How to Improvise a Rappelling Device With Carabiners

You're several pitches up on a steep rock face and suddenly you hear a 'pling' and know that you, or perhaps your climbing partner, just dropped the rappel device. Fortunately, you can improvise a rappel device by using nothing more than the rope and five or six carabiners. This is usually known as a carabiner brake. The instructions given here are for rigging the carabiner brake on a fixed rappel line with only one strand. An identical process can be used to rig a rappel on a double-strand rappel that's threaded through a rappel anchor. See the Resources section for an example of how each rappel system would look.

Things You'll Need

  • Five or six carabiners
  • Climbing rope
  • Climbing harness
Show More

Instructions

    • 1

      Lay the rope out in front of you. It should be securely attached to a solid rappelling anchor, with the free (unattached) end trailing from the anchor in front of you down between your feet.

    • 2

      Place two oval or D-shaped carabiners on top of the rope, one on top of the other, lined up so that their long axes are parallel to the rope. The gates of the carabiners should be reversed and opposed; in other words, if you open both gates at the same time the gates should form a letter "X".

    • 3

      Pull a bight (loop) of the rope up through both carabiners.

    • 4

      Clip two more carabiners around the original carabiners, oriented perpendicular to them. The two new carabiners should completely encompass the first two carabiners, but not the bight of rope you pulled up; instead of encompassing the bight (loop) of rope they should pass through it, spine (un-gated) sides facing up toward the loop. When tightened the bight will squeeze the two new carabiners against the first two carabiners you placed.

    • 5

      Clip a large pear-shaped, locking carabiner to the first two carabiners you placed, then use this pear-shaped carabiner to connect the entire rig to your climbing harness. Always weight the rappel system and check to make sure it's secure, and that you can control the braking action, before unclipping from whatever safety device you've used to tether yourself to the anchors.

    • 6

      Control your speed of descent by pulling the free end of the rope against the carabiner brake so that it creates a sharp bend; the friction of this bend is what slows the speed of the rappel.