You want the axe to come out and go flying towards you, that way you can cinematically snatch it from the air and tranform its momentum into just enough rotation to let you swing it at the ice wall and catch yourself on one arm. Geez, I've never climbed anything but even I've seen a movie. Lol
Check out the Black Diamond user instructions for the Spinner Leash. It has artwork of a man falling on his leash, only to have the ice tool impaled in his eye. Probably the best image in any gear user manual.
I have two of the older grivel springy leash, which have a small locking carabiner on the end with "max 780 kg" stamped on it (equals ~7.6 kN) but no rating for the fabric part. I took a sliding factor 1 fall onto the leash on steep snow with my ice axe shaft buried, and it held me. That leash is a little stretched out now but no signs of stitch failure, carabiner works fine. Probably wasn't more than a kN or 2.
I fell on an ice took leash a few month back on an alpine mixed route. Leash snapped almost immediately. Broke the pommel off my tool. I do think leashes are a necessity on hard alpine routes so you don’t drop a tool still
Fell on Sunday. Leashes held, had it clipped to my side loops . Hurt my side but leashes were fine. They were very dynamic leashes. Also was on top rope. Ice axes stayed in ice
most guides recommend having the tool leashes connected to the rope and not to you when following... so the tools don't get spring launched into your face.
Are they breakaway? In the ARB industry we have tool leashes that are designed to fail if the chainsaw gets stuck in a falling piece of wood. Some of them even have warnings not to use with certain weight saws since dropping the saw into the leash by itself is enough for it to break away
Well you still have to consider that some alloys of steel break lower when they are cold (-20c) to (-60c), alumimium dosn't have that property. The way they normally test that is by the notch cut punch experiment.
An idealised factor 0 fall (ie. no slack in the rope, you only fall due to the stretch, and the rope functions as an ideal spring) gives you a peak acceleration of 2g, so if you were doing anything more than factor 0 it isn't surprising you were getting more than 2kN. 2g with 160lb would have been 1.4kN. It looks like you were getting between 3g and 4g. With a rigid weight on a static leash, even a small fall could easily generate that.
I had a tether catch me on the auto belay in the gym. I was using a Furnace Dry ice tool pro. That was really annoying. Now I yank tools free if I pop at the gym.
He moved away from the area and it takes several hours to drive to the drop tower, that combined with now running his own store makes it hard to justify the time when a tree will suffice.
Can you break test those utility carabiners that have a rating? DMM makes ones with 4kN.They're not meant for climbing but a friend wants to know if they could be used to extend small nuts which have a rating below that anyway :)
How much time did you invest in the busted scene at the end? I would probably spend more time with trying to get that right than with the actual test 😂
I had to lower someone who hit the rope, tool through the core. Rope was fine for lowering, but we removed that section. It was a really interesting coreshot, tiny hole.
Pit Schubert (legendary alpine safety guru at the German DAV) did a study years ago with people stepping onto ropes with crampons. If I remember correctly the only noticeable degradation occurred when it was with brand new, honed (super sharp) competition crampons, all others were effectively too blunt to actually cut any substantial amount of core fibers. Pretty sure it is similar with ice tools. There is a huge difference though if the rope is loose (so the fibres can basically move out of the way) or under substantial tension (more likely for the core to get cut) -- fortunately if you are making moves with your ice tools you're most likely climbing and there will be some slack in the rope. I'm with @CFEF44... though -- any rope section that has been subjected to such abuse is best removed.
