Biner rolled open

RopeArmour

RopeArmour

TreeHouser
Joined
Dec 15, 2010
Messages
1,119
Location
Cambridge, Ontario Canada
Pencil size twig is all it took.
simply did not anticipate it could happen but it did. 1st time in over 15 yrs.
The action of pressing the gate against the twig and stepping up into a crotch and
then floating the biner from my centre D.
Stay alive friends.

I've rolled biners open before but never had one completely disconnect.
from now on no thing shall pass near the gate.
Cheers
 
Never quit looking at our life support connections, brothers. All through the climb. Never quit.

Good post, Thomas. The damndest things can happen. I have a long list of them myself, as any old climber would.
 
Did you know your biner was coming in contact with brush? I get super nervous whenever my biners will be coming in contact with brush or wood. When I know it's going to happen I pay special attention to it. It's when I don't see it that really scares me.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #5
complete seperation with no safeties/freeclimb/hanging for dear life.
I was near the top of 70' Man maple so was able to leg and body lock and then lanyard in
and then retrieve my life line.
You know the point you grab your tail underneath or grab above the split tail to take up the slack
and you feel the pull on your ventral or bridge attachment and you just don't feel that comforting suspension feel.
You don't want to know that feeling!:\:
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #7
Yeah I kinda knew it was there but just under estimated that the exact movements I was about to make climbing in unisons could lead to full disconnect.
 
It's not something we like to think can happen...but we better not let the blinders get settled. Watch, in spades.
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #9
I pray I will be an old climber.
It always comes back to the same few things.
Fatigue, performance and distraction.
I spent the whole morning ground pruning, reducing, bucking up and piling brush underneath a failed Mulberry and two multileader Maples with many failures- lotta ground work in a smallish yard.
Then I was up in the trees to finish the crown reduction mother nature didn't.
So my groundie left for coffees cause we were feeling drained
I was heading up into the top of the most central of the leads to do some pole sawing when it happened
I remember thinking just a bit further and we would be half way home.
Minus 15 celsius or 5 F that day to compound things. Plus the lack of conditioning and practice due to the extreme cold this winter.

It should have been just a grounders day but we were desperate to get a good full day in before more cold rain and snow.
Messed up winter what ya going to do???
 
RopeArmour said:
Pencil size twig is all it took.
simply did not anticipate it could happen but it did. 1st time in over 15 yrs.
The action of pressing the gate against the twig and stepping up into a crotch and
then floating the biner from my centre D.
Stay alive friends.

I've rolled biners open before but never had one completely disconnect.
from now on no thing shall pass near the gate.
Cheers
Click to expand...

I'm a relatively new climber, but I had one start to roll open once as I was ascending and the gate was being pressed against the trunk of the tree. Not my only attachment to the rope, I don't think, but disconcerting nonetheless. As a result of that incident, I've started buying these carabiners when I feel the need for more.

http://www.treestuff.com/store/catalog.asp?category_id=130&item=483

The button on these biners is towards the inside, so unlikely that rubbing against a trunk or branch will cause it to open. So far, I've not yet had one of the button type biners try to open in an unintentional fashion on me. So I'll continue to buy these until I experience an issue with them, which I hope never happens.
 
Happened to me about a year ago, I started a thread here too.
Luckily mine was on the way down through some tight branches...I heard it and when I looked my gate was wide open. I had weight in the system so no chance of it coming adrift but still, a bit of a WOW moment.
Glad you are ok!
 
So....were these double action or triple action biners? I can understand a double action twisting open (which is how it has been described so far).

But a triple (like the Petzl below) that must be slid forward and then twisted before it opens?
 

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Gary it is relatively easy to have a triple action come undone. I quit using them to girth my climbing line as so many times if you had them oriented wrong just by the tree pushing on them the gate would roll open. As they were loaded they never came undone but I now tie a running bowline.
 
Tim, those will work well for a while. They have a tendency to get grime in them and the ball can get stuck in making it just a twist and open biner. Keep an eye on them down the road. :)

I've had an ISC mighty mouse open before. Not the biners fault, just the perfect combination while against the branch. It was on my bridge ring and didn't come off.
 
PCTREE said:
Gary it is relatively easy to have a triple action come undone. I quit using them to girth my climbing line as so many times if you had them oriented wrong just by the tree pushing on them the gate would roll open. As they were loaded they never came undone but I now tie a running bowline.
Click to expand...


RB?
 
It happened to me too 5 or 6 times, but not a total disconnect though.
Well, almost.
The triple action (push, rotate) isn't safer than the double one, just combine a slight backward movement with a side way displacement against the bark and you open it.
Same if the second rope is rubbing against the biner of the first one. You put some slack on the second rope to move closer to the first ty-in point and you hear "click". Gasp! stop right now and check !
One time, after a click (a rope on biner case) I found that the splice's biner jumped around the hitch's biner instead of being clipped in !
Even now, I can't figure how it happened. Scary.

Keep your eyes and your ears opened !
 
Another thing in your dDRT split tail system is to have the gates facing opposite directions.... I am also a big double/triple checker. I like the petzl amd with the little ball for a button. And also the rock exotica stainless steel biners for added peace of mind.
 
I have heard tell of a big guy spiking up 60' only to find the business end of his flipline was clipped to an un-rated accessory biner on his saddle instead of his D-Ring......!!!! :O
 
I sort of did that once... Not quite to 60 feet. My clip was not locked due to the adjustment strap on my leg straps coming loose and was in the clip holding it open unlocked. So the clip was not fully closed even though the hook of the clip was through the D. Spooked me good. Little too much slack on the flip line could have really ended poorly.
 
pantheraba said:
So....were these double action or triple action biners? I can understand a double action twisting open (which is how it has been described so far).

But a triple (like the Petzl below) that must be slid forward and then twisted before it opens?
Click to expand...

Gary, the incident I had was with that exact type of triple action carabiner.

Tim
 
Mine was triple action...I slid down through a narrow branch, moved forward and then leaned in...1,2,3...open
 
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