Climbing Quickdraws and Carabiners
Climbing quickdraws are essential to sport climbing and many other types. Qickdraws are used to anchor a lead climber to certain points on the rock wall. Rock climbing can be a dangerous sport without protection and safety gear, one of the primary components of safety gear is a set of quickdraws. They will be helpful in basically all types of climbing, with the exception of bouldering and free-climbing.
They work by attaching the carabiner at one end into the bolt in the rock, and the carabiner at the other end to the rope. That way, whenever a lead climber falls, he will only fall as far as the last bolt where he attached a quickdraw. They are made up of two carabiners attached with a length (5” – 12”) of webbing. One carabiner has a either a solid bent gate or a wire gate (this end should be attached to the rope), and the other has a solid straight gate (which should be hooked into the bolt in the rock).
Any experienced climber will tell you that quickdraws have saved their life at one point or another. They are able to hold a climber’s weight, even from a fall. Before your next climbing excursion, don’t forget to pick up a set of climbing quickdraws.