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Bat
(#3382)

Front	Rear

Technical Details

I acquired this CTRA Bat Descender from Chao-Chi Sha in 2024. It is from the first production run.

The CTRA Bat Descender is milled from aluminum alloy plate and then hard anodized Mine is 130 mm. tall, 100 mm. wide, and 11 mm. thick. The rope hole is 50 mm. high and 46 mm. wide. The top center thickness is 11 mm. The shaft length and width are 29 mm. and 16 mm., respectively. The eye measures 14 mm. by 14 mm. The ears are 17.7 and 24.6 mm. long. My CTRA Bat Descender weighs 120 g.

The front it printed with the CTRA logo, "CTRA," "BAT Descender," and "24D197."

Comments

The Bat Descender looks like an On Rope Canyoneering Hoodoo without the belay slot and lower horns. It falls into my miscellaneous figure eights with ears category. Like many canyoneering descenders,it can be rigged in numerous configurations to give various amounts of friction. If you follow the instructions, you should be able to convert between specific friction pairs while on rappel.

The eye is small and there are many normal carabiners and maillons that will not fit through it. This is a fatal flaw, in my opinion. A tiny eye restricts versatility, and eliminates the option of using two carabiners for redundancy.

The eye has an annoying o-ring insert. In my mind, this is just a bad idea that won't go away.

• The o-ring keeps the Snail from moving freely on the carabiner.
• It makes attaching and removing the Snail more difficult.
• It catches in the notch in some of the carabiners that will fit.

Plan on dedicating a special carabiner if you want to use your Snail.

Canyoneering descender designers and users may love o-ring eyes, but I hate them. O-ring eyes increase cost without providing a corresponding benefit. I see too many disadvantages to the small o-ring eye design and no advantages.

• Reducing the chance of dropping the device in one unlikely scenario by adding another item to drop doesn't count as an advantage, proper technique solves the dropping problem.
• I'm told that the tight o-ring guards against cross-loading and rollouts, but proper harness design and proper technique completely eliminate this concern.
• An o-ring eye may keep the orientation of the rappel device more stable when unloaded, which might help speed the process of coming off rope. The one place that I see this being relevant is if you're floating/treading in water over your head, but proper flotation is a much better and safer choice to address this concern.

You may disagree with me about o-ring eyes, I don't mind, but the undersize o-ring eye alone is sufficient for me to eliminate the Snail from serious consideration.

The Bat Descender is similar in size and weight to standard figure eights, and would make a reasonable alternative if the eye were not so small.

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Bat Extreme
(#4027)

Front	Rear

Technical Details

I acquired this CTRA Bat Extreme Descender from CanyonZone.com - Gertjan van Pelt in 2025.

The CTRA Bat Descender is milled from aluminum alloy plate and then hard anodized Mine is 130 mm. tall, 100 mm. wide, and 11 mm. thick. The rope hole is 50 mm. high and 46 mm. wide. The top center thickness is 11 mm. The shaft length and width are 29 mm. and 16 mm., respectively. The eye measures 14 mm. by 14 mm. The ears are 19.2 and 24.9 mm. long. My CTRA Bat Descender weighs 122 g.

The front it printed with the CTRA logo, "CTRA," "BAT Descender," and "24G168."

Comments

The Bat Extreme is descrbed as "like Bat descender but even smoother!" I do not find any difference between the Bat and the Bat Extreme in use. Holding the two side-by-side, I cannot find any difference either. Accurate measurements did not identify any difference beyond normal manufacturing tolerances. As far as I can tell, my Bat and the Bar Extreme are identical. Gertjan agreed, writing to me, "I don't see any difference to the descenders visually when I compare the 2 models."