Choosing A Climbing Rope

Word from the editors: We'd like to thank Kathy and Leigh from MountainWoman.com for this excellent piece.

Lots of people ask about what to look for in buying a rope. It's a hard question to answer because there are so many variations both in the properties and features of ropes, and in the types of climbing that they are best suited for. Balance the relative importance of various features according to the type of climbing activity the rope will be used for.

The first thing to think about when shopping for a rope is what kind of climbing you will be doing, and in what kind of environment. From this will come an idea of which features are important to look for, and which don't matter to you.

I'll start by describing the different characteristics and properties of ropes, and then take a look at how those variations make different ropes better fitted for one type of climbing versus another.

1) UIAA rating system:

The UIAA (Union Internationale des Associations d'Alpinisme) has established standard testing procedures to measure, among other things, how a rope reacts to severe falls. Ropes are drop tested with a standardized weight and procedure simulating a very nasty leader fall. This tells us many of these hypothetical falls the rope can withstand before it ruptures. Different categories of rope have different norms, but the UIAA standard requires climbing ropes to withstand a minimum of 5 such test falls. Virtually all the ropes on the market can withstand the minimum number of test falls, while some are rated to a much higher number.

The second thing the drop test measures is the amount of force which is transmitted to the falling climber. For all UIAA tests, these forces must stay within a certain range, in other words the rope has to absorb a minimum amount of energy.

The UIAA also rates factors such as rope stiffness, sheath slippage and rope stretch under body weight.

2) Single, Half, and Twin ropes:

A single rope is meant to be used alone. Half and twin ropes are a pair of separate ropes which are used together, in parallel.

Half ropes are often both clipped into each piece of protection, but can be clipped to alternating pieces. This is particularly helpful when the line of the climb would otherwise generate a lot of rope drag because of zig zags or traverses. On traverses, leaving one rope out of a piece of protection can provide better protection for a second as well, as it will allow one of the ropes to be oriented upward sooner than the other one, reducing the swing potential.

When using twin ropes the leader must clip both strands to every piece of protection, as the individual ropes are not meant to hold a fall on their own. This makes them less useful than half ropes for reducing rope drag. However, both half and twin ropes share certain distinctions from single ropes, which provide advantages and disadvantages in certain contexts:

- while heavier in total weight, they allow one to rappel twice as far as a single rope;

- they provide greater protection against abrasion or cutting over sharp edges due to their redundancy and load sharing

- this is an advantage in the mountains;

- two ropes are more complex and difficult to manage in belaying, stacking etc., which takes up more time.

3) Length

As the manufacturing process and materials become more advanced and sophisticated, we are seeing ropes become narrower and lighter without diminishing strength and performance. This has allowed them to be longer without increasing weight. Although longer ropes are always heavier and harder to manage than shorter ones, still there are advantages in many contexts to having more rope to work with: therefore standard lengths have tended to creep upward over time.

One most commonly finds ropes in 50m and 60m lengths. Longer ropes of 70 meters or more are becoming more common and popular for some applications.

As a generalization, greater length is less useful in a mountaineering context. Time is always of the essence in the mountains, and the simplicity of rope handling saves time. Also, one rarely needs or wants to run out very long pitches in the mountains, or at least the frequency and relative importance of doing this, is less than the importance of lighter weight and relatively easy rope handling.

Longer ropes are becoming more popular in cragging, sport climbing and top-roping areas. Here, time is less important, and except at very high levels, weight is also not so crucial. Longer ropes allow one to set up longer pitches for "slingshot belays". At more and more crags, pitches of 80 to 85 feet are not uncommon, so the danger of running out of rope when lowering a leader from the top anchor is greater with shorter ropes.