Looking for specific harness...

[Jason4]

On 3/26/2019 at 5:58 AM, genepires said:

to be honest, it has been a while since I was a AMGA trained guide so my observation is a decade old and could have changed since.  But if you really have fears that your rappel setup could mechanically fail mid rappel, then by all means attach your backup to a full strength belay loop.   The weakest links in the rappel linkages is the anchor, rope and the brake hand.  Looking at all the rappel accidents, never has the rappel biner or device broke.  Anchors fail, ropes get cut or control of brake is lost. 

Having taken a rock to the chest mid rappel and almost passing out, my main concern is to prevent the loss of the brake strand.   The leg loop is perfectly acceptable for accomplishing this task.  And since I rarely extend my rappel device, there is no way to use the autoblock on the belay loop..

but whatever, if you feel there is only one way to perform a task, then flame on.

Flaming wasn't my intention, just trying to make sure newer climbers are aware of current best practices.  I climb with a lot of people who are of the mindset that whatever they learned when they started is the last thing they needed to learn and there have been unfortunate outcomes as a result.  I'm always of the opinion that changing something up that takes less than a minute to do but eliminates a possible single point failure with high consequences is worth taking the time to change.  Extending a rappel and putting the autoblock on the belay loop doesn't eliminate all single point failures but prerigging the second can at least reduce the risk for the first person rapping in the case of a single strand failure in the rope and they can also keep an eye on the rap anchor.  Climbing will never be safe but we should always reduce the risk if it doesn't cost us anything in terms of time or energy.