Sap on rope dangerous?

Mwelander · Jul 12, 2020

Hi,
My friend has a stationary rope permanently installed in a pine/fur tree. He climbs up a ladder but he is secured with a rope as a backup using petzl ID to catch slack/descend.

The rope is a patron treeAccess and it now has a segment that has gotten stiff, supposedly from sap that has bled from a removed branch onto the rope.

Is this at all dangerous? I realize it's not good to have sticky sap inside the ID but it is dry. Will it in any way compromise the structure of the rope, or will the IDs braking function be affected at all over that section of the rope?

Tom Dunlap · Jul 12, 2020

There is a chance that the braking function could be affected by the sap.

Why not leave a throwline or cord in place and reset the climbing line each time?

Burrapeg · Jul 15, 2020

Tom Dunlap said:
. . . Why not leave a throwline or cord in place and reset the climbing line each time?

Paracord is cheap and lasts almost forever out in the weather. It is great for 'bookmarking' your favourite climbing trees.

Mowerr · Jul 15, 2020

And if you had bookmarked with the string or throw cord the rope maybe wouldn't have got this problem while still keeping it's strength.
I think you leaving the rope up there permanently is doing more harm to the rope than that sap...
Somewhere through Google I found a PDF that was a study on sections of rope that had gas, oil, I think even dog pee, maybe sap I can't remember. But they did break tests on these sections that had different stuff on them over time to see if these things that could possibly get on the ropes in real world applications, would affect the strength and integrity of the sections of rope.