HOODOO

Introducing one of the latest descender on to the market, The HOODOO.

The goal of the device was to allow various friction settings to be applied on the fly to accommodate for the dynamic friction encountered during large rappels. I often found myself on large rappels playing around with my rigging in an attempt to hit that middle ground where a comfortable, controlled speed was found without too much or too little friction.

Hiking in southern Utah and seeing several of the natural HOODOO’s, brought about the idea of a skinny base topped with a larger top section to add friction and hold the rope securely in place. This translated into the two side protrusions or Hoodoo’s on the sides of the device. Hearing concerns from some users regarding the smaller hooks/horns on some other devices, one goal was to make the internal radius on this device large enough to completely capture the rope so there would be little to no chance of it coming off unexpectedly or users struggling to get friction reliably in place. Another concern was wear, as here in the southwest we often find ourselves with wet sandy ropes that eat through devices rather quickly.

With this in mind, early prototypes were monitored for wear and the areas of most abuse were increased in thickness in the hopes of extending the useful life of the device. Throughout testing we have found the friction settings very easy to apply and remove mid rappel to adjust for the friction/terrain, the device has been simple to lock off quickly, plaquette functions as intended, and the symmetrical design allows it to be flipped over to extend the useful life.