Front	Rear	Side

Front: Open for Rigging	Rear: Open for Rigging

Technical Details

I acquired my Trango Vergo from Moosejaw in 2016.

The Trango Vergo is 58 mm. long, 103 mm. wide, 32 mm. high, and weighs 193 g.

The Vergo consists of a cast steel back, milled aluminum front cover, plastic handle, and miscellaneous parts. The back is irregular in shape. The inside provides a rope channel with cast icons and arrow showing which end of the rope goes to the climber and which is used for belay. A tubular extension below the rope channel provides an axle for the cover to rotate on. The outer end of this extension is crimped over a steel washer to retain the cover. A hollow ends in a hooked lip that captures the cover when closed. The back of the plate has several reinforcing ribs.

The cover is milled from aluminum, and then anodized. Most of the cover is 5.4 mm. thick, but the portion fitting over the back axle is 17.7mm. thick. A small extension to this portion acts as a cam for stopping rope motion. An 8 mm steel pin pressed into the front cover rests in a cylindrical depression in the extension; this pin forms the part of the cam that contacts the rope. This provides wear resistance beyond what aluminum would provide. The left side of the cover is a circular arc that fits into the notch in the back’s hook.

The cover has a rivet-mounted plastic lever on its left side. A spring forces the lever clockwise to the closed position. To use the lever, swing it counter-clockwise, where depressing the lever will cause a3.9 mm. pin in the aluminum cover to ride in a molded cam surface in the lever, forcing the cover to turn clockwise with respect to the back, thereby releasing the cam pressure on the rope. Although perhaps sounding strange, this isn't a typo: pushing down on the lever moves the left side of the cover up and the back down.

The front of my Vergo is printed with the Reading is Dangerous icon, a climber icon, "Ø8.9-10.7mm," "EN15151-1," "CE0321," "VERGO," "↓THUMB HERE↓," and a hand-holding-a-rope icon. The bottom is printed with "←" and "LEFT." The rear is printed with "INSPECT" around an eye-in-an-oval icon over a "↓." The rear body has the cast icons and arrow mentioned earlier on the inside, and a "1" cast on the outside.

Comment

The Vergo is well made, and in many ways reminds me of the Trango Cinch. It is a complex device that requires more training and familiarization than most devices, much like the Petzl Grigri. Like the Grigri, the Vergo provides an autolocking feature that may be useful on big walls where the belayer is snoozing, but I’d rather have my second awake. At least the Cinch is much smaller and lighter than the Grigri.