Having spotted this on another page (in a slightly different orientation) I decided to make a brief video on how to convert a lower into a haul making use of the far more efficient Traxion, but then critically be able to convert back to a lower again if needed.
If using a traxion to haul (which is super efficient) it’s critical that leaders can convert this back to a lower quickly. There’s been some serious incidents and at least one fatality over the years when users have not been able to convert the haul back to a lower. The BCA rope work documents demonstrates one option for this by fitting a depending device to the loose end of the rope coming out of the traction and counterbalancing to release the cam on the traxion.
The leader can then lower HOWEVER the leader must ensure they are anchored to the ground so ensure the defending device does not hit the traxion. Pete Knight recently highlighted some issues with this which is well worth a read: https://www.peakinstruction.com/blog/potentially-dangerous-interaction-between-petzl-rig-micro-traxion/
In this video there’s the assumption that a lower is converted to a haul so a short sling is put in place between the descending device and traxion. Leaders could easily rig in the same way if setting out to haul. One advantage of a sling (not mentioned in the video) is should you need to convert the haul to a lower quickly, once the descending device has been fitted the sling could be cut.
Videos here: