wej
05-25-2012, 06:46 AM
Hey all,
I would like to get your input on something. I live in the Northeast and I have recently found a couple REALLY good canyons/gorges to drop. (I don't want to broadcast them so they are not flooded with people, but if you contact me personally I'll give you the beta on them).
The biggest difference/problem we are facing is that instead of sandstone, all the cliffs/canyons are granite, and any abrasion eats your rope like you can't believe. As an example, six of us dropped a canyon a few weeks ago, there were 8 rappels (6 of them in the 60-120 ft range). My rope is fairly new--bought it last year--but by the time we were done, I had to cut a 20ft section out of the middle of my rope. Basically, the sharp granite edges cut a very small section right through the sheath, and then on the next rappel, when the rope went through the "8" on my totem the core popped out a little. By the end the core was completely undamaged, but exposed in three places so it clearly needed to be retired.
Anyway, can anyone give me advice on how to reduce abrasion and save my rope. I've thought of a few ideas:
- run the rope though the middle of a piece of tubular webbing and let that fall on the abrasion point
- REI actually has a rope protector--Google: "REI rope protector" (but will be hard to retrieve)
- Just bring a thick towel, small blanket, piece of leather and lay it over the abrasion point (might not always work because many raps are right down waterfalls).
Any other solutions? Also note that we are only using retrievable anchors (around trees, etc) so whatever we use also needs to be retrievable.
Thanks!
Evan
I would like to get your input on something. I live in the Northeast and I have recently found a couple REALLY good canyons/gorges to drop. (I don't want to broadcast them so they are not flooded with people, but if you contact me personally I'll give you the beta on them).
The biggest difference/problem we are facing is that instead of sandstone, all the cliffs/canyons are granite, and any abrasion eats your rope like you can't believe. As an example, six of us dropped a canyon a few weeks ago, there were 8 rappels (6 of them in the 60-120 ft range). My rope is fairly new--bought it last year--but by the time we were done, I had to cut a 20ft section out of the middle of my rope. Basically, the sharp granite edges cut a very small section right through the sheath, and then on the next rappel, when the rope went through the "8" on my totem the core popped out a little. By the end the core was completely undamaged, but exposed in three places so it clearly needed to be retired.
Anyway, can anyone give me advice on how to reduce abrasion and save my rope. I've thought of a few ideas:
- run the rope though the middle of a piece of tubular webbing and let that fall on the abrasion point
- REI actually has a rope protector--Google: "REI rope protector" (but will be hard to retrieve)
- Just bring a thick towel, small blanket, piece of leather and lay it over the abrasion point (might not always work because many raps are right down waterfalls).
Any other solutions? Also note that we are only using retrievable anchors (around trees, etc) so whatever we use also needs to be retrievable.
Thanks!
Evan