UKC

Hi everyone,

I am a newbie and I'll be taking a glacier guide course in the near future. One component of this course is crevasse rescue so I'm currently buying gear for it. I know absolutely nothing at the moment regarding kit. I need to purchase a petzl traxion to use for crevasse rescue. I have found a petzl pro traxion used in near new condition so my question is whether or not that is suitable for use or should I go with the much lighter traxion?

Any help is appreciated

Cheers

Alex

The pro traxion is great but is bulkier and heavier than the micro. I would personally recommend the micro for crevasse rescue. If there is any opportunity in a mountain setting to cut down on weight without sacrifice you should take it.

They are also cheaper.

I would say the Pro traxion is best used in hauling/pulley set ups when big walling or in situation where efficiency trumps weight. 

slawrence speaks the Big True-True. Avoid the pro trax. go for the micro trax, nano trax or edelrid spoc.

although the latter two are potentially a step too far due to the smaller diameter wheel. Someone (Andy KP or yann camus?) had looked into this a bit, though I cant remember their conclusion 

Protrax would work, but is definitely not the ideal tool for the job because it's very heavy in comparison to other options.

Microtrax much more suitable. Nanotrax or the new minitrax (not sure if available yet), or the Edelrid Spoc or a CT roll n lock would all be more suitable than the pro-trax. They're all adequate for pulling someone out of a crevasse and a lot lighter than a protrax.

Worth bearing in mind that it's a fairly recent thing (last 15 years maybe?) to carry a progress capture pulley for use in crevasse rescue. In the past the recommendation would be to use a krab and a prusik for progress capture. A krab/prusik combo still works, so you don't 'need' a progress capture pulley. However, all of the above devices will be noticeably easier to use than a krab/prusik combo, both in terms of simplicity of setup and in terms of  actually physically pulling the rope through (less loss/friction round any of the above pulleys than any krab).