Lately, I've been reading a lot about belaying and descending and the devices used to accomplish such things. For those of you who are familiar with On Rope, you will know that the authors aren't fond of figure 8 devices because they twist the rope. Apparently, that is the same case with the use of a Munter hitch on a figure 8 or a biner. That is reason enough for me to consider other options, but not sufficient reason to consider something as expensive as a Petzl I'D. While the prospect of slowly returning to the ground with the use of Prusik hitches is very appealing, there may be occasions when a faster descent is required. I'm curious about what others have chosen as their method of quick descent. One very inexpensive option covered in the Smith/Padgett book is a device they call an Air Traffic Control (ATC). In the On Rope catalog, the same device seems to be referred to as a Kong Chuy. Does anybody have any experience with this device? I'll try to paste an image (courtesy of OnRope.com), but in case that doesn't work, you can try this _link_.
http://www.onrope1.com/store/images/products/preview/432464.jpg ![]()
P.S. For those of you who weighed in on the discussion concerning floating D type saddles, you may be interested to know that I went with the NT Tengu. Thanks for all your input!
cambium
