I still can't choose...

tc262 said:
Thanks, I found a thread JohnnyPro started on this called Donuts, no acronyms. Really surprised that it never went anywhere, figured the rest of you guys would eat this up! Hopefully we can get it revived and all gain a little knowledge from it!
Click to expand...
He had another one too, they never went anywhere cause he started two threads and bailed. Never answered any questions or had any convo.
 
I was just reading some of the documentation about the rope Johnny Pro uses. I'm no mountain climber, so some of the language they use is unclear to me. They do say however, that his rope is the single lightest weight rope for use as a single line, in the world. If I'm reading it right, when used as a pair the way that he does, it's rated for greater than or equal to 20 falls before it must be retired. Used as a single line it's rated for only five falls. All this presumes I'm interpreting what I've just read correctly.

Tim
 
TimBr said:
I was just reading some of the documentation about the rope Johnny Pro uses. I'm no mountain climber, so some of the language they use is unclear to me. They do say however, that his rope is the single lightest weight rope for use as a single line, in the world. If I'm reading it right, when used as a pair the way that he does, it's rated for greater than or equal to 20 falls before it must be retired. Used as a single line it's rated for only five falls. All this presumes I'm interpreting what I've just read correctly.

Tim
Click to expand...
I'm not really what you mean about 20 falls. When I'm climbing, I manage my hitch so that a vertical fall is not an option. I could take a big uncontrolled swing maybe, but not a fall. I would retire myself before I approached the 20 fall mark
 
mikbro81 said:
I'm not really what you mean about 20 falls. When I'm climbing, I manage my hitch so that a vertical fall is not an option. I could take a big uncontrolled swing maybe, but not a fall. I would retire myself before I approached the 20 fall mark
Click to expand...

Just as an example, I have taken a pretty good "fall" ascending SRT, base tie, Large douglas fir. Two limbs broke out and dropped me. My line was caught by branches below.
 
mikbro81 said:
I'm not really what you mean about 20 falls. When I'm climbing, I manage my hitch so that a vertical fall is not an option. I could take a big uncontrolled swing maybe, but not a fall. I would retire myself before I approached the 20 fall mark
Click to expand...
I believe it's a mountaineering rope. Significant falls are much more common in rock climbing.
 
That "20 falls" number is, I believe, ONLY applicable when two ropes of this type are used together to support the weight of the climber. As I said, I'm no mountain climber, but I think it's nice to know a fairly hard number like that, as it gets at the strength, reliability and durability of the rope you are using. Without that number from the manufacturer, a climber might think it necessary to retire a rope unneccarily after one really hard fall.

Again, used as a single rope, I think it's only rated for five falls. Also nice to know.

Tim
 
mikbro81 said:
I figured it had something to do with rock climbing, I just don't see how that figures into tree climbing.
Click to expand...

A quote from the article Mark13y (AKA Nick), posted, helps to explain why it matters:

" The reason we climb with dynamic ropes is because they stretch. Due to this stretch they absorb a lot of the force of the fall- and I really mean a lot. This makes a huge difference to the safety of the climber for two reasons.
The rope is the very first thing in the ‘chain’ if you will. When you fall, the rope absorbs part of the force, then the left over force is transferred into your top runner. The fact that your rope has absorbed such a large amount of the force means less is transferred to your last bit of pro(tection), meaning that it has a higher chance of holding (because at the end of the day this is the weakest point in the chain). Secondly the breaking force of the human body is 12kn. If your body is subjected to shock forces above that then it will most likely break in some kind of back or neck snapping way. A dynamic rope helps avoid this. These two reasons are why people never lead climb with static ropes."

I hope this helps. It would seem that the use of dynamic ropes would make it less likely that our tie-in points might break out, and in the event that we do take a fall, we are less likely to be injured by the forces generated by it.
 
Those are good points, Tim. I never really thought about it like that. I understand how those forces would apply in rigging, I just didn't think they applied to climbing. Thanks, it's definitely something to keep in mind.
 
The fall rating they are referring to is a break test they do to the ropes, most rope manufactures (Rock climbing lines) reccomend retiring a line if is has seen a fall factor of 1 or greater. We don't (shouldn't) put ourselves in scenarios where we can generate that fall as tree climbers. Even on base anchored static lines in a tree a couple feet isn't a big deal because there is so much rope in the system, and we would typically see more of a swing then a straight fall beneath our tie in, unless you have a TIP break out like mike had. Even that as a hypothetical let's say a 60' TIP, base anchored and it gives out while your 20' off the ground in ascent, you had 120' of line out minus the 20' your up, so 100' of line sees the shock and say it's 2' to the next branch that the rope catches (which is 4' of drop to the climber) the fall factor is 4/100=0.04. Very small even on a static line
 
mikbro81 said:
Thanks, it's definitely something to keep in mind.
Click to expand...

You are quite welcome. Mark13y's comments are also really interesting, with regard to the number crunching of the forces involved.

I know everyone says that we are not ever supposed to shock load the ropes as climbers, I'm just thinking about the possibilities if things go wrong. I do not really mind the stretch that my Mammut rope exhibits. Once I get it loaded up with my weight, it behaves pretty well, and I like the idea of having that extra bit of a buffer for the forces involved if things should go sideways on me.

Tim
 
Mark13y said:
The fall rating they are referring to is a break test they do to the ropes, most rope manufactures (Rock climbing lines) reccomend retiring a line if is has seen a fall factor of 1 or greater. We don't (shouldn't) put ourselves in scenarios where we can generate that fall as tree climbers. Even on base anchored static lines in a tree a couple feet isn't a big deal because there is so much rope in the system, and we would typically see more of a swing then a straight fall beneath our tie in, unless you have a TIP break out like mike had. Even that as a hypothetical let's say a 60' TIP, base anchored and it gives out while your 20' off the ground in ascent, you had 120' of line out minus the 20' your up, so 100' of line sees the shock and say it's 2' to the next branch that the rope catches (which is 4' of drop to the climber) the fall factor is 4/100=0.04. Very small even on a static line
Click to expand...
Well stated.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

New threads New posts

Back
Top Bottom