For sheer versatility, whether you are alpine or ice climbing, heading up El Cap, sport or trad climbing or even TR-ing in the gym, ATC devices are impossible to beat. Configurations abound, some have a V-notch to cinch better on smaller ropes, while others have cooling fins. Of all devices, the ATC is the most popular and common. ATC style devices are also super light, usually around three ounces, and compact, about the size of an apricot.

In any use, it effectively clamps on the rope, giving you good control whether rappelling or belaying. A large surface area keeps the device relatively cool, although it can get scorching hot during multiple long rappels. The ATC-style device works well because the rope feeds straight in and straight out, so it twists the rope only minimally and feeds smoothly, although function depends to a large degree on the rope diameter, stiffness and coating. Most other climbing companies that manufacture belay devices have a similar product. The Black Diamond ATC-a tubular style belay device-is classic and still a great piece of gear. Now nearly every company has a tubular belay device of some design. Basically a formed tube of aluminum with rope slots and a cable loop to keep you from dropping the thing, the ATC was so simple and worked so well that its name, like that of Xerox, soon became synonymous for this style of device. The Black Diamond Air Traffic Controller, or “ATC,” was the first of a genre of devices that were lighter and more compact than the old Sticht plate. Today, while the basic devices are about the same, coming in various shapes, weights and complexities, there is also newer assisted braking technology that is a game changer. Both devices worked fundamentally the same way by crimping the rope and locking it off when it was weighted. You either punched a bight of rope through the small hole of a Figure-8 device, or put it through a hole milled into a flat plate of aluminum called a Sticht plate. Back in “the day,” whenever that was, you had two choices for a belay device.

Atc guide rock and ice