quercus

I've been climbing and working on artificial rock and outdoor rock, ice, caves, snow, big wall, structures, buildings, towers, cranes , bridges and other things for the past twenty years. I'm was also certified as an aid/rescue climber a few years, but I lost my certification when it had to be renewed and I didn't have time for that.

It doesn't get hung up or anything like that. Not more than a regular prussik or some other hitch or knot.

I've used all types of lock-jacks so far, except for the new spyder-jack. I find them unrelyable, expensive to operate, and fairly dangerous for starting climbers. I also have a natural dislike for anything that involves climbing that is screwed together. If you are familiar with climbing competition, you'll know that almost no-one uses the lock-jack anymore. A few situations where I got to know the disadvantages...

A piece of a branch fell into the free end of my climbing line after cutting it off. The line stretched for a second and I first I got lifted off of the branch, then lost my grip with my feet and then dropped about 10 feet down before it gripped again.

The wooden ball of the device got stuck in a fork of a branch after cutting it off. I went along with the branch at almost the same speed because of the fact that the device has virtually no friction when the release is operated. There was absolutely no time to free the device so it could grip again and all I could do was brake a little with my hands but I landed fairly hard on the ground.Braking to prevent from falling at high speed was difficult, even with two hands. If this would have occured whithout my climbing gloves my hands would be seriously burned. My flipline got severed when falling because I cut it by accident with the handsaw.The climbing line got damaged seriously as well.

After operating it with a dirty climbing line, wich got dirty from sand and mud, it didn't grip anymore. When I let go of everything the rope still went through slowly, and therefore it became unusable for limb walking or when working with two hands.I could not maintain my position in the tree without preventing the climbing line from running through with one hand. This would have meant that I had to one-hand a chainsaw and that's always a very big no-no. Not only the replacement cam was damaged but also the part where the rope sits in the device itself. It got sanded sort of speak.

I'll never use it again when I have to operate a chainsaw or handsaw in a tree or when the climing line can become wet or dirty.