How to make an Alpine Quick Draw

I thought I'd do a quick blog on how to make an alpine quick draw.
An alpine quick draw is different from a sports-climbing one, because it has a longer, extendable sling. The long sling can be very usefull, but you don't wan't a 60cm long sling hanging from your harness.
But, what do you do with it?

Alpine Quick Draw

I make them with a 60cm Mammut Contact Dyneema sling, a Wild Country Astro wire-gate carabiner (small) and a Wild Country Helium wire-gate carabiner (large) and I usually fix the sling to the large carabiner. Extended this draw is 60cm long, not extended it's about 15cm.

step 1: bring the ends of a fully extend alpine quick draw to each other

step 2: move the large carabiner through the small one

step 3: clip the loop that has formed with the large carabiner

step 4: pull on both carabiners in opposite directions

et voila!

I use the small carabiner to clip in to protection. If you need the draw extended, unclip the loose ends of the sling from the large carabiner (this is the one the rope will run through).

edit: please take care when using a rubber keep-the-sling-in-its-place-holder-thingy. Make sure you don't weight the extended quick-draw on only that thingy. Please watch this video to see what I'm talking about.

If you liked this post, please support this blog by buying your gear via this link: