by mostlytree » Dec 9, 2013 10:34 am
thanks! that is great.
all those things are minor to the Haas. in fact in the tree community those are non standard. I personally us my lanyard because I have it and need to carry it anyway, I would not do this caving. I would wear a traditional chest harness. the cinching knot, its actually a adjustable lop. most guys like it some do not. the haas is built so the the guys who want to mod it can. some other solutions are to put a eye on the end of it with a locking brummel. then they use hardware to attach it to their foot, some have played with a quick disconnect system . my hope is you would use the haas for what it does great, and built it into your systems. all those things are things that are not actually haas specific. and lastly it goes over ledges way better than a frog system, in fact the guys who do ice are using it as a self rescue device for this reason.
as for small areas I have no idea, that is why I am asking your opinions.. you have to reach down to open the gate, with for the first time in my life I understand the patin.. which I HATE. in tree work I find it to be a terrible annoyance. but I am also very limber and am never in a place where I cannot just reach down and disengage it. I don't think this would be a issue the ascender on the haas should never be out of each, but again you guys are in places I have never been.
to change over is pretty easy, if you only need off the system for a short period of time, just open the block, remove the rope and close it back up. you can leave it in place. if you are done ascending for a while, there are many ways guys deal with it, I remove it completely,it only takes a second , some guys kick the foot loop off and rack the loop leaving the boat snap on. but really there is no "right way" and you may do something completely different.
what the haas does, is self tends the knee ascender from below your tie in which is safer and more efficient. that is the cool part, now how you incorporate that into your system, that is up to you.
if you cave ofter what I would like to do is actually send one out to someone who would use it. then your guys can float it around the forum. some of the forums I am part of for tree work do this. its pretty cool. and stuff does not get stolen.
as far as other climber climbing the same rope, that has nothing to do with the haas system and I cannot answer that question. the haas is in effect a accessory to your system, and will not change the answer which should be based on your system
if you think of the haas a a foot ascender that can be used with a foot ascender it will make more sense. in tree work we just kept making the system more and more complicated, adding stuff to overcome issues, I backed it way down, and removed a ton of stuff. a rope walker set up for tree work is over 500 bucks and its bulky and complicated.. the rope walker and frog walker are true systems, lots of stuff. the haas will replace either with only once piece of gear which only has two attachments. a foot loop and a snap. no cow tails, no chest rollers no over your hitch hand ascenders, which by the way is illegal in tree care. we all did it but its not allowed.
the only thing I can see bing a issue is if the bungie gets dirty, in tree work this is a non issue, in your world it is. my concern would be if the dirt gets carried into the liner it may restrict the movement of the bungie all the way down the length of the liner. I really don't know and have no way of testing it though. if it is a issue we could build a cavers specific model with a wisker biscuit to keep dirt out. or I can modify the liner to make it more easily washable. the bungie we use is really high quality stuff, its made to be put in really terrible conditions, so I am not worried about that. but it could be physically stopped up until you wash it. my thought is this would take many trips, so you would just have to wash it every trip. which I am guessing you guys do anyway judging by the pictures you post.
really the best way to answer these questions is to put it to the test, and I am up for that. I'll provide the haas and the first shipping fee, if you decide to participate you are responsible for freight to the next tester. it takes some honesty but its kinda fun, I have participated with these, and always had fun with it. once everyone is done with it I get it back to test and destroy it. let me know if there is any interest..
Michael