Mammut Smart Alpine belay device

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Mammut's Fritz Schäfer, Climbing Equipment Product Manager, explains how the award-winning Smart Alpine belay device was developed and how to use it.

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********TRANSCRIPT (does not include the last 2 min of video)

My name is Fritz Schäfer. I am from Mammut. I am the product manager for all the climbing equipment at Mammut and I am going to present the Smart Alpine to you. The Smart Alpine is a belay device that we first introduced in 2011. It’s a belay device that works for both single ropes and half ropes. But our main focus here was during the development, to develop a device that works in the alpine, so for multi-pitch routes, using two ropes. And the idea was to create a belay device that has a strong braking support; so it’s almost an auto-locking device – it’s not fully auto-locking but it got a really strong braking support and that’s the great benefit of this device. We offer it in two sizes, we have the one that ranges for ropes from 7.5 to 9.5 mm, and more important for the American market is the one that ranges from 8.9 to 10.5mm ropes. And I am going to show you how this device works.

Belaying a lead climber

For belaying a lead climber –I’ll have a single rope here, that makes it easier to show how it works. You insert the rope inside of the device – like this – so this is your brake line; this is the line that goes to the climber. Then you put your carabiner inside of the device, clip it to the belay loop of the harness, and this is the position that you start working with. And now, for paying out rope, you pull the lever here with your thumb, straight away from you and now you can pay out rope really easily to your lead climber. And in case of a fall, the device almost locks. So we clearly state that you should always keep a hand on the braking line, even though the Smart executes the real braking force on the rope. In order to release again, push your thumb under the lever and then the rope is released again and you can continue paying out rope.


Belaying a following climber

So we have an anchor here. Let’s place this carabiner here, and now we’ve got this red loop here and I clip the Smart Alpine to the anchor and then I put in the rope exactly the same, I push it through the opening of the Smart Alpine. And now the big difference compare to belaying a lead climber is I push it even further outside of the device and I put the braking carabiner outside of the device – like this. And again, here is my second climber that I belay from the anchor. This is my brake hand and now, I can really easily and smoothly take in slack, belaying a second climber. If the second climber falls, the device will lock automatically, so I don’t really need any force on the braking line anymore. In order to release the braking mechanism of the device, I can just lever the device and now I could lower a second climber, if I wanted too. So again, taking in, slack, super easy, super smooth and totally auto-locking in case of a fall of the second climber. Now when the second climber reaches the anchor and he belays himself on the anchor and he switches to become a lead-climber, I can easily switch from belaying a second climber to belay a lead-climber. I just unclip the device. Take out the braking carabiner, put it back on my harness and now I am back in the mode for belaying a lead climber. So it’s super fast, it’s one carabiner movement to switch from belaying a second climber to belay a lead climber with the Alpine.

Intended Uses

You can use it for both sport climbing and alpine climbing. For sport climbing, we would use a single rope; for alpine climbing, you normally climb on double ropes, that’s why it got the 2 slots. So what I demonstrated now with the single rope works exactly the same with a double-rope. You just put both ropes, in both slots of the Smart Alpine. So the primary target customer clearly is the alpine climber, multi-pitch climber, big wall climber and I’d say it’s a device that can be used by anybody ranging from beginner to expert. I think especially for beginners. The great advantage is the almost auto-locking function if you belay a lead climber but also the auto-locking function when you belay a second climber. So this gives an additional safety margin, this strong braking support – specially in the alpine – when you have to catch a lead climber fall, as a belayer you gonna be maybe torn against the wall or something like that, if the fall hits you very hard. And so the breaking support really adds safety to the device and this is why I think it’s also really good for beginners.