Double Ropes

[Captain Crunch]

I'll been thinking about getting setup for climbing with double ropes. It looks like a great system on paper: Mostly redundant system, double rope raps, better management of rope drag, lower impact forces, less slack when clipping high, simplifies self-rescue operations. Drawback: a bit more weight, more rope management, cost. I climbed doubles once, but I guess I need more opinions.

 

Anyone use doubles for multi-pitch, trad, alpine stuff? Anyone hate them?

Edited February 2, 2008 by Captain Crunch

[cheamclimber]

i f^&king hate how much the ropes get in the way but double 60s make for a quicker rap descent...

[ivan]

they make sense for big alpine routes that will require lots of raps and/or are very convulted and/or have significant chance of rockfall to cut your ropes - nooksack tower was a great place for using double ropes for all those reasons - on something like the n ridge of stuart they'd be needlessly excessive and heavy

 

i think they're a bit of a pain for simple trad

[cheamclimber]

i really like my single 70m rope for leading long pitches and stuff... but its too long ond heavy for when I only need to lead a 10m pitch... I want to get a single 50m rope and single 70 and that is enough ropes for me for rock climbing... ice climbing is a whole different story

[Captain Crunch]

Also part of my motivation is that I could use these for ice too.

[denalidave]

I love doubles on wandering routes. Some people will argue this, but I think it is safer with 2 also. Plus, if you need two ropes to rap anyway, might as well climb w/doubles IMO.

 

[cman]

i agree that doubles are great on wandering routes. recently i climbed a bunch with a regular 60 and a thin static 60 for the double raps. It is a great system for a lot of routes, makes the climbing & rope management easier. also if the static is thin enough you hardly notice it in the pack. Rapping is not quite as easy and the system works best with fixed rap stations.

 

plus if you already have a 60 you can pick up the static line cheap.

[Off_White]

I don't think doubles are a great cragging system, but they're useful sometimes for longer routes & alpine stuff. We used them on Dreamer last summer and didn't experience any rope drag whatsoever, that was kind of nice. Handy for routes where you need a rap line anyway, but the tag line system cman describes does the same thing with the simplicity of a single line lead. Oh, and I've never fallen on doubles, so I have no idea how that goes.

 

First time I ever saw them used cragging was Russ Clune leading some slanting 5.12 thing on Goosehead on Mt Lemmon. The bolts were pretty close, so he could take one line and clip the next bolt while the other rope was essentially tight to the bolt at his waist. No annoying fear of a longer fall while pulling up the rope loop to clip. I've never seen a route with less fall potential.

 

 

[Rad]

60m + 60m = a lot of spaghetti to snarl at belays!

 

Trog and I did infinite bolts on 2 ropes. We spent half the day flaking ropes, it seemed. Next time I would climb on a single rope and carry a tag line in a pack for the rapping.

[curtveld]

Definitely - you kind of have to commit to using doubles regularly to get used to the extra rope management. If you (or your belayer) are not reasonably smooth at the belaying and stacking, you’ll come to hate it. Wandering slab climbs that need long rappels (Dreamer!) are the best place to give it a try if you have a 9 to combine with your lead rope.

[Bug]

I used to use 50m double 9's when I was doing a lot of adventure climbing in the Bitterroots. The rappelling advantage was useful many times. More importantly, rope failure by rock fall was cut significantly. But another advantage was the decreased elasticity on really hard onsights. A fall didn't leave me hanging three moves below the piece at my feet. This saved a lot of time and energy. I tried the twin 8.7 60m and I just didn't need the extra length plus they were too snarly.

[underworld]

doubles are cool on harder (relative) cragging routes. as you don't lengthen your fall (typically) during the clipping process.

 

 

[Lukic]

What size/material do use for your tag line when you need the extra rap length while climbing with a single?

[bstach]

What size/material do use for your tag line when you need the extra rap length while climbing with a single?

 

WTF?

[Rafael_H]

Lukich

You can use any size and material, all work for raps fine. The thinnest I used was 7mm static and 8mm dynamic. You can buy even thinner and lighter dynamic ropes for using in a double rope system if suddenly needed, but extra dynamic rope is expensive and odd usage might not warrant having it - sport and trad cragging around here does not require 2-rope raps.

 

I found that a thin static cord is more often useful when climbing dry rock: rappeling things that you "soloed" up, hauling up and then 2-rope raps, cutting up for anchors.

On the other hand a thin dynamic rope could be re-used for glacier travel. I would use a separate set for ice cragging.

Any thinner than 7mm would require (much) more getting used to, which if you are into alpine might be a good thing. I saw a super-thin dynamic ropes at Feathered Friends, I think under 7mm.

 

 

[JosephH]

If a route wanders so much you can't achieve an acceptable [single] rope path despite extensive slinging then you need to switch to double ropes. Or, if you are on a route with a lot of loose rock doubles can make a lot of sense as well.

 

If all you're looking for is more convenience in rapping long routes without dragging or carrying a second rope then you should just go with twins. There are a few companies that make ropes rated as both twins and halfs - I use a pair of Metolious 7.8's for places like Red Rocks. Putting up new routes on sharp, lose basalt I'll bump up to 9.8's or even 10.2's if there are obvious and unavoidable hazards which must be dealt with.

 

Belaying doubles is very much an advanced skill and the handwork and rope management can sometimes be complex and confusing. You need to really put the time into learning to do it on easier, familar routes before launching into the void or on to something hard.

[vanisle]

get doubles if you climb ice or alpine routes. evrybody uses doubles. I use 8mm mammuts

[tomtom]

Belaying doubles is very much an advanced skill and the handwork and rope management can sometimes be complex and confusing. You need to really put the time into learning to do it on easier, familar routes before launching into the void or on to something hard.

 

Don't let Joe scare you. They're not that bad. Common sense goes a long way.

[rob]

I use doubles almost exclusively (at least, when we use my rope). They're not that hard to use, and I don't think belaying on them is very "advanced," but it does take a little bit of getting used to, especially when bringing up a second -- it takes a bit more effort keeping things clean. I use an ATC guide, which lets me organize ropes a bit more while bringing my guy up.

 

Sometimes I worry about that extra rope-stretch, though. I guess you gotta just keep that in mind. And on short crag routes, they are a bit overkill I think. But I use them anyway because I'm cheap.

[jmace]

ya no doubt..they are really quite simple..thats what I learned on..you can just clip one anyways