Petzl Ice Tool Failures (Current Generation Quark, Nomic, and Ergonomic)

My feeling is that the tool failures we have seen so far are not due primarily to fatigue but to manufacuturing defects, like small pits or scrapes in the aluminum that act as stress risers, or to clearance problems between the handle and shaft that lead to small amounts of play and subsequent failure. 

If fatigue were truly the cause, then we would see these failures with long term or heavy tool use, which doesn't necessarily seem to be the case. 

I sent an email linking this thread to Petzl USA and Petzl France.  I don't expect a personal reply, but I think a public response of some kind would make sense for Petzl.

If they approach this as most businesses likely would, they would compare the failure rate to what is normal for any product, even a product that could lead to life-changing or fatal injuires if it failed, like a ladder or a car or whatever.  

Then they would decide if the failure rates they see are inside or outside that norm, and consider all kinds of things such as 1) what it would cost to issue some kind of large-scale recall 2) what it would cost to make some quiet in-line changes 3) how much stock remains unsold or is contracted to be produced 4) when new tools might be coming out 5) what kind of legal and financial risk they are willing to assume if a tool failure leads to serious injures.

In short, it will be a bussiness decision, and it will come down to numbers and relative risks.

I will say that in our world, with the internet and social media, and a competitive marketplace (new tools coming from Black Diamond, DMM, boutique manufacturers) companies really can not afford to loose customer confidence. 

That's why I think a public response makes sense. 

Are you listening Petzl?

Grant Watson wrote:

Karl, I have no bone to pick with you and no skin in this game (climb on Petzls if you want, otherwise don't - I don't own any stock).  However, as someone said above, let's keep some sense of perspective here.  Posting fancy graphs without any explanation for us laypeople of what they're supposed to tell us is a bit much.  Whatever that graph is supposed to show, it looks like Aluminum and Steel are pretty similar through 10 to the 6th power cycles (sorry, can't seem to format that properly here).  That's a million swings. Do you think there's anyone on the planet who's swung at ice a million times in a lifetime, never mind on a single tool?

The point I am trying to make is that ice tools have a finite fatigue life.  From the comments on this thread, it seems like many people don't understand that the fatigue life is finite.  A lot of climbers seem to assume that their gear will last forever.  We don't know what fatigue life to expect from these tools and there is no practical way to check the tools for fatigue cracks at the location where the current generation Nomic / Ergonomic have been experiencing fatigue failures.  

While details on these failures are scant, there are examples of ice tools that seem to have experienced "low-cycle fatigue" (i.e., failure in within a few years of use).  Maybe these had abnormal defects that shortened the fatigue life or maybe they did not.  I cannot tell based on the info that is currently available to me.  However, if there was a design or manufacturing defect that resulted in abnormally short fatigue lives for the tools that have broken, a manufacturer would normally respond by recalling the defective tools.  The fact that Petzl has not issued a recall suggests that these failures were not attributed to manufacturing defects that were subsequently corrected.  Otherwise, why wouldn't they issue a recall for affected batches?

Bruno Schull wrote:

I'm guessing here, byt my feeling is that the tool failures we have seen so far are not due primarily to fatigue but to manufacuturing defects, like small pits or scrapes in the aluminum, that act as stress risers, or to clearance problems between the handle and shaft that lead to small amounts of play and subsequent failure. 

If fatigue were truly the casue, then we would see these failures with long term or heavy tool use, which doesn't necessarily seem to be the case. 

The examples did not fail on initial use, which is indicates that fatigue cracking is occurring.  There is a natural stress riser at this location due to the design geometry, without the presence of manufacturing defects.  It could certainly be the case that there are rare manufacturing defects that drastically shorten the fatigue life in a small number of tools, but there just isn't enough information here to make any definitive conclusions.

@ Karl, of course, there was fatigue involved, but there's a big difference between subjecting a well-designed and well-manufactured tool to however many million cycles until it fails, and doing the same with something designed or manufactured poorly. 

You know that, of course.  I'm not disputing that these tools cracked from cyclic loading.  I'm trying to present plausible reasons why they may have cracked with relatively little use. 

Obviously, some people use these tools regularly for years and years and years with no failure, while others seem to fail after a relatively short time. That requires explanation.  

I don't know that we have the data of how much use the failed tools had. certainly not for all the cases. its still very disturbing. its reasonable to replace tools every three years with heavy use but if a new tool fails that's really not good. 

Not nomics but I had a trigrest snap on me a few weeks ago resulting in a very exciting 25-30ft lead fall, fortunately on steep ice with good screws so it was clean and uneventful. I actually bought these tools used here off mountain project and they broke the second time I used them, bummer! I was matching on the tool when the trigrest snapped so I slid both hands right off the bottom, basically worst case scenario besides the clean fall 

Tanner James wrote:

Not nomics but I had a trigrest snap on me a few weeks ago resulting in a very exciting 25-30ft lead fall, fortunately on steep ice with good screws so it was clean and uneventful. I actually bought these tools used here off mountain project and they broke the second time I used them, bummer! I was matching on the tool when the trigrest snapped so I slid both hands right off the bottom, basically worst case scenario besides the clean fall 

In case you want to keep climbing on the Awax, the x-all mountain triggers should work on the shafts for the Awax as a 2nd position:
https://www.camp.it/d/us/us/outdoor/product/3491
I'd used an older model that had a 'permanent' screw instead of the thumb screw that one does, but it should still work for you.

Adding to this thread with a scary benefit of Nomic failure. Definitely not the anomalies pointed out by other posts here, but might be interesting to some...

A few rappels below the summit of ridge of Alaska's Peak 11,300, my buddy's v-thread blew on him after I had already rappelled on it. He fell 200' directly above me and continued falling more than 100' past me. I was in direct on a single yellow screw, but I was able to grab the ropes as they fell on top of me. I stopped his fall, and the one screw held both of us. The ropes cut through all of my jackets and deep into the muscles around my chest. This Nomic was planted in the ice near the screw, and when the dust settled, I noticed that the tool was still there, but the handle had snapped off. Somehow, the falling ropes had looped themselves through the handle even thought it had been facing the ice. The Nomic handle had acted like a Yates screamer and absorbed much of the force of the fall, allowing me to arrest the fall with just my hands and the single screw to hold us both. Both ropes were also coreshot in about a dozen places each. Not sure if this is from the high factor fall, abrasion from the Nomic, or both. We never found the handle. Maybe it'll melt out of the Ruth in a few hundred years...

I don't really consider this a design flaw on Petzl's part—Nomics are not designed to catch full-rope-length, 1.5+ factor falls. In many ways we're lucky that the handle broke. Not sure what would have happened if the handle hadn't snapped. I emailed Petzl to ask for a replacement, but they insisted I mail the broken tool back to them. Fair enough on their part, but considering the tool saved both of our lives, I opted to keep it as a souvenir. 

I bought this pair in 2020, and they failed in 2023. Weirdest part was that I had the tools teathered to my harness with a Blue Ice bungee leash. They were attached to the bottom of the tool. After the handle broke and fell thousands of feet, I noticed the leash and its carabiner dangling, intact. Somehow when the handle broke, it also disconnected from the leash carabiner without damaging it. Can't seem to make sense of that one.

Seems like there is definitely a weak point right above the handle—the other four examples in this thread all broke in the same spot. Does anyone know of any examples of Nomics breaking in other spots besides the handle joint or the pick?

Carter Ley wrote:

Adding to this thread with a scary benefit of Nomic failure. Definitely not the anomalies pointed out by other posts here, but might be interesting to some...

A few rappels below the summit of ridge of Alaska's Peak 11,300, my buddy's v-thread blew on him after I had already rappelled on it. He fell 200' directly above me and continued falling more than 100' past me. I was in direct on a single yellow screw, but I was able to grab the ropes as they fell on top of me. I stopped his fall, and the one screw held both of us. The ropes cut through all of my jackets and deep into the muscles around my chest. This Nomic was planted in the ice near the screw, and when the dust settled, I noticed that the tool was still there, but the handle had snapped off. Somehow, the falling ropes had looped themselves through the handle even thought it had been facing the ice. The Nomic handle had acted like a Yates screamer and absorbed much of the force of the fall, allowing me to arrest the fall with just my hands and the single screw to hold us both. Both ropes were also coreshot in about a dozen places each. Not sure if this is from the high factor fall, abrasion from the Nomic, or both. We never found the handle. Maybe it'll melt out of the Ruth in a few hundred years...

I don't really consider this a design flaw on Petzl's part—Nomics are not designed to catch full-rope-length, 1.5+ factor falls. In many ways we're lucky that the handle broke. Not sure what would have happened if the handle hadn't snapped. I emailed Petzl to ask for a replacement, but they insisted I mail the broken tool back to them. Fair enough on their part, but considering the tool saved both of our lives, I opted to keep it as a souvenir. 

I bought this pair in 2020, and they failed in 2023. Weirdest part was that I had the tools teathered to my harness with a Blue Ice bungee leash. They were attached to the bottom of the tool. After the handle broke and fell thousands of feet, I noticed the leash and its carabiner dangling, intact. Somehow when the handle broke, it also disconnected from the leash carabiner without damaging it. Can't seem to make sense of that one.

Seems like there is definitely a weak point right above the handle—the other four examples in this thread all broke in the same spot. Does anyone know of any examples of Nomics breaking in other spots besides the handle joint or the pick?

DUDE! I was packing up at TAT near the connexes when you got there with the rangers. We knew you had been in an accident and heard about the v thread failure, but I always wanted to know the details. Thanks for sharing that! So incredible to survive that and props to you for doing whatever it took to try and save your partner. 

Whoa…WTF.   That some wild shit in the posts above.  

1. I’d love to hear any details about the v-thread failure. That alone is unheard of. Small screw in bad ice?? Or was it the threaded loop that failed, not the ice?   Did you make it fresh or were you re-using one in situ   ?     Enquiring minds want to know

2.   That seems like the new “immaculate belay” story to trump the old Pete Schoening one. 

Mark Pilate wrote:

Whoa…WTF.   That some wild shit in the posts above.  

1. I’d love to hear any details about the v-thread failure. That alone is unheard of. Small screw in bad ice?? Or was it the threaded loop that failed, not the ice?   Did you make it fresh or were you re-using one in situ   ?     Enquiring minds want to know

2.   That seems like the new “immaculate belay” story to trump the old Pete Schoening one. 

As the buddy in question, I can confirm it was some wild shit. 

It was a naked thread in some suboptimal ice; I definitely did a little faffing around finding the best spot, and even that was aerated and so on. But I had an extremely solid backup (the location of which, because of the geometry of the ice, rock, etc, could not be the spot for the v-thread). Definitely a bit of complacency and fatigued decision-making involved, as in retrospect I should have just left the backup screw for security. But, since Carter rapped first and it held just fine, I figured I'd be a-ok. Our theory as to how it broke on the second rappel is that–since I was pre-rigged on the rope–some of the force of Carter's rappel was one me (and by extension on the backup and my crampons), so the v-thread was not being properly "tested" in that it did not hold 100% of the weight. Definitely one of those contrived hypothetical scenarios that sometimes make the rounds, and we're all inclined to dismiss as so unlikely as to be irrelevant ("that'll never happen to me, right?")...except this time it did indeed happen.

Props to Carter for the miraculous catch–crazy that such a split-second decision was so life-or-death–and apologies for the thread drift. 

Graham Hodgson wrote:

As the buddy in question, I can confirm it was some wild shit. 

It was a naked thread in some suboptimal ice; I definitely did a little faffing around finding the best spot, and even that was aerated and so on. But I had an extremely solid backup (the location of which, because of the geometry of the ice, rock, etc, could not be the spot for the v-thread). Definitely a bit of complacency and fatigued decision-making involved, as in retrospect I should have just left the backup screw for security. But, since Carter rapped first and it held just fine, I figured I'd be a-ok. Our theory as to how it broke on the second rappel is that–since I was pre-rigged on the rope–some of the force of Carter's rappel was one me (and by extension on the backup and my crampons), so the v-thread was not being properly "tested" in that it did not hold 100% of the weight. Definitely one of those contrived hypothetical scenarios that sometimes make the rounds, and we're all inclined to dismiss as so unlikely as to be irrelevant ("that'll never happen to me, right?")...except this time it did indeed happen.

Props to Carter for the miraculous catch–crazy that such a split-second decision was so life-or-death–and apologies for the thread drift. 

Holy shit dude. When was this? How bad did you get hurt? How did you end up getting down???

If there’s a write up out there for this whole story, I’d love to read it. 

Haven't made one yet, definitely want to write it up soon–last May is when this occurred. Remarkably, I wasn't really injured–just a couple puncture wounds that impaired my movement but healed within a week or so. Carter had a pretty atrocious ropeburn. We lost most of our gear in the fall, though, and core-shotted our ropes in like 7 places. This route didn't have fixed anchors, so descending would have been a dangerous or deadly affair; we were stranded, essentially. Luckily, the weather cleared up enough after a miserable shiver bivi to allow for a short-haul heli evac. 

Wow. Crazy story and amazing save. This is too many pictures of the same failure. Hopefully petzl handles it better than BD did when their picks were failing. BD went into full denial mode. 

If the ice is not perfect or close to perfect you need to forget the naked move and do an equalized multiple thread with cord. a baked out fixed thread on Glass menagerie @ Willoughby failed in the mid 2000s. it used to be standard practice before the naked  fad to have fixed threads at popular belays /rap stations that were constructed  with climbing rope and had multiple threads equalized. often rigged by guides in places like the Black dike. and used for the whole season with no issues. every one I have heard  of failing has been a single thread. 

Graham and Carter, thanks for sharing your report. Glad you're both OK! I hope you write it up for ANAM.

I want to reiterate/clarify something for current/future readers to help prevent an accident like that, and in no way do I mean this to demean you guys.

When you commit to a single piece of gear for a rap, whether a v thread or a nut or something else, and you have a backup, the first rappeller must fully weight and test the piece you are committing to. If the second rappeller is prerigged, you can't do that. The second rappeller should be attached to the backup, not the piece you will commit to. As the first rappeller, don't be afraid to take the heavy bag and bounce on the piece before the second pulls the backup. All of the first rappeller's weight needs to be on the piece you will commit to, so the backup should be loosely attached. If you don't do it like this, you defeat the purpose of the backup and aren't really testing the piece out.

Thanks again for sharing, that's a crazy story and glad you were able to get out of there!

Carter Ley wrote:

Seems like there is definitely a weak point right above the handle—the other four examples in this thread all broke in the same spot. Does anyone know of any examples of Nomics breaking in other spots besides the handle joint or the pick?

There have been reports of people breaking the pommels (i.e griprest), since shortly after the current gen Nomics were released.  While I assume most were broken in tether falls (tether attached to spike), I recall one person claiming that their pommel broke from caning with the spike.  Here is a link to a discussion on the issue.

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/winter_climbing/nomic_design_error-699262

Thanks for sharing your story.  I am glad you and your buddy made it through the ordeal.

Artem Vee wrote:

I prefer a pre rigger because if the first person raps off the end of the rope or has the rope get cut on a sharp edge, they don’t die and take both ropes with them to boot. Which is a big deal, imo, don’t want to be stranded on top of a technical peak by a situation like this like so many others have been.

All you gotta do is adequately extend the pre-rig so that the primary anchor takes the entire load and what you describe becomes a non issue imo. Also given the poor ice quality - probably would have been a good idea to drill two threads and equalize them - i.e. Nicks suggestion. But we all make mistakes, and I’ve certainly made worse mistakes and gotten away with them, so no judgement from me as well.

You do you but that’s not how anyone teaches this technique that I’m aware of. See Mark Twight’s book, Andy Kirkpatrick’s book, any number of well regarded blog posts (https://www.alpinesavvy.com/blog/the-right-and-wrong-ways-to-backup-a-v-thread-anchor?format=amp)

I’d rather know the piece is good than think it’s good, and just tie a knot in the rope. If you set up a backup correctly, your stated issue doesn’t exist, the first person down can’t take the ropes with them.

John Sigmon wrote:

You do you but that’s not how anyone teaches this technique that I’m aware of. See Mark Twight’s book, Andy Kirkpatrick’s book, any number of well regarded blog posts (https://www.alpinesavvy.com/blog/the-right-and-wrong-ways-to-backup-a-v-thread-anchor?format=amp)

This is the textbook advice, John. And you’re not wrong, but when you’re on a big alpine route (make no mistake, Peak 11,300 is a huge fucking route even if it’s “small” in Alaskan terms) it becomes a very fine balancing act of getting down and out of harm’s way quickly.

Yes, you should back the thread up with a screw. But when you’re looking at tons of raps to get down, leaving screws with questionable threads vs building backups to save the rack for what is to come is a delicate balance. That balance is clouded by cold, fatigue, hunger, and fear.  

NateC wrote:

This is the textbook advice, John. And you’re not wrong, but when you’re on a big alpine route (make no mistake, Peak 11,300 is a huge fucking route even if it’s “small” in Alaskan terms) it becomes a very fine balancing act of getting down and out of harm’s way quickly.

Yes, you should back the thread up with a screw. But when you’re looking at tons of raps to get down, leaving screws with questionable threads vs building backups to save the rack for what is to come is a delicate balance. That balance is clouded by cold, fatigue, hunger, and fear.  

All true, and nothing I suggested advises leaving screws behind :) its about testing your piece before you commit to it

---- edit below for post limit ---

Ah yes I'm sorry- if one strand is cut _between_ the rappeller and the anchor then the ropes are bye bye. If both strands cut then only your partner goes bye bye.

Anyway, sorry I didn't expect this to be so controversial! This is in fact the standard way it's taught and I provided some sources. Artem feel free to add the sources you're referring to.

I'm happy to agree to disagree. I'd much rather know my piece is good before committing to it. I'm generally in favor of prerigged rappels, but here I think the time savings of 30-45 seconds over 30 raps is not worth it for me to know the single piece I'm committing my life to is good. I'd also forgo the buddy checks for the same peace of mind. There are indeed many ways to die rigging a rappel, but there are also pretty simple systems out there to follow that can prevent 99.9% of those rigging errors and the system I use would catch them.

In other words, to each their own!