Front	Rear

Open for Rigging	As Found

Technical Details

I acquired this ascender from Liviu Valenas in 2022.

This ascender is 67 mm. tall, 92 mm. wide, 27 mm. thick, and weighs 134 g. The shell is galvanized steel and the cam is also steel. The rope channel is 16 mm. wide. There is a 4 mm. hole in the base of the shell. The cam radius increases from 11 to 23 mm. over an angle of 48°, giving a 40° cam angle. The cam face is smooth with a slight U-shaped groove.

There are no markings on this ascender.

Comments

This ascender was found in Sura Boghi cave in the Bihor Mountains of Romania in 2022. Liviu believes that it was lost by a Polish expedition to the cave during the early 1970s. Although rusted, it was in relatively good condition, and I was able to chemically remove the rust.

Because of the shape of the cam, the rope must be rigged from the bottom up. The large clearance makes this easy. The toothless cam probably requires having the long lever arm found on this ascender. Once loaded, the long arm causes the ascender to rotate almost 90 degrees, so quite a bit of motion is lost.

This ascender resembles the Ural-Alp in form. Unlike the Ural-Alp, the cam on this ascender is not spring-loaded, so the ascender tends to slide downward when unloaded.