Black Diamond nForce ascender

One thing that has really annoyed me on my expeditions has been the Petzl Ascension ascender.

Annoyance #1 – The hand hole in the Petzl Ascension is too small for high altitude mountaineering use.  Simply put, you will not be able to put your down mitt through the hole to grab onto the hand support.  It was my mistake to buy this without properly testing it with altitude down mitts.  It was difficult trying to pull one’s weight whilst gripping the ascender only with my fingertips (not all the way in).  The contoured plastic grip got in the way.  It also 'compacted' the down...and my hands are of small-medium size.

Annoyance #2 – There were a couple of times when the teeth did not bite onto the fixed line rope when climbing Manaslu.  I had tried to clear away the ice from the teeth but I could not work out why it slipped!  After this happened a couple of times I was very weary that it could fail when I was vertical.  I just couldn’t trust it.  The rope was thick enough (I think it was 10mm rope).

Therefore I had to buy another ascender.

I noticed that Black Diamond had just updated the nForce ascender with the Index ascender.  Looking at the pictures, it appeared as if the Index model had reduced the hand hole size.  Therefore I quickly purchased the nForce before they were no longer available.  Also, I do not know if it can still support the thumb opening up the mechanism to accept a rope -using mitts will require this feature.

 The nForce has been around for quite a while and the good news is that I could put my hand into the hand hole whilst wearing my down mitt (TNF Himalayan medium sized mitt).  It just fitted into the hole without crushing all the down on the mitt, which would reduce warmth.

The nForce is hinged and this is a worry…as mechanical moving parts can fail.  A one piece design will always be safer and less risk of failure.  The ability to use your thumb and trigger finger to activate the rope clipping mechanism was handy.  I have yet to use this nForce in the snow but I hope that the teeth will not fail me on an icy rope.

The construction is top notch as you would expect, and everything worked smoothly.  I wonder if it will develop some play in the hinge mechanism as it gets used more often (hope not)?  Only time will tell.