More money than sense? Preliminary review of the Skylotec Spark

[AlexR]

I've been pretty absent from UKC as I used to spend all my time either working or digging. After recently relocating to Germany, I've been lurking on the forum a bit more again for that UK caving fix.
This has reminded me that (before I became completely set in my ways) I used to enjoy gear reviews, so maybe someone could benefit from my experience with the Skylotec Spark, a Petzl RIG-like descender. I have various other esoteric bits and bobs I'll probably post in the near future, too.

tl; dr: I'm a fan and it will likely become my descender of choice. Bear in mind I've never caved on a RIG or I'D, so can't really compare it. My Spark has only seen around 300m of action so far, none of it in a cave, so take all this with a pinch of salt.
My standard descender of choice for the last 17 years has been the old style Stop, with a BMS microrack for dig commuting (because after going through 3 top bobbins, a bottom bobbin and a face plate I wanted something more financially efficient).

The elephant in the room: Cost. This thing will set you back in the region of £190. Is it £75 better than a Stop? I would say yes. Also I hate the new Stop and can't get on with it. I'm also sat on a stack of 6 old style Stops which I've hoarded like some kind of Luddite dragon, so it's not like the Spark is my only way out.
I paid my own hard earned cash at full retail for this thing after a test run in a brick and mortar store.

Why not a RIG or I'D? I looked at both of those, but disliked the sloppy face plate (analogous to say panel gaps on a car, a device that rattles like hell just doesn't scream quality). Also the pin which is clearly a wear problem. In contrast the Spark feels like a much better built product - obviously at a price. One chunk of metal, no slop, no plastic in sight. As you can see on the second picture, there is no pin; the rope runs over the entire stainless steel cam. This will hopefully wear more uniformly. Time will tell. I also tried the Edelrid Megawatt and did not like it one bit.

The control is very good on cordage between 11mm-7mm, even on slippery 7mm there was only the tiniest bit of slippage. And I could use stiff, old 11mm without having to feed rope through. For comparison, with the same 7mm cord I had to hold on very tight with the Stop & Raumer combo, and 11mm requires very annoying feeding of the rope. Individual experience may vary, my Stop has a custom top stainless steel bobbin which makes it faster than the aluminium version. I have no idea how a modern Stop would do.
I'm in no way suggesting anyone should do this, but you can also descend 5mm Beal pure Dyneema by wrapping the cord over the cam three times. Control is surprisingly good.
Even though I really didn't get on with the handle on the new style Stop, the one on the Spark doesn't bother me. I still prefer the Stop squeeze one, but I'll get used to the Spark pulling lever I think.

Here is where the Spark becomes £75 better than the Stop in my eyes: Threading it is very intuitive and more importantly fast. I did 10 full thread-unthread cycles with my Stop (not even including the Raumer) and the Spark, and the results were pretty telling - 6s for a full open-thread-close-open-unthread-close cycle on the spark, 11s on the Stop - a device I've used for 17 years.
Also, you can take the rope out of the Spark even if it's under a tiny bit of tension, where for the Stop it needs to be completely slack. I appreciate this won't be of any interest if your caves feature 20 rebelays or so, but for deep alpine caving I consider this a significant time saving. In reality I think the advantage is much higher than the math would suggest, I only have to think how often I've sworn at too-tight rope loops which have made getting the Stop off a pain in the backside.

Like the RIG/ I'D it's way easier to take in slack, which is quite nice. You could actually use it as an emergency chest ascender (won't be winning any speed records, but it's not awful), which is only technically possible with the Stop but completely unfeasible in practice.

Here comes the big surprise for me: Weight. It's big and clunky, after all the entire thing is made out of metal - not a piece of plastic in sight. So I thought it'll be a lot worse than the Stop. Not true, my Stop + Raumer weigh in at 540g and the Spark at 518g.

It's also considerably easier to give out slack with the Spark than the Stop, which is a nice boon for bolt climbing. Alex (not me) from The Rope Access Chanel has a nice long term review video on youtube, though this is from a rope access perspective. Be aware that cross-loading can be a real issue with this device.

So there you go, if you've got £200 or so burning a hole in your pocket I think you could do worse things with that than buy a Spark.

 

[cap n chris]

Fwiw I had the absolute pleasure of playing with a Harken industries descender (I can't recall its name as I type) and it was admittedly quite a chunk of stainless and retailed at something like £600 but boy oh boy was it beautiful in every way. Arguably unsuitable for caving but definitely a Rolls Royce piece of Rescue kit. Late note
Found it...

 

[AlexR]

Count on Harken to make Skylotec prices look reasonable.
Coincidentally one of the other bits of kit I want to share my experience of is the Harken Ninja. The metalwork is great, but the webbing must’ve fallen off a Temu truck, and the adjustability/ buckle is shit. I‘m sure at around £100 their budget could’ve stretched to some dyneema rather than forcing me to do that bit myself.

 

[cap n chris]

Count on Harken to make Skylotec prices look reasonable.
Coincidentally one of the other bits of kit I want to share my experience of is the Harken Ninja. The metalwork is great, but the webbing must’ve fallen off a Temu truck, and the adjustability/ buckle is shit. I‘m sure at around £100 their budget could’ve stretched to some dyneema rather than forcing me to do that bit myself.

I have one and consider it to be the absolute dog's compared to other manufacturers. Choices, choices...

 

[Badlad]

Harken Clutch? Great for irata rescue training etc but not if you have to buy it yourself. Spark also becoming popular in rope work training. The problem for most caving is that they are quite bulky compared to a stop/simple and that tends to put cavers off. That and the price or course.

 

[andrewmcleod]

I love my Rigs (I think I'm on at least my fourth, if not fifth, now), but I have considered the Spark as it might be a lot cheaper in practice... should probably splash out and give it a go at some point. I also tried the Edelrid Megawatt and did not enjoy it at all.

 

[AlexR]

Time for a bit of an update. My Spark now has about 1.5km of underground use on it, some of that in pretty unfavourable conditions.

Overall, I continue to be impressed. It works even completely filled with glutinous clay containing small rocks. That same mixture has turned various ascenders into "manual operation only" mode, i.e. the cams have to be pressed shut individually.
The front plate becomes somewhat difficult to open under these conditions due to clay adhesion to the large faceplate, but even a Petzl Simple used in the same environment became difficult to operate.

If I were to be nitpicky, it can be difficult to get a smooth descent under these conditions and a breaking crab is advisable, otherwise it can be a bit stop-and-go. The autolock function has proved incredibly robust and works perfectly even on 8mm ropes covered in what is effectively lubricant. At a guess the Spark also picks up more clay than a Stop and therefore becomes comparatively heavier and marginally more annoying to clean.

More importantly for me, I've become very fond of basically having a 2-to-1 attached to you. This can make passing awkward rebelays significantly easier and is also very useful for rigging. Let's say as you're looking for that perfect bolt placement you realise it's actually 2m higher; no need to do a full on swap to ascending, just put on your hand ascender and use the Spark as a chest ascender (something I would never even contemplate with a bobbin or rack type descender).

The fact that you only need a tiny amount of rope to thread it is useful especially when previous riggers got the loop size wrong or failed to account for rope shrinkage, but I would urge any Spark/ RIG etc. style descender user to consider the rope needs of bobbin or even rack users.

 

[phizz4]

Abaris have got these at £187 at present, which compares favourably with the Rig (£156 is the cheapest I can see at the moment) given its quality and usability. Interestingly, Abaris suggests ropes of 10-12mm, Skylotec say 9-12.5 mm.

Skylotec Spark Descender

The compact Skylotec Spark Descender. Designed without anti-panic function, which enables fast, precise and uninterrupted abseiling. Next working day delivery.

www.abaris.co.uk

 

[riccardoprandini01]

Wow, I’m amazed by this device. In Italy you wouldn’t even see it get close to the entrance of a cave—having just a stop descender is already quite rare.


Very interesting. It would be great to see how you use it on rebelays, or in case you need to bring an injured person down to the ground.

 

[AlexR]

Wow, I’m amazed by this device. In Italy you wouldn’t even see it get close to the entrance of a cave—having just a stop descender is already quite rare.


Very interesting. It would be great to see how you use it on rebelays, or in case you need to bring an injured person down to the ground.

Generally speaking, cavers are very conservative when it comes to gear - and with good reason! Outside of rope access in cement silos we probably travel in the least hospitable environments for equipment imaginable without much of an error margin. If your newfangled kit kicks it at the bottom of a deep cave you're in a really bad position. To top it all off, we frequently use this equipment well outside its design envelope. Case in point, a lot of the mileage of the above Spark was on 8mm rope - it's only certified down to 9mm.

In practice it works very well on 8mm and even 7mm rope/ cord with one person dangling from it, though this will probably cease to be the case once you apply a rescue load (the Spark is rated to an encouraging 280kg vs. 200kg for Stop/ RIG). Since you mentioned rescue, I find it a lot better/ versatile for rescue than a Stop (old style, I don't have a new one) and miles better than a Simple. In comparison to the RIG, the hole on the handle of the Spark takes 6mm cordage and makes it very easy to descend "remotely", this is also useful for very tight pitchheads without the need to extend the descender on a cowstail or similar shenanigans (don't forget to disable the locking function of the handle by putting a carabiner through the top becket).

For a mid rope rescue pick-up there is no functional difference in the procedure from using a Simple or Stop. Of course if the casualty was on a Simple you'll find them hanging at the next rebelay, or, less ideally, on the ground. Personally I prefer to hijack the casualties descender rather than transfer them onto mine, but if you do end up carrying out any sort of load transfer it's much easier to take in virtually all the slack on a Spark. If you end up having to pass rebelays you'll be swapping descenders anyway, but as this is a post about the Spark and not improvised rope rescue let's not get carried away.

Same for rebelays, the basic procedure remains exactly the same. Whichever descender you use, at some point you will have to take the weight off your short cowstail. At awkward rebelays, or if the knot has pinched the carabiner (serves you right for tying a Fig8 instead of a bowline or fusion), carabiner caught in a maillon, etc. it can take more than one "sitting/ pulling up" maneuver to get the cowstail out. With a Stop, you're right back where you started - pretty shit if you have 20kg hanging off you. With a Spark, you take in the slack at the same time (in a convenient 2:1 pullie). The weight is now off your short cowstail, you know your descender works, and off you go.

The Spark is also certified for belaying and the instruction manual specifically shows this, I believe the new Stop is also certified for belaying but it's not shown in the technical notice. Useful if you do a lot of bolt climbing. I also prefer to use a Spark as a chest attachment point (instead of a chest ascender) when back-cleaning complex climbs, particularly roofs.


Ultimately there is only one way to find out if a device works well, and that is to go and test it - exactly why I've written the above. That being said, like any piece of gear it's only as good as its user. The best descender is the one you are comfortable using, a lot of hardened exped cavers I know prefer the Simple, and that's absolutely fine.


PS:
It's virtually impossible to thread in the rope incorrectly on the Spark, which I absolutely love. You might say that's ridiculous standing at the first pitch of a pleasant sport cave in the Dales, but let me tell you: At the end of a hard multi-day trip, with your descender resembling nothing but a clump of clay and your lizard brain trying to revert to 17 years of "thread bottom to top" muscle memory it's a feature I appreciate.