Grivel

Up & Down Ascender

This thing is Awesome!

Familiarity:

I've used it several times

Multifunctional, it's not just an ascender. It's also a descender and a rope clamp. The release on mine is also extremely easy to operate one handed, with glove. And due to the multitude of holes everywhere it's also useful used remotely to haul material. It's a really a very well thought out tool, the uses are myriad. My only gripe, and this is not really even just the Grivel A+D is, the teeth in the clamp will rip up a rope over time, I wish someone would make the clamping action more like a Rescuescender or Grigri where the surfaces are smooth but still arrest the rope. Overall, My opinion on this Ascender is it's worth every penny, and due to the functionallity almost makes it a no contest when compared to the other major offerings. The only exception being the Climbing technology one with the pulley on it, but I'd still take this over that in any situation involving rocks and climbing. It's also an additional layer of redundancy, if you already carry something to abseil with, now you automatically carry 2 things to abseil with, I think redundancy can be worth it's weight in gold sometimes.