Samson double-braid dry ropes for tree climbers

moss

moss

Been here much more than a while
Location
Carlisle, Massachusetts, U.S.
A climber friend asked me about these new Sampson dry ropes available at Wesspur. The Velocity 11mm has a beautiful pattern for sure! Guessing that it is some kind of wax-like treatment but don't know. It's ironic, "back in the day" everyone used to complain about how much wax was applied to the fiber strands on early versions of Velocity, and how it was better when Velocity was well broken in and the wax was starting to go away on the rope surface. Again, no idea how much if any wax is used for this new dry rope.

https://www.wesspur.com/items/rop1vysd.html

-AJ
 
It’s the same type of treatment that is used for rock climbing lines. I don’t think it’s wax. Likely similar to Teflon or other waterproofing treatments. Gotta love the forever chemicals being added to even more products.

I turned down the opportunity to test these lines because we use our ropes differently than other disciplines that use these treatments. Imagine using rope on rope friction and inhaling the crap that is rubbed off the rope. My wife and I have developed significant sensitivities since unknowingly renting a mold-infested house. Chemical sensitivity is one we inherited. Since then we’ve learned a lot about chemical use in different parts of the US, and the dry treatments used in several products are among the worst because they don’t break down in the environment (ground, water, or air) or in our bodies.

I imagine this type of treatment may be beneficial to operations in the PNW, but at what cost?

Now, I realize there is so much toxicity in the other tools we use and how they’re made, but I’m a little ticked that this treatment is being pushed just to sell more rope, screw the consequences.
 
I was one of the people who used to love Velocity how it used to be made with all the wax. It was very durable, water resistant, and when you were splicing it the core would stay together really nicely. When they made that change I complained and was told that they had many complaints about the wax which was why they switched.
 
Crimsonking said:
My wife and I have developed significant sensitivities since unknowingly renting a mold-infested house. Chemical sensitivity is one we inherited. Since then we’ve learned a lot about chemical use in different parts of the US, and the dry treatments used in several products are among the worst because they don’t break down in the environment (ground, water, or air) or in our bodies.
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Here's one: I would love to see all the fancy fabric softeners and dryer sheet chemicals (carcinogens much?) banned or at least their chemical formulations modified - they quite frankly stink when the exhaust is piped outdoors. Have noticed this on walks as the smell wafts over the neighbourhood, but this summer was pruning a tree smack up against a neighbours house, right by the dryer vent from their upstairs laundry room. It was eye watering. Literally, HO had to go over next door and ask them to shut the machine off till I was done that afternoon or I told her I was done. I could even smell it on my clothes when I got home that night. What are we doing? Is fluffy stuff really worth that? End rant.
 
I don’t want to derail too far , but 100% yes. My wife is now extremely allergic to the fragrances in the detergents and dryer sheets. She has to go inside if a neighbor is drying laundry upwind.
 
RyanCafferky said:
I was one of the people who used to love Velocity how it used to be made with all the wax. It was very durable, water resistant, and when you were splicing it the core would stay together really nicely. When they made that change I complained and was told that they had many complaints about the wax which was why they switched.
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Yeah! Bring back the wax! I use natural unscented bee's wax to treat all of my stitching threads, thread handles so well after and smells nice. Makes me want to treat an entire rope with bees wax! ;-)

Can you imagine the time and labor? Strip out the core, treat it, reinstall the core, treat the cover braid, balance it all out, many hours later... good to go!
-AJ
 
Crimsonking said:
It’s the same type of treatment that is used for rock climbing lines. I don’t think it’s wax. Likely similar to Teflon or other waterproofing treatments. Gotta love the forever chemicals being added to even more products.

I turned down the opportunity to test these lines because we use our ropes differently than other disciplines that use these treatments. Imagine using rope on rope friction and inhaling the crap that is rubbed off the rope. My wife and I have developed significant sensitivities since unknowingly renting a mold-infested house. Chemical sensitivity is one we inherited. Since then we’ve learned a lot about chemical use in different parts of the US, and the dry treatments used in several products are among the worst because they don’t break down in the environment (ground, water, or air) or in our bodies.

I imagine this type of treatment may be beneficial to operations in the PNW, but at what cost?

Now, I realize there is so much toxicity in the other tools we use and how they’re made, but I’m a little ticked that this treatment is being pushed just to sell more rope, screw the consequences.
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Likely then that the "waterproofing" is in the PFAS family of chemical compounds. We have ubiquitous PFAS contamination of the ground water/wells/water supply in the northeast U.S.

https://www.cdc.gov/biomonitoring/PFAS_FactSheet.html

-AJ
 
moss said:
Yeah! Bring back the wax! I use natural unscented bee's wax to treat all of my stitching threads, thread handles so well after and smells nice. Makes me want to treat an entire rope with bees wax! ;-)

Can you imagine the time and labor? Strip out the core, treat it, reinstall the core, treat the cover braid, balance it all out, many hours later... good to go!
-AJ
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Can probably get a couple pounds out of one of those sealing rings they use for installing a new toilet. Some of those are pure beeswax.
 
Crimsonking said:
It’s the same type of treatment that is used for rock climbing lines. I don’t think it’s wax. Likely similar to Teflon or other waterproofing treatments. Gotta love the forever chemicals being added to even more products.

I turned down the opportunity to test these lines because we use our ropes differently than other disciplines that use these treatments. Imagine using rope on rope friction and inhaling the crap that is rubbed off the rope. My wife and I have developed significant sensitivities since unknowingly renting a mold-infested house. Chemical sensitivity is one we inherited. Since then we’ve learned a lot about chemical use in different parts of the US, and the dry treatments used in several products are among the worst because they don’t break down in the environment (ground, water, or air) or in our bodies.

I imagine this type of treatment may be beneficial to operations in the PNW, but at what cost?

Now, I realize there is so much toxicity in the other tools we use and how they’re made, but I’m a little ticked that this treatment is being pushed just to sell more rope, screw the consequences.
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I have had Multiple Chemical Sensitivities (MCS) for years (sensitive to petrochemicals mostly: fragrances especially). I had many workplace confrontations and eventually won some accommodations along the way. MCS is recognized by the Americans With Disabilities Act but it's still difficult to remain employed once you become extremely sensitive. As my technical-writing job could be done from home, I was finally allowed to do so (until I was let go in a massive layoff three years ago). MCS prevented me from ever entering a workplace again. You are very smart to avoid chemicals whenever possible as that is the only way to get stronger and diminish symptoms.

There's lots of MCS information out there but here's a site that I help maintain in the Boston area: https://www.maci-mcs.org/

Also, Marilyn Hoffman (who suffered from MCS) bequeathed large sums to start the Hoffman Program on Chemicals and Health at Harvard University: https://sites.sph.harvard.edu/hoffman-program/ and the TILT (Toxicant‐Induced Loss of Tolerance) Program at the University of Texas: https://tiltresearch.org/
 
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To me fluorocarbon dry rope treatments make huge sense for ice climbing or alpine climbing - there's a UIAA standard for this even I think. Laying your rope down in a rivulet of water at -20C on an ice route can cable up your rope pretty good no matter what tho - but dry treatment helps. In wet slushy conditions in a tree it would help too. But the difference I see in tree work v.s. alpine is that in tree work you can have multiple ropes in a cozy heated shop and dry your ropes out between contests with gravity. Maybe not so in the alpine trade where you're huddled in your tent hoping not to get blown off the hill in a blizzard. Good luck drying anything out then.
Also want to point out, please, if you are climbing in a situation where you're actually going to glop up a rope with icy gunk, please watch how you come down. A prussik can ice up real fast and give you a quick ride down: I've spoken elsewhere of running the rope thru a munter and biner on my lower leg loop to strip off glop - you can do the same with a ring and biner to get stuff off the rope. Once that rope ices though, it can be yeehaw even with a mechanical. At that point I may even back up with another munter/ biner setup or a Petzl shunt above my mechanical or prussik setup. Stay safe out there. Notes from cringing chicken climbers club.
 
ghostice said:
To me fluorocarbon dry rope treatments make huge sense for ice climbing or alpine climbing - there's a UIAA standard for this even I think. Laying your rope down in a rivulet of water at -20C on an ice route can cable up your rope pretty good no matter what tho - but dry treatment helps. In wet slushy conditions in a tree it would help too. But the difference I see in tree work v.s. alpine is that in tree work you can have multiple ropes in a cozy heated shop and dry your ropes out between contests with gravity. Maybe not so in the alpine trade where you're huddled in your tent hoping not to get blown off the hill in a blizzard. Good luck drying anything out then.
Also want to point out, please, if you are climbing in a situation where you're actually going to glop up a rope with icy gunk, please watch how you come down. A prussik can ice up real fast and give you a quick ride down: I've spoken elsewhere of running the rope thru a munter and biner on my lower leg loop to strip off glop - you can do the same with a ring and biner to get stuff off the rope. Once that rope ices though, it can be yeehaw even with a mechanical. At that point I may even back up with another munter/ biner setup or a Petzl shunt above my mechanical or prussik setup. Stay safe out there. Notes from cringing chicken climbers club.
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Agreed, unless a tree climber is forced to be in the wet constantly the dry rope doesn't make sense for the rest of us.

Yes I've dealt with ice build up on my line, I've had my hitch completely frozen on the rope. Pitch is worse but an ice seized hitch is a close second.
-AJ
 
AJ, a seized hitch from ice would be a blessing to me (i.e. failed safe). I'm carrying on generally about ropes glazed up with a mix of snow and ice making the rope so slick that a shunt, then an ATC, then a munter (from top downwards) barely grabbed at all. The rope just turns to mushy glass like cable with no purchase at all. My comment is that dry treatment would be a help with tree work or alpine, but drying the ropes overnight and also letting a rope cool down to ambient on a tarp say before using it is the ticket for snowy tree work. If they're just thrown into a cold truck and left freezing overnight then you could get into the alpine icing scenario guess.
I may harp on a bit about this, but frozen rope has actually been the only time I have lost control on a 60m abseil down (on an ice climb) in 30 yrs of banging around in the rockies. It was scary how fast it happened.
Reflecting on this over coffee this morning, we had freezing rain last night - are you kidding me - rain? So I guess climate/ weather is changing a bit ' cuz up here we'd normally be frozen solid for the winter. Climb safe buddy.
 
ghostice said:
AJ, a seized hitch from ice would be a blessing to me (i.e. failed safe). I'm carrying on generally about ropes glazed up with a mix of snow and ice making the rope so slick that a shunt, then an ATC, then a munter (from top downwards) barely grabbed at all. The rope just turns to mushy glass like cable with no purchase at all. My comment is that dry treatment would be a help with tree work or alpine, but drying the ropes overnight and also letting a rope cool down to ambient on a tarp say before using it is the ticket for snowy tree work. If they're just thrown into a cold truck and left freezing overnight then you could get into the alpine icing scenario guess.
I may harp on a bit about this, but frozen rope has actually been the only time I have lost control on a 60m abseil down (on an ice climb) in 30 yrs of banging around in the rockies. It was scary how fast it happened.
Reflecting on this over coffee this morning, we had freezing rain last night - are you kidding me - rain? So I guess climate/ weather is changing a bit ' cuz up here we'd normally be frozen solid for the winter. Climb safe buddy.
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Yes! I got what you were talking about. In my situation ice-up happened so fast I didn't have the opportunity to kill myself on rappel! Had to lanyard in, with great difficulty peel the hitch off the line, put a new hitch on then manually de-ice the line enough below me so I could move. No fun as you could imagine. It was a "rec climb" in a freak 12/8 storm in North Carolina, hanging a swing board for well-known arb climbers Chip and Nora (Canada ex-pat) in their back woods. I just wanted to climb that day (my birthday) no matter what the weather, it was very interesting.
-AJ
 
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Matias said:
Man, those colors are awesome, but I'm very much against the use of these forever chemicals entirely.
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This brings up a really interesting slant on things I think - haven't teflon or such flurocarbon components been banned from use in downhill ski waxes/ X-country ski waxes because of flurocarbon residues they leave? I think so. I guess potentially leaving a strip of a little bit of flurocarbon residue on a branch or stem if the rope see-saws in SRT or dDRT isn't as much of an "impact". But . . . would I want to be bringing "chemical" anywhere near some tree like "Hyperion". Probably not.
Can anyone confirm the exact chemical nature/ CAS number(s) of the dry treatments? Interesting point.
 
Matias said:
I tried to email them, but the form on the site was malfunctioning. I intend to call tomorrow.
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If they're based in the USA I don't you'll have much luck tomorrow.

The growing toxicity of our environment should be a greater concern than it seems to be, personally I'm more worried about everything on earth being exposed to permanent chemicals and micro plastics from its conception (and really before) than the inevitable (imo) change of 1 or 2 degrees.
 
Vicente said:
If they're based in the USA I don't you'll have much luck tomorrow.

The growing toxicity of our environment should be a greater concern than it seems to be, personally I'm more worried about everything on earth being exposed to permanent chemicals and micro plastics from its conception (and really before) than the inevitable (imo) change of 1 or 2 degrees.
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I laugh only at the first part, but the rest of it is deeply troubling to say the least. I pray daily that this doesn't turn out to be our generations lead.
 
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