Double Handed Ascender in Comp.?

[TreeVB]

I can’t find anything in the rule book about this. Can a double handed ascender be used in the ascent event as life support? Obviously this would be on two separate ropes, one for each cam and there would be a tether attachment of some sort to a harness. The little bit I found says that in 2017 when they switched from footlock to ascent event that it was OK. Has anything changed and can anyone lead me to the literature?

 

[oldoakman]

Tony would be the one to answer that

 

[Wrangler]

It can’t be primary life support attachment. It is acceptable for secondary attachment for extra point. For example if you have a wrench setup as primary and you attach double hand ascender above it with a tether to your saddle you get an extra point for setup. That’s been my experience but I haven’t completed in 2yrs

 

[Wrangler]

I’ve emailed ISA about itcc rule clarifications and they respond pretty quickly.

 

[TreeVB]

@Wrangler interesting and thank you for taking the time! I have gotten a response from Craig Bachmann and he said all good as long as each cam has its own rope and there is no lateral movement. Wonder if their response is in regard to a single cam, single hand ascender? That is also good info. as far as points go because that is a cheaper option than a Petzl ASAP!

 

[Wrangler]

Wow, that’s really interesting! That would mean you could tether to the double hand ascender with your descent system so change over would only be taking foot and knee ascenders off, and setup would be super fast!

 

[TreeVB]

Wow, that’s really interesting! That would mean you could tether to the double hand ascender with your descent system so change over would only be taking foot and knee ascenders off, and setup would be super fast!

That was the exact plan. Unfortunately comp was this weekend and I sprained my MCL on Thursday night. Next year!

 

[Wrangler]

Sorry to hear that man. I feel you’re pain, I,ve trained and invested a lot of time in practice just to miss competing because of injury. Good luck with the knee and keep your chin up, there’s also chapters that take climbers from outside their area if they don’t fill up, so maybe you could catch one in the fall.

 

[roxy]

Wow, that’s really interesting! That would mean you could tether to the double hand ascender with your descent system so change over would only be taking foot and knee ascenders off, and setup would be super fast!

If I'm understanding this correctly, the descent system tied into the double ascenders..I could see a stopper safety knot being required under the doubled ascenders if that then becomes the primary floating TIP. Or would this be the secondary and thus not such an issue?

 

[Wrangler]

Good question….. I was wondering same thing…. Would you have to tie a knot under hand ascender ?
Possibly no because of the redundancy of two cams each attached to a separately anchored rope. I don’t know? I might send an email to find out. It would still be fast but definitely a time factor to consider

 

[TreeVB]

If I'm understanding this correctly, the descent system tied into the double ascenders..I could see a stopper safety knot being required under the doubled ascenders if that then becomes the primary floating TIP. Or would this be the secondary and thus not such an issue?

My understanding is that for the ascent event it is sufficient without a knot under or prussic above because there will be zero lateral movement. If you were to use it in masters, you would get DQ’d because of lateral movement.