Elephant Butte

[Slot Machine]

Wife and I are heading to Moab for NYE this year and are planning on doing this hike. Have you had much snow so far this season? I'm assuming you're dry like we are in Colorado.

It's pretty dry out there, at least last week it was.

Check out www.candition.com over the next couple of weeks, I bet there will be a few Moab updates posted there.

[Brian in SLC]

Clearly, the language is confusing. While using a cordelette to rig an anchor is common in climbing, the cordelette is then removed by the climber at the end, when moving on. Whereas, in this instance the discussion is about what material is left behind when establishing or using rappel anchors

Last anchor in Heaps? Been a cordellete for quite some time. Useful for rigging from multiple anchors to a single "power point" I suppose. Seems cleaner for some applications than webbing (easier to inspect?).

I'm not seeing much in the way of testing over edges of cord versus webbing. Hmmm...maybe this:

http://www.jrre.org/moy_qual.pdf

Interesting. "Abrasion along the rope" test:

Looking at the data, the one thing that stands out as blindingly obvious is that webbing is awful! For a round rope, only afew fibers at a time are exposed to the rock edge, and the rope wears a few fibers at a time. For webbing, almost all the

fibers are abraded on every cycle, and it fails very quickly.

The abrasion

across the edge test is, in my opinion, one of the best for evaluating ropes. The test was quite consistent -see the small error bars on the chart, and this is the type of failure that worries me the most on actual rescue operations.Where abrasion along the rope should be seen at the next rope inspection, abrasion across the rope can produceimmediate catastrophic failure - even at low loads like body weight. This test again clearly demonstrated that webbing is

awful in abrasion.

Conclusions

For the most part, readers can draw their own conclusions from the test data, or better yet, repeat these or other tests ontheir own equipment. For our group, we found nothing that scares us away from either of the brands of rope wecurrently have in service. The primary difference we will focus on in our training is the difference in elasticity. The testresults for webbing make very clear what we have known for a long time. For rock anchors, if there is any possibilitythat an anchor could shift when it is loaded, webbing should not be used. If it is used on rock, edges should be well

padded.


Some of the ropes used were down to 3/8" diameter. Interesting. Wonder how 7mm cord would fair against 1" webbing? My bet, based on the testing referenced, it'd do fairly well.

Hmmm....

[ratagonia]

Last anchor in Heaps? Been a cordellete for quite some time. Useful for rigging from multiple anchors to a single "power point" I suppose. Seems cleaner for some applications than webbing (easier to inspect?).

Yeah, except, is not "Accessory Cord", it is Joe Wrona's burly static rope, at least 9mm, maybe 10mm. And it does not really cross edges... kind of a special case.

Other stuff quite interesting... will study it this evening.

Tom

[Brian in SLC]

Is the Wrona cord still the same anchor for Heaps? Yikes!

BD rigged up a abrasion test for quickdraws awhile back. Be interesting to see how 9/16 BW webbing, 1" webbing, and 7mm accessory cord all stacked up. Hmmm.

I wonder, from a visual wear standpoint, if, a cord might be easier to see damage on? Cut half way through versus the wear on a flat piece of webbing? Dunno.

[COJoe]

It's pretty dry out there, at least last week it was.

Check out www.candition.com over the next couple of weeks, I bet there will be a few Moab updates posted there.

Thanks for the link! As much as this region needs the moisture, I'm hoping things stay dry out there through the holidays.

[Kuya]

Thanks for the link! As much as this region needs the moisture, I'm hoping things stay dry out there through the holidays.

Definition of MOISTURE: liquid diffused or condensed in relatively small quantity

Definition of PRECIPITATION3 : water or the amount of water that falls to the earth as hail, mist, rain, sleet, or snow


The region needs precipitation not moisture ;)