Alpine Climbing

Being attached to your leashless tools is a good thing, especially if you’re planning on dropping them occassionally. This can make big alpine routes a lot more fun and a lot cheaper. Grivel make the Double Spring which sells for about $50 and seems to be designed so that you can hang from your tools via the leashes if you want. The clips they use are rated to 3kN for example. My leashes aren’t designed to hold much more than the weight of the tool, although they could be modified to.

I made the leashes with some shock cord and 1/2″ tubular tape from REI and a few bits and pieces from Home Depot. Threading the cord through the tape is a bit time consuming and you need to be careful that the leashes are long enough so that you can use to tools at full stretch.

The tools are attached to leashes using a 1/4″ diameter clevis pin and a key ring. Home Depot sell 2″ long clevis pins with several holes. I just got a couple of these and cut them down. Currently I’m attaching the tools with maillons – also from Home Depot. For quicker detachment I might end up replacing these with gear biners.

I’m also going to attach a couple of Black Diamond Viper Strikes to the shaft just above the molded grips on the Quark. This will let me match hands.

Of course the minute I started making these the rain started. As soon as it stops and the ice is climbable I’ll go give them a go.

Useful Links:

Grivel Double Spring – Grivel makes something similar from $50
Viper Strike – Black Diamond make a grip attachment to add to the shaft