Interesting concept: 100m rope

[dryad]

I came across this while having double ropes on the brain:

http://www.geocities.com/Yosemite/Forest/7290/climb/tac/tac4.html

 

In a nutshell, the guy is advocating the use of a 100m rope in the alpine so you can do 100m pitches over relatively easy terrain, then fold it in half and use double rope-style in sketchier sections. And you can do 50m rappels without worrying about a knot. Thoughts?

[ctuller]

The potential drag at the end of a 100m pitch of moderate (read low angle) climbing is frightening.

[MysticNacho]

The thing would have to weigh a ton.

[ken4ord]

I've tried it and it sucks. We went up on a Mt. Katahdin in Maine with one, it was constantly tangled and had twists, when it was being carried in the pack it was way heavier than the rack. I myself prefer to short rope over easier terrain. That way you don't have much rope drag and the the weight of the rope is evenly distributed between the climbers (kiwi coil). You also have the benefit of staying contact, so say you do pass a hard section the second can easily request a belay or some gear to be place just in case.

[Dru]

The first ascent of the north face route on Viennese (Flavelle-Howe) was done with a 100m 9mm rope.

[Ade]

Doesn't seem that great an idea to me...

 

On easy ground you can simul-climb a 100m rope simply gets in the way as you have to coil almost all of it.

 

A 100m pitch is not only going to have rope drag. Communicating with your partner is also going to be harder.

 

He seems to be advocating a 100m single rope which is going to be super heavy. I've never seen anyone use one of these. I have seen 100m half ropes, at least then there is no weight penalty.

 

The lack of knot will make rappels better but any rope can still pull loose stuff down on you so it's better but not perfect.

 

100m is going to be a mangement nightmare, however good you are with your ropes.

 

 

[TimL]

Like almost everything in climbing its a matter of opinion and experience. I think I read Guy Lacille (sp?) uses 100 meter rope while climbing solo. I'm sure I could find a way to use it but for what purpose and how practical it might be is the question.

[AlpineK]

Dru said:

The first ascent of the north face route on Viennese (Flavelle-Howe) was done with a 100m 9mm rope.

 

I can see that working on that route, however I don't think it would be a good idea in general.

[Skip_M._Kliphiem]

"over relatively easy terrain"

 

The Flavelle-Howe goes at 5.10b. Most climbers would not consider that to be relatively easy terrain.

 

IMHO-Long ropes on moderate ground are more work than they are worth. Lots of twist, and snags on the rappel. Short ropes are great for running belays over sustained easy ground. As long as the descent is a walk off or just a couple of short raps. Fast and light. A long rope would be ideal on something like Royal Arches where you would use it to facilitate a speedy descent down a well bolted rap route. Not well suited for alpine where you need more options.

Even if it cost less than buying 2, 9mm 50's, you would end up with same color ropes. Not my choice for climbing double 9's even if it had a bicolor pattern. They could end up crossing one another unless you were very attentive. In the long run you might end up chopping it in half.

Great for fixed lines!

[freeclimb9]

I've climbed with a 100m 10.5mm rope. The weight of the rope is not a big deal compared to the weight of the honking rack.

 

With regards to a 100mX9mm rope, that's an old ice-climbing trick. The leader ties into both ends and starts out on double ropes. If the leader can't make it to a nice belay spot, they untie and drop one end to be belayed by the single strand. I'd be hesitant to do that on easy rock terrain where the dropped strand is bound to get clustered.

[AlpineK]

If you had climbed the route (Flavelle/Howe) you would know that there is about 1000' of mid 5th and 1.5 pitches of 5.10.

Edited August 15, 2003 by AlpineK

[Dru]

Word is you need at least an 83m rope to send Bernabe Fernandez claimed 15c in Spain.

[catbirdseat]

Interesting concept: 12 intelligent posts on topic with no bullshit. I agree with the general consensus that a 100 m rope would likely be a management nightmare.

[Dru]

i'df hate to see the dumb look on someone's face as they try to rap a rap line setup for double 60ms with their 'look at me i'm such a techy geek i have a 100m rope' rope and keep coming up 10m short on every rap.

[dryad]

I assumed the guy was referring to a 100m 9mm or similar rope, like 2 doubles put together, so there's no weight penalty over using doubles. One possible benefit I see in being able to do 100m pitches is if the leader and second have vastly different ability levels, so the second wouldn't feel comfortable simulclimbing and would prefer to pitch it out. If the odds of the leader falling are very small, it wouldn't be a big deal to use a single thin rope, and then the second will have the security of a toprope. But yes, communication would become a huge problem if the route is anything other than a straight line and it's not windy or anything. I bet it would be really hard to transmit rope tugs over such a long distance. Heck, it's hard enough over 50m if there's rope drag.

[Bug]

Dru said:

i'df hate to see the dumb look on someone's face as they try to rap a rap line setup for double 60ms with their 'look at me i'm such a techy geek i have a 100m rope' rope and keep coming up 10m short on every rap.

Then again, you might come up short only once. I like twin 60m 8.7 for long routes. That is as long as is practical though, in my opinion. It is difficult to communicate between belay ledges, rope drag, management on ledges, weight. The twins still get you off quickly in storms and late descents and it opens up rap lines that look impractical otherwise.

[AlpineK]

Dru said:

i'df hate to see the dumb look on someone's face as they try to rap a rap line setup for double 60ms with their 'look at me i'm such a techy geek i have a 100m rope' rope and keep coming up 10m short on every rap.

 

Wouldn't the obvious next step to be the 120m rope

[erik]

dryd with simul climbing it is more important for the follower not to fall, cuz if they do they can rip the leader off the climb.....not good!

 

and there is a weight issue, with double rope each person would carry one and split the rack, with your uber rope one person is required to carry the whole rope weight....

 

 

[forrest_m]

I agree with what everyone has been saying about 100m ropes being a huge potential cluster. OTOH, I’ve been climbing a lot lately on a 10mm x 70m and have decided that it definitely has its place. Not so much on moderate alpine terrain, where a shorter rope is usually less of a pain to deal with, but on harder alpine/multi-pitch routes that often have 5.10 or harder pitches separated by relatively short sections of somewhat easier ground. (i.e. Slesse E. Pillar or Navigator wall, etc.) The key here is that the easier sections have to be short enough that you probably wouldn’t bother changing the system around for simulclimbing, because you’re going to have to go back to belaying in a second anyway. In this case, the longer rope often allows you to combine several pitches into one. (i.e. we did Rock On at Squamish in 2 pitches with only 5 feet of simulclimbing). Often you have to be a bit creative with gear management, but we haven’t been bringing a larger rack than usual.

 

This system falls apart (for me, anyway) on steeper wall-style routes (grand wall, davis-holland, etc) because once the climbing reaches a certain difficulty, I need to carry more gear for the longer rope, and if the climbing is challenging, it’s not necessarily faster to have extremely long pitches where you move slowly because you’re tired from skipping the rest at the normal belay…

 

The longer rope is also kind of nice when lowering off sport routes, since most lowering stations are set for 60m or shorter ropes.

[Dr_Flash_Amazing]

You can buy that gym rope on like thousand metre spools. Why not just set up your spool on a little rack at the base so it feeds out real smooth, and send the leader right to the top, no settin' up belays or nothin'. Then you could rappel all the way back to the car in record time.

[iain]

or tie the end on your bumper so when your partner gets back, he can drive off a ways and you have a killer zip line.

[Dr_Flash_Amazing]

Or better yet, tie it to your Bumpernuts!

[dryad]

erik said:

dryd with simul climbing it is more important for the follower not to fall, cuz if they do they can rip the leader off the climb.....not good!

True, but my point was that one of the pair may not want to simulclimb AT ALL, in which case long pitches with the experienced one leading would be faster than short pitches. Maybe instead of naming the more experienced one "leader" and the less experienced one "second" , I should have called them "Mega Hardman" and "Gumby dork" for added clarity.

[bunglehead]

Bug said:

Dru said:

i'df hate to see the dumb look on someone's face as they try to rap a rap line setup for double 60ms with their 'look at me i'm such a techy geek i have a 100m rope' rope and keep coming up 10m short on every rap.

Then again, you might come up short only once. I like twin 60m 8.7 for long routes. That is as long as is practical though, in my opinion. It is difficult to communicate between belay ledges, rope drag, management on ledges, weight. The twins still get you off quickly in storms and late descents and it opens up rap lines that look impractical otherwise.

 

I'm with bug. Even at 60 M, communication is almost impossible sometimes with anything other than a light breeze (I solved this by buying a pair of walkie talkies). And that 100 M rope seems like it'd be a belay staion nightmare. more pieces to place, etc. etc. I can see it having it's place, like on long sport routes (Potter's new linkup comes to mind) but in general seems like it'd be a major pain in the kiester.

[mattp]

I bought a 100m x 8mm rope about twenty years ago, thinking I'd use it for moderate alpine ice routes and the like. My theory was that we could lead out 100m on easy terrain, double it for any steeper climbing where I didn't want to lead on a single strand, and that if we could find another party with a 100m rope the raps on certain alpine descents would go really fast. As it turned out, I just about never used it and the one or two times that I did, I found the bulky coil and increased opportunity for major rope tangles to be much more trouble than it was worth.

 

I agree with those who suggest that, for lots of reasons, longer is not better when it comes to mountaineering and alpine climbing. Yes, there are times when a longer rope allows you to run pitches together on a longer route and save time, but this is most ofen on a pure rock climb where there is likely to be relatively straight-up climbing without any screwing around. There is the occasional ice couloir or similar terrain where you could lead out 100m without running into undue complication, but on most mountain routes there is enough winding about involved, and I frequently move the belay less than a full rope length in order to facilitate routefinding discussions or to move the belayer to a location where they won't get beaned by the leader's dropping rocks and ice on them. I can't really remember the last time that I would have wanted to lead a 100m pitch.