UKC

Looking for thoughts from anyone who's got/used one of these? Just read the Mammut user guide - a lot of it is fairly intuitive, but at times over complicated? At the moment I am tempted to compare it to my computer ( I use on a regular basis about 15% of its functions!) I'm interested purely because it can take half-ropes, and might be easier than the normal devices (currently using Reverso 4). Cheers.

In reply to Firestarter:

I had one and used it for about a year. It works reasonably well. However, it tended to lock up too easily when paying out rope, and when using twin/half ropes, the ropes had a tendency to migrate under the separator piece and get hung up.

I recently switched to the Climbing Technology Alpine Up. Quite a bit more expensive than the Alpine Smart, but superior in just about every way. Much smoother paying out rope. Much smoother rappelling. Less effort in guide mode. No issues with ropes getting hung up. Only negatives are price and bulk.

In reply to Kai:

Thanks for that. Just had a look at their instructional video - looks to be an interesting bit of kit! What's it like holding falls in click up mode? Looks pretty instant - does it remove some of the dynamic element of other devices?

In reply to Firestarter:

Holding a fall in click up mode is pretty fast. It does remove much of the dynamic element. (At least, I've never held a fall that was severe enough that it caused much slippage.)

To me, this is a good thing. I figure that the danger of the leader falling further is generally greater than the marginally higher impact forces generated by a click up catch. I'd rather manage impact forces with softer ropes, screamers, or just getting good gear placements rather than counting on my belayer and belay device to allow the "right amount" of rope to slide through when I'm falling.