History of the Auto-Belay

Hydraulic Auto-Belay’s have been in the making since early 90’s. From the first single stroke Auto-Belay to the sophisticated dual redundant system today it has seen changes and improvements. From design to safety, we have continued to improve upon the system. From a Boy Scout leader seeing a hydraulic system being used on an Amusement Device, he designed the very first Hydraulic Auto-Belay, the rest is History;

Generation 1: Single handmade fiberglass cylinder, with glued on aluminum ends. The upper and lower pulleys were mounted directly to the ends of the cylinders. We used a 3.5' pulley and used an air-tank that served 3 to 4 Auto-Belays at a time.

Generation 2: This was the first time we placed 2 hydraulic cylinders next to each other to have a “true redundancy” system. Upper pulley box was permanently mounted to the climbing wall structure, while the lower pulley box was mounted to the top of the hydraulic cylinders. The climbing wall structure was the main bracing for the Generation 2 Auto-Belay system. Remote air-tank still serviced 3-4 Auto-belays.

Generation 3: SARB, Single Route Auto-Belay. This was the design that evolved from the first two generations of Auto-Belays. We made them 100% self-contained. Allowing us to make them available for applications other than our climbing walls.

Generation 4: Refined design and improved hardware is making this the most advanced Auto-Belay safety system available today. With Generation 4, we can offer Auto-Belays up to 80', WOW! With millions of cycles on our Auto-Belays without a single failure, this is the ONLY system you can trust.