw. There is no need to completely remove it from the last loop of the draw itself. It is precisely the freedom of movement that tends to make alpine type draws less prone to accidental, auto-unclipping or from working itself into a cross loaded position. A rigid draw is MORE susceptible to these types of accidents. This may come at the price of being more difficult to clip; a rigid draw with a fixed rope end biner is done to make clipping easier.

Ps there was also a death in NRG from a person who fixed the biners to the ends of open slings with bands or Strings. The biner clipped back to the sling leaving it only attached by the rubber. This happened to both of the slings she had used to anchor and resulted in a ground fall from the anchor.

csproul wrote: Ps there was also a death in NRG from a person who fixed the biners to the ends of open slings with bands or Strings. The biner clipped back to the sling leaving it only attached by the rubber. This happened to both of the slings she had used to anchor and resulted in a ground fall from the anchor.

I've heard of this happening but am having trouble picturing it. Can anyone demonstrate this with photos?

csproul wrote:Ps there was also a death in NRG from a person who fixed the biners to the ends of open slings with bands or Strings. The biner clipped back to the sling leaving it only attached by the rubber. This happened to both of the slings she had used to anchor and resulted in a ground fall from the anchor.

Good point. I've only rarely seen people use rubberbands or tape and have never done it myself.

Z.St.Jules wrote: I've heard of this happening but am having trouble picturing it. Can anyone demonstrate this with photos?

petzl.com/en/Sport/STRING--…

See the last warning.

Oh shit.

First off, I've found that in almost every case of extending a draw, you never really have to unclip it from all strands. You open the gate and move it away from two stands, close the gate over the last one and pull. Like I said, this works in almost all cases.

Of course the rubber slings etc are to be avoided, but I've never had a draw unclip itself while extended or otherwise. I would be much more concerned about the rope/bolt end distinction, and making sure you dedicate one side to the rope to avoid notches on the rope end.

i used to do this to make clipping easier because i use my alpine draws for sport climbing as well, but i didn't like how it would kink the slings (especially really skinny ones). i switched to a slipknot around the biner and the sling gets very little to zero kinking. it also helps keep the biner from rotating into a cross loaded position. and for those who are worried about strength reduction, i challenge you to find a knot that would weaken the sling to less than 10kn. and even then, your spine will break before the sling.

csproul wrote: petzl.com/en/Sport/STRING--… See the last warning.

Makes alot more sense now, i have heard of it happening but never thought about the fact someone was adding rubber to create their own draws vs buying premade ones that already have the rubber. My sport draws have rubber inside of the dogbone so I always wondered how someone could only have the rubber clipped and not the dogbone.

I have never had an issue with dropping biners when making alpine draws longer. I have seen the cleaner clip the biners back on in such a way that they almost dropped off though. Yet to lose any yet though.

Ok, cool...good to know! Thanks for the replies. Yeah, the clove hitch idea was specifically to avoid using rubber for that very reason...so tragic. It looks like cloving is not unheard of (pic of exactly what I was doing in that link).

I use the clove hitch on key pieces, to prevent the carabiner from rotating and coming unclipped. I suppose I might be better off with one or two quick draws set up with ultralight a locking carabiners like the mad rock super tech. but the clove weighs nothing and still provides more than enough strength reserve from a 22 kn sewn runner.

As far as dropping loops, you do not have to remove the rope carabiner from all three strands, all you do is remove it from two so it's always attached to something. very rarely have I dropped a carabiner, so it's not really something to worry about.

You definitely can clove them all if that is an issue for you. I don't see a problem with it.

there was an MPer who cam up with putting an extra loop around the biner and then using an elastic ...

that way if it clips/unclips a single strand the biner will still be attached and you shouldnt see the "string" failure

im to lazy to search for it but its on MP somewhere ...

;)

powhound84 wrote: The clove hitch is one of the worst knots for weakening the strength of the sling.

Well, then, name a better knot or hitch.

mammut.ch/es/slingswebbings…

bearbreeder wrote:there was an MPer who cam up with putting an extra loop around the biner and then using an elastic ... that way if it clips/unclips a single strand the biner will still be attached and you shouldnt see the "string" failure im to lazy to search for it but its on MP somewhere ... ;)

Added loop to avoid 'hidden un-clipping'

^^^ I like this idea.

powhound84 wrote: I never said there was a better option. Just clarifying that you do in fact lose considerable strength with a clove hitch in response to the previous poster's thought that the reduction in strength is "probably not that much". I consider 35-40% quite a bit of loss. Granted, if you are working with a 22kn sling, the reduction in strength is not going to compromise the safety of the draw but having the correct numbers is pretty important in climbing. "The clove hitch is the weakest of the common climbing knots, at 60 to 65 percent." Source

Of course you loose strength with any hitch or knot in webbing.

You said "one of the worst". In webbing, its actually the best? So, not "one of the worst".

Your source is for climbing rope, not slings.

As far as the OP, I carry "alpine draws" all the time, and, clip, extend, and clip in the rope fairly quickly. Never feel like I'm going to drop a biner off one end, as, its either clipped initially to pro, or, I pop one biner off then extend to use hitched around a tree, shrub (whatev's).

I wouldn't care to "pin" one end of the draw's carabiners. Just less functional and usable whilst in the heat of battle to me.

Brian in SLC wrote: Well, then, name a better knot or hitch. mammut.ch/es/slingswebbings…

slipknot. while i lack data to back up my claim, logic would say that, because only one of the strands is knotted, there is a good chance it would reduce the strength less than a knot/hitch involving both strands.

According to mammut I'll see a 35% drop, that leaves me with over 15kn...I'm good with that especially when you consider that top pieces rarely (ever) exceed 10k.

Clove on webbing is just fine. Keep using it.

Don't forget you have a partner too. And as a newbie trad climber you want to climb with a bunch of other more experienced people.

That partner will be most competent, quick, and comfortable with the standard method. And will be able to quickly know if something is jingus with the draw, e.g. the the wrong number of strands are clipped. When you start clove hitching or adding rubber bands, it gets harder to inspect it to make sure everything is clipped the right way. With something that you are extending and reassembling many times on a climb, it's quite valuable to do this fast and to see quickly if it was reassembled the right way.

As for the danger of dropping something--this happens all the time when climbing. And we practically never drop things compared to how many times we could.

As for quickly extending alpine draws, I often unclip the the lower carabiner (rope side carabiner) entirely and then clip it to a single strand. I usually find it easier and faster than to try to just unclip two strands and keep one clipped.

One other argument for using the standard method (i.e. no rubber bands or hitches): these alpine draws are used for a lot more than just clipping your rope to to you pieces of gear. On a long climb they become gears slings, extensions for your anchor, your tether when rappelling, a sling to dangle your pack in a chimney, etc. You want them to be versatile.