Grivel Twin Gate Carabiners

The combination of solid and wire gate was much easier to operate and after a short period of familiarisation became pretty much second nature. How much did I like this carabiner? Well I went out and purchased another two with my hard earned pennies and I’ll happily buy the Plume when it becomes available. In use it was quicker to set securely than a standard screw gate with no risk of forgetting to screw it up and there was never a risk of it freezing shut even when getting dripped on at a (semi)frozen, icy belay. Is it the perfect locking carabiner? Not quite. There is a familiarisation period or ‘learning curve’ before you feel totally happy with them and they are a little trickier to unhook from rear racking loops on your harness. There are some placements when it’s a bit trickier to ‘hook’ the outer gate than a standard carabiner, such as a deep set wire where the loop has dropped into the crack, but it’s not a deal breaker especially as I tended to use them mainly on the rope end of extenders/slings. Something I didn’t consider however is that you may be totally happy using your shiny new twin gates but your partner may not! After we swapped leads for the final pitch of Crest Route in SCNL I had to suppress my laughter as cries of ‘Witchcraft!’ assailed me from above as Bruce endeavoured to open a twin gate I’d passed to him on a long sling!