rope

[spinesnaper]

At the risk of being mocked, I chose the BlueWater Canyon Rope because the orange looks awesome in photos. Pick a diameter you feel comfortable rappelling on and carrying.

I actually think appearance was the reason I bought my very first 11mm climbing rope-Mammut I think, basically orange but basically psychedelic with a whole bunch of colors woven in-looked real good.

Ken

[ratagonia]

"cord is not rope

I'd say the majority of canyoneers in the US use between 8mm (not noob friendly expert rigging only) to 9mm+ to 10mm."

- What are the differences btwn rope n chord?
- What are the dangers of canyoneering with chord, or the advantages of rope?
- Other than reduced friction while rappelling, why is the 8mm rope not noob friendly?

Gracias

On a side tangent, how come every time I type "canyoneer" into Bogley, the spell check thinks it's not a real word? Yes, I meant to type "canyoneer", and no I'm not interested in buying a pair of 5.10 Canners.

-Sam

"Chord" is a musical expression, referring to notes played at the same time that make a harmony, of some sort.

"Cord" is a round textile product, generally for utility use and not for human-life-safety applications. Parachute Cord is stuff invented for WWII and used for parachutes, now used for all sorts of things. Accessory Cord is used in climbing for many applications, some including one's life-safety, but it is not rope.

"Rope" is a round textile product made to perform in a certain manner when used in a specific application. So a "Lead-Climbing Rope" has carefully engineered stretch and energy absorption properties that make the whole lead-climbing thing work. A static climbing, caving or rappelling rope has a different set of properties that make it NOT safe to lead-climb with, but do make it safe to rappel on, and rope-climb on (or, as safe as any of these activities can be).

While "Accessory Cord" is available in rope-like diameters, A-Cord is designed around a couple of parameters: A. Look pretty; B. be of a certain strength; C. be of a certain physical size. The other important attributes are the stretchiness and the toughness, and when you buy A-Cord, you really have no idea what those attributes are. But, they are unlikely to be the desired attributes for rappelling / canyoneering.

Of course, as usual, I found this out the hard way. I bought a 300' spool of Beal 8mm accessory cord when I worked at Black Diamond, and that "rope" went on exactly two trips. I used it for the last rap in Heaps (nearly perished!) and a few weeks later, Shane used it on the last rap in Heaps, and nearly perished. Since it has hung in my car port and is used for lashing firewood to the top of my station wagon, and other tasks it is suitable for. It was very, VERY stretchy!

Smaller ropes are fine for people that know what they are doing, but for people who don't, a larger diameter rope provides a greater likelihood that the clueless ones will not end up in a heap at the bottom of the rappel. In addition, smaller ropes present less surface area to contact the rock and therefore get chewed up easier; noobs tend to thrash around on rappel and are not careful with their choices, so noobs tend to chew up ropes faster too. This combo means smaller ropes in the hands of noobs are likely to become unusable pretty quick.

Noobs is also not in the default dictionary. Each Bogley user has their own dictionary, so it is up to you to add words like noob and canyoneer.

Tom

[SRG]

Thanks

[deagol]

I would add something to Tom's explanation that doesn't really seem to have anything to do with the "noob" factor (but I could be doing something wrong): I use a Totem & large locking carabiner to ascend in plaquette mode. Using this set-up with the 8.3 MM rope results in the ascending rig to slide down the rope slowly when weighted- this is a bad thing and very unnerving. Using the thicker 9 MM rope seems to prevent this from happening. At first I wondered if the Totem or carabiner had worn away enough to allow this slip, but I don’t think it has.

[Branin]

I would add something to Tom's explanation that doesn't really seem to have anything to do with the "noob" factor (but I could be doing something wrong): I use a Totem & large locking carabiner to ascend in plaquette mode. Using this set-up with the 8.3 MM rope results in the ascending rig to slide down the rope slowly when weighted- this is a bad thing and very unnerving. Using the thicker 9 MM rope seems to prevent this from happening. At first I wondered if the Totem or carabiner had worn away enough to allow this slip, but I don’t think it has.

Many commercial ascenders also don't play especially well with thin ropes. Just the nature of the beast.