Carabinner Brake Rappel

Carabiner Brake Rappel


Clink, Ting, Boing... "Dude, I Dropped my ATC!". Just the other day I watched the look of horror on the face of a climber as his brand new silver DMMBug went whizzing down a 150m cliff and disappeared into shrubbery below. How to abseil after you've dropped your descending device? Try rigging a carabiner brake rappel. Justfollow these steps:
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Step 1: Two carabiners are placed atop each other with opposed and reversed gates. Steps 3 to 5: The rope should run across thespines of the horizontally placed carabiners, but the gates should be reversed. To increase friction, add a third horizontal carabiner. Step 6: Clip the rig to your harness,preferably with a locking carabiner, and you're away. 

Note, oval carabiners work best, however you can also use D shaped carabiners (as pictured).

Alternative Method 
The exactsame Carabiner Brake, except this time we've used a slightly faster method of forming it. Follow these steps:

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Step 1: Clip two carabiners, gatesreversed and opposed, to the harness. Step 2: Feed the slack rope through the two carabiners forming a loop.Step 3: Clip a horizontally placed carabiner, spine up aspictured. Step 4: Place another horizontal carabiner, this time with the gate reversed (but not opposed), so the spine is also up. Step 5: Pull the whole mess tight. Step 6: Continue pullingtight, allowing the horizontally placed carabiners to slide over the vertically placed ones, and there you have it, the Carabiner brake rappel.

An alternative to the CarabinerBrake Rappel shown above, would be to rap with the good old rope twisting Munter Hitch, which could also be used to belay.


http://www.chockstone.org/TechTips/CrabBrake.htm