Cavechat.org

A question for all you ropewalkers out there: What type of cammed ascender are you using to float above your chest box? Handled ascenders jam if you try to float them so I bought a petzl microscender which works well, but I'd like to get an ascender which can be operated one handed like a Basic, which I'm told should do the trick, but I'd like to see what others are using B4 I spend the $$.

TIA

Nothing fancy on my rig. I use an old Gibb as a floating safety. It's boxy shell rides nicely atop the frame of my Simmons Roller and I've never had a problem engaging or disengaging it with one hand. Getting it on or off the rope requires both hands but that's never been an issue for me.

BL

I use a Petzl Handled ascender. I usually just keep my left hand on it, so my hand pushes it up. But I can also get it to ride on top of my roller. I believe I can do this because of the way I tie my lanyard to the ascender. It's tied around the handle not thru the hole. This leaves more space at the bottom that can ride on the roller.

As already mentioned, Gibbs work well for this. I used to use one, but found the handled ascender much more useful for other things--multipurpose.

Here's a pic of my ascender...

Technical note:

Brian Leavell wrote:I use an old Gibb as a floating safety.

A single Gibbs ascender is still a "Gibbs." The inventor's name is Charlie Gibbs, hence the ascender name. When Charlie is on his own, he's still a Gibbs as well.

Cheryl

Cheryl,

Your absolutely right. A hasty oversight on my part.

Another technical oversight: while attaching the Gibbs to the rope requires both hands, it can often be removed onehanded.

BL

Brian Leavell wrote: A hasty oversight on my part.

I hear and read "Gibb" so often (and cringe! ) that I figured I'd jump at the opportunity to explain to those reading this topic where the name came from, etc -- and maybe help stop the bad habit. Your typo gave me a perfect into!

Cheryl

I've used a free-floating GIBBS for my rope-walker safety for years. Never had a problem with it. Well... once...

I was near the top of a 300 foot drop in Neilsen's Cave (see latest Alpine Karst issue) called Fantasy Well. I needed to remove the gibbs off the rope to get up and over a serious lip, it slipped from my hands and hung down below me out of reach, tricky to do at the moment since I was half over the lip with the rest of me under it. I managed to step up enough to get my body up and over the lip and pulled on the cord/sfety to retrieve my gibbs... (I attached a separate hand ascender above me at this point as redundant safety btw).
I found to my chargin that the gibbs got stuck under a lip and was nigh impossible to pull it up. The safety cord was threaded through the cam's hole so I was pulling on that. The shell is what was stuck under the lip. Would've been too tough to climb back down to free it. Especially when someone was below me in a tandem climb out of the shaft.
Tugging and tugging... SNAP, the wire that was attaching the cam and the shell broke and the shell fell back down the shaft, pinging all the way down.
Sigh, funny thing two cavers that were below us waiting their turn (away from the rockfall zone) heard the odd noise... trying to guess what it was... "sounds like a carabiner"... "no, too high pitched for a carabiner".... "might be a Gibbs Cam Shell" .... PING!!!!
They go to look for it and find it... "It IS a Gibbs cam shell!"

SIGH... I had to order a new one... oh well.

I use a QAS, On Rope 1 set-up.