Climbing | Climbing: Carabiners come in all shapes and sizes, and every one of them has a unique purpose. So many climbing companies produce them, and it can be hard to tell the difference from one brand's pear biner to the next. On the other hand, many companies are throwing all kinds of innovative ideas at the wall. We decided to take a survey of the current state of carabiner innovations, and found the 24 you see below. Some of them are mild improvements on existing technologies. Some of them are proven designs that have stuck around. A few of them are so different that they don't even look like carabiners (see: Kong Frog). We've compiled our findings without judgement, and included the intended benefits each provides.
3 comments:
Being a rock climber and having experience with several types of belay tools, carabiners have peaked my interest for awhile. And I have to say, I’m a Petzl kind of girl and will swear by them no matter what they do. However, I don’t know how secure I would feel climbing with their Petzl Ange L because, to be totally honest, having one pin lock me in with no screw mechanism is pretty scary thought. The other scary thing for me when climbing gear is concerned is workability and the double wired gates give me some anxiety having not handled them before. But I can imagine that the wire really locks into place to keep its hold on the carabiner and having two of those on at once makes me feel safe, unless I had to pull my way out of it really quickly since it isn’t as ergonomic as a screw-gate.
These carabiners are all so fascinating! I don’t do much rock climbing, but carabiners have always fascinated me- there are so many different styles and features that make some more safe than others. Some can look only relatively safe, but actually are really safe, while others just look like a high security bank vault. I’ve gotta say- I don't think I would ever feel safe using the simple wiregate carabiners for anything other than like, a water bottle. They just don’t look like they would ever stay closed. Also, the Petzl Angle L is so scary. How does that little ball stay in and not fall out?? Obviously, it’s really hard shear off the overhanging sides of the ball (or break off any metal) but I don’t know if I could ever be comfortable with that one, though the design is really cool. Another thing that interests me is the dual opening carabiners. I wonder how hard it would be to get the rope through it initially with one gate appearing to open out and the other in. It’s a lot of extra safety, but wouldn't it be really annoying? I don't know.
A lot of these carabiners seem to be really similar, just better ergonomically, so the ones that really stand out to me are the ones that have gates on the top or that completely change what a carabiner looks like, like the frog. I know a lot of these carabiners were either about reducing weight or adding locking mechanisms, but to be honest I prefer things to be simpler than that. I have two black diamond carabiners that I use and that I really like, and they’re really straightforward. They have a solid gate and a manual twist lock. I don’t trust things that don’t lock, and I don’t trust wire gates (especially because a lot of them don’t lock) for anything involving lifting people. The Petzl Angle L looks really cool, and even though I don’t own Petzl stuff (mostly because I don’t need it and it’s expensive) it’s something that I would consider using for gear. Most of the carabiners here that are about reducing weight I would use for attaching gear that I need, or maybe for setting up lead points because there’s a network of them, but other than that I wouldn’t trust them to be my connection to the rope (although it would be nice to have a lightweight carabiner for gear that I could count on in an emergency situation). A lot of these seem like cool carabiners that are better than some of the carabiners that are currently on the market, but only a handful of them are really innovative., and even though I probably have no use for them, I appreciate what they’re trying to do.
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