What's your cowstail & ascender setup...?

[Fjell]

Indeed. It is totally bizarre to me that cavers seem averse to hanging from a single cows tail and yet are aok on their single point descender. If you don't trust your cows tail perhaps you shouldn't be caving.

I am averse to hanging from a single cowstail, and don’t see the need to do so over a drop. It’s a temporary connection prone to gate loading etc.

I generally rig with the rope in the descender and pull it through. I then use cowstails for positioning. One cowstails is then OK for me, although I use two if available.

I don’t disconnect the last cowstail until I am descending and have checked it. I also have a possibly misplaced theory the Handy might save me if it went to shit as it will be in use before removing the last cowstail.

 

[andrewmcleod]

Have you seen most caver's cowstails?

On a more serious note, as already pointed out above a descender might be a single point but it is function-tested before use. On a traverse you are often not function-testing your cowstails (if it's not a hanging traverse) and it is easy to misclip/fail to clip completely into a loop (I've seen it many times with a gate still ajar). And if you use screwgates on your cowstails (which personally I think is the worst possible option) the screw part of the gate will sometimes stop the gate closing if it has done itself up slightly while the carabiner is open.

Also of course most cavers have snapgates on their cowstails where trusting one is a very different proposition to trusting a single descender. Personally I have double-action (twist, open) twistlocks and am happy to hang on one but I am very aware that it's very easy to accidentally remove your only cowstail (thinking you have another still in) or mis-clip it or whatever, so still best to test it before committing entirely...

In fact the more I think about this the more I think the attitude of 'always test' we apply to descenders and ascenders should be applied to cowstails, even if that test is just 'make damn sure you are properly attached'...

 

[caving_fox]

I know that initially I was introduced to Cow's Tails's it was as a safety feature, not an integral part of progression - perhaps to avoid having too many things to consider at once.. They were there to catch you if you get it wrong - so you always clipped them in. Hence it took a long time for me to want to hang on them as part of passing an obstacle, because it felt like I was doing something 'wrong' relying on the last piece of rope, same for traverses - the rope is there to catch you, not to hang on. Eventually when I started de-rigging and then rigging on my own I got over this. I'm not the only person I've met who felt like this.

 

[pwhole]

That was my point really - they are also appropriate for aid-climbing, traversing, work-positioning etc., and not just as a safety back-up. Also partly why I have four in total, and then I never run out. Bolting or rigging regularly definitely instills confidence in that regard. Incidentally I would never hang off just one without a backup, but that's what we do with descenders - unless it's at work with a second rope and a fall-arrest device.

 

[cap n chris]

I routinely hang off one.

 

[JAshley73]

So I recently purchased a Petzl Stop to satiate my curious 10 year old, who's showing an interest in Rappelling. (The plan was to start with a figure-8, but that's another story... LOL)

After playing with it myself, and re-configuring my cowstails and ascenders to the "European" way, I must say, holy-moly that's a nice setup. Performing a changeover as the previously posted British woman in the video was just great. I imagine it wouldn't take much time at all to perfect a changeover onto a bobbin, with my eyes closed, spinning on the rope, etc. (In a waterfall, now that might take longer to get used to... LOL)

I then tried this same setup & changeover with a rack, instead of a bobbin. Attaching the rack below my chest ascender, and then disconnecting the chest ascender. The first attempt was a failure, and resulted in me getting stuck... As others mentioend, there's so much slack in the rope above the rack, it's [nearly?] impossible to get enough slack out for a changeover. The climbing ascender was way too far up, and I couldn't get the slack out in order to weigh the rack, and unload the climbing ascender. I had to hang on the climbing ascender (single point) whilst I unthreaded the rack and then reattached the chest ascender, then downclimb to the ground.

I'm going to try this one more time with the rack - attaching it below the chest ascender, to see if I can position both ascenders better for a down-climb onto the rack. Probably need to downclimb farther down towards the rack, before removing the chest ascender. Otherwise, it'll be going back to the "American" way for racks, where we use the QAS/3rd ascender to aid with changeovers.