Rope Wrench/SRT revelations

I have been climbing SRT with the rope wrench system for a month and some now.

Had an incident where the foot ascender popped off and my system was tending too low and loose to grab. Fell about 30 feet or so, well it was a controlled free-fall since the rope ran between my legs and melted my Arborwear tech pants to myself, YEE-OUCH! I learned a few things on making the long ascending system easier and safer, hope you can learn from my mistakes! Be careful, climb safe and always check your rig as you climb to be sure it will grab in a heartbeat, or yours could beat it's last ;)

Category:

Education

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[ontarioclimber]

yep, you are 100% right, complacency could have ended worse ;)

[ontarioclimber]

it was a combination of some things, clipping the lanyard under the tether pulled it out as I fell, not allowing it to engage, a VT that was allowed to become too loose and therefore not grabbing right away, not having the over-the-shoulder lanyard tight enough to allow the RW/hitch to tend in easier reach...it was a combo of complacency and bravado that caused the fall ;) if it had of been in easy reach when the pantin popped out, i could have just sat on the hitch, re-engaged and went up again

[ontarioclimber]

I know :(, hard though without someone to film it. Hopefully, I got the point across though.

[westernclimber]

Good to hear your ok. When I'm going up a single line, I tie a slip knot (as a stopper) 10' from the ground, and every 10'-15' after that, it's a bit redundant but it's good piece of mind, and it will jamb a fall if something fails (vt)

[gdsandkes]

Do you think it is possible that the tether became tangled in some manner so that the wrench was on top of the hitch knot, with the tether too short, and unable to engage because it was not torquing properly? I am also having trouble trying to understand this failure. I am the maker of the "Dogbone" rope wrench which is midline attachable and has a set gap between the friction points. It is shorter than the ZK-1, and so engages with less sitback.

[VeteranTreeGroup]

I really appreciate what you are trying to convey and I think it is very important, unfortunately having to film it by yourself has meant that some of the critically important points you made were not illustrateed very clearly...you certainly stated your concerns well, its just that the vid did not manage to show what you were saying.