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vinnie83
Mar 4, 2011, 4:00 AM
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Most people use two regular ascenders with an aider or footloop on each one, or two on one ascender depending on the technique. That ascender could only be used on your foot (no clip in points to allow you to use it in a system or a handle to hold onto it) and it would also be very difficult to use when there is very little rope below you to weight it down. You would have to reach all the way down to your foot to release some of the tension and move it up the rope until you got a ways up. Using a normal ascender you can do this with your thumb and it takes almost no effort.
No need to worry about how it would fit over a climbing shoe, most big wall climbers wear boots and only put on climbing shoes when they are leading a free pitch.
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moose_droppings
Mar 4, 2011, 4:44 AM
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Petzl makes one too, the Pantin.
People doing big walls have got enough stuff to haul. Handled ascenders are handier (pun intended) and serve for more than one purpose, not just a specialized piece like a foot attached ascender.
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coastal_climber
Mar 5, 2011, 5:12 AM
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Totally pointless. How are you supposed to lower-out? do the splits? Gotta keep shit simple on a wall. You got enough shit already...
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potreroed
Mar 5, 2011, 6:55 PM
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Some friends of mine used to use those for jugging fixed lines. They liked them, but I tried 'em and didn't feel they were worth the extra hassle.
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moof
Mar 7, 2011, 4:50 PM
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Aid climbers usually just use handled ascenders (jugs), which is a jack of all trades solution. For big walls it generally makes the most sense.
Cavers spend much time on free hanging drops (and more time walking between them), and they have a wide variety of ascending systems that make our systems look down right prehistoric.
Frog: Chest ascender captures upward movement. Known to big wallers, but rarely used. It allows much faster free hanging fixed line ascent with minimal specialized gear (mainly the chest ascender and small harness to keep it tensioned).
Rope walker: Uses a chest roller with floating ascenders at knee and waist level. Hands free upward progress thanks to a bungy cord that pulls the ascenders up. Very efficient, but also pretty complex and specialized. Many cavers don't use these unless the drops are big and few, as the setup/teardown time and amount of crap to haul around is much greater than the Frog system.
Mitchell system: Another rope walker with a double chest roller, one ascender below the box, one above (passing through the second chest roller). Same issues as the rope walker, but requires the use of hands to move the ascenders up. However it makes tending to the ascenders easier in case you need to walk down the rope for any reason.
Many variations exist. Pete advocates a foot ascender with a Frog system, but you know Pete...
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summerprophet
Mar 10, 2011, 5:06 PM
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The reason 99% of big wall climbers use two handled acsenders, just comes down to usefulness.
As mentioned, big walling involves dragging far to much shit up allready, so everything must be of the optimal usefullness.
The problem with the super-cool ascention systems is they are really good at doing one thing... climbing a free hanging rope.
The ancient system of two handled ascenders, may not be as efficient, but can be used on any terrain you can throw at us; traversing? check, roofs? check, slabs? check, freehanging? check.
Almost any other system has serious setbacks to atleast one of these other situations.
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majid_sabet
Mar 10, 2011, 5:57 PM
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foot ascenders are common among lumber jack tree climbers and cavers but not in climbing. one problem i notices with foot asceders is that they have tendency to tilt your foot , put pressure to the side of your ankle and if you jug long distance, it could be painful plus disconnection from them can be a problem with a loaded rope.
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infracanis
Oct 5, 2011, 3:28 AM
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So I can actually only see one way this would be incredibly useful for big walls. Hauling.
Using a foot ascender would allow you to use bodyweight to haul the pig. Save your back and just step up the rope.
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infracanis
Oct 5, 2011, 4:12 PM
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tolman_paul
Oct 6, 2011, 12:17 AM
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Unless I'm missing something, anything you can do with a foot ascender, you can do with a traditional ascender and an aider.
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barleywino
Oct 6, 2011, 12:21 AM
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the pantin actually only requires a couple steps of reaching down to pull rope through before it starts to release the rope on its own. at least if the rope is somewhat stiff. alternatively one could hang a small (or large) amount of weight on the rope that is being jugged. wt is just over 4 oz.
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sungam
Oct 6, 2011, 9:19 AM
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tolman_paul wrote: Unless I'm missing something, anything you can do with a foot ascender, you can do with a traditional ascender and an aider.
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Taylorp.
Oct 9, 2011, 6:08 AM
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you're missing something
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taller_climber_dude
Nov 2, 2011, 2:31 AM
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since the death in yosemite from the failed ascenders i add a grigri into the mix using only one handled ascender and aiders and grigri. i still like tie in short. its tad bit slower but its nice having a auto locking device in the system. foot ascenders on a big wall? there's already a lot of work going adding more variants into the mix of chaos doesn't sound like a good idea.
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rtwilli4
Nov 2, 2011, 5:13 AM
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I'm pretty sure that Beth Rodden uses them (Petzl version) when she belays/jugs for Tommy when he freed the Nose. It was in one of the Dosage videos... when he did the Nose and Freerider in a day.
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xtrmecat
Nov 8, 2011, 4:04 AM
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I can think of many situations and pitches where a foot ascender would be useless on the second, following a traverse is one. I guess you have to have done aid to understand why this item is probably only good for a fixed line run, and not really an item to take to the top, it's usefullness is far less than extra cargo.
Can you imagine a lower out with a foot ascender in your system, it would seem to take three times the effort and time. Roofs and bulges would be another hmm, spot.
As mentioned upthread, one handled ascender and a gri is what my last spring partner used for a rather involved wall, he was green as all get out, and it was as easily used as two regular ascenders. I saw no drawbacks to his system. (it was the only gear he could borrow on short notice, as three teams of friends were launching different routes all in the same window.) I was skeptical at first, and convinced on day two.
Burly Bob
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