Convince Me to Buy Half Ropes Or... Not

So after 3 years my Maxim Glider has puffed out and gotten stiff to the point where it is a bitch to use for anything other than toproping or tr soloing. It's a pain to feed and thread through devices, but it still seems to have plenty of life left in it, so it will become the new toprope bitch.

I am primarily a Gunks climber working my way up through the grades. I am comfortable leading on both single and double ropes. My main partner has a nice mammut infinity that we use as our primary rope, but A) it's not fair to give his rope all of the wear and B) I don't always climb with him and need to supply a rope.

I'm seriously considering double ropes for the following reasons:
-We often climb in parties of 3
-Wandering protection/routes
-Full length raps
-The safety net that two ropes affords in the case of a stuck rope

Reservations:
I just started getting to the point where falls are a distinc possibility, but should be the exception rather than the rule.

I picked up a climbing technologies alpine up a few months ago and it is quickly becoming my primary belay device. If I'm using double rope technique the ropes need to be the same width to use the assited braking feature on belay and rappels (the main point of using the device), so I feel it makes more sense to get a pair of double ropes than to climb with a single rope and a half rope tag line, but I can be convinced otherwise for this.

Pros and cons go!

William... I have found that for real climbing, you can't beat double ropes.

Sport, .... one works OK, but out in the great unknown...one needs two.

so lets see if this one becomes a back n forth epic poop slinging contest.

It really comes down to being realistic about what the majority of the climbing you envision doing will be like. And that varies not just in terms of sport vs. multipitch trad, but also area-to-area. You mentioned that most of the climbing you do is in the Gunks. I could be wrong, but based on my recollection from a few trips out there while living in Boston, most routes are either walk-offs or rather short pitches (a relic of older routes put up in the days of shorter ropes) that can easily be rappelled with a single 60 or 70. The point is, the "right" system is not about what is "right" in general but what makes sense for you personally, given your interests and aspirations, and that's something only you can decide.

Half ropes came up on Steep and Cheap real cheap last year, so I impulse bought. I took them in to the alpine for the first time in RMNP and will never go back.

Pros... (in order of awesomeness)
Rap twice as far
less rope drag
redundancy

Cons...
weighs 2 lbs more than my 9.8 single rope

It was easy to learn, never had issues with rope management.

Adam Reke wrote:I took them in to the alpine for the first time in RMNP and will never go back.

See, this is the crux (pun intended) statement here. If a typical scenario you find yourself in is at 12,000 feet, 6 pitches off the ground, 7 miles from the nearest road and thunderstorms are approaching, then yeah, the advantage of halves becomes pretty clear. But the Gunks? Usually you're talking 2-4 pitches, maybe 5 at most (and short ones at that), all within about a 20 minute walk from the parking lot, with a top-out in the trees and nice descent trail. I'd argue that for the most part, the ability to do 60-m raps is at best a nice convenience, and at worst a dangerous liability (given the sheer number of climbers all around you and the potential to snag ropes). Like I said...all depends on where you tend to climb, there's no "right" or "wrong" answer that works for everyone.

There is another option - you can buy something like a pair of the 9.2 single rated ropes from Mammut (I'm sure others have them as well) and use those as doubles or use only one as a single - Mammut advertises them that way. Granted they are not a "work horse" rope but it does cover both bases. Personally I dislike doing a lot of top roping on the smaller ropes - for the Gunks I'd just buy a nice 10ish sized single and then later on get a set of doubles for other areas or types of climbing. I personally do all my trad climbs with doubles any more - lots of positives and not many negatives to them.

Using or not using half ropes is about far more than rappelling. The Brits use 'em all the time on Gritstone, for example, where you walk off and the pitches are 40 feet. I've been using them pretty exclusively for all my climbing for the past 20 or more years, and most of my time is spent in the Gunks.

Like the rappelling comment, many discussions take one particular aspect of double rope utility and make the mistake of assuming it is the only aspect. It isn't just about rappelling (unless you are thinking of pure twin ropes rather than half ropes---nowadays many ropes are rated for both), and it isn't just about rope drag either.

There's been a ton of stuff written about this, including by me, so some searching is in order rather than asking for a rehash. I'll mention briefly that:

The two main drawbacks are weight and handling. Handling can be mitigated by good technique, but weight is going to be a drawback no matter what. Moreover, as weight goes down, I think handling issues go up, and of course the lighter thinner ropes don't last as long. Although it may not be entirely true as ropes improve, I think as of now that 8.5mm have fewer handling issues and are a lot more durable than, say, 8mm ropes, so if you are going for an everyday rope or, like me, use one set of ropes for everything from short to long, then something in the 8.5 range is going to be the workhorse choice.

In actuality I'd put my climbing breakdown as follows,
%50 multipitch trad
%20 top rope
%20 ice/mixed
%10 sport

Combining pitches in the gunks is fantastic and full length raps are wonderful as well. In actuality the majority of the time I walk off, but whe rappels are necessary longer ones are ideal.

I think of the climbing I like to do, and aspire to do and doubles make the most sense. Sadly someone will need to explain that to my bank account...

Mammut genesis would be ideal, but 400 for a set of doubles is steep. I can get a great deal on trango amphibians, but they're thinner than I would originally like. Anyone use this line? (Same a the Pmi verglas).

60 vs 70 meter doubles?

WillamR wrote:60 vs 70 meter doubles?

I'd definitely go with 60. 20m of rope, even skinny, is a lot of extra weight to carry considering you'd probably almost never use it.

Rope drag trumps all the cons.

On my first lead on doubles, I combined two short pitches. When I reached the anchors, I looked down (65 meters) at two ropes, parallel, 10 feet apart. I was sold.

rgold wrote: The two main drawbacks are weight and handling. Handling can be mitigated by good technique, but weight is going to be a drawback no matter what.

I'd add to the "handling" category the propensity to create a cluster-%^&k at the anchor. Similarly, can be mitigated by good technique and practice to some extent, but still the potential will always be greater than with a single.

Alexey Dynkin wrote: I'd add to the "handling" category the propensity to create a cluster-%^&k at the anchor.

Actually, that was what I meant by handling. I don't view acquiring the ability to belay with a pair of independent lines a "drawback," although I guess some people might.

rgold wrote: Actually, that was what I meant by handling. I don't view acquiring the ability to belay with a pair of independent lines a "drawback," although I guess some people might.

Gotcha. I read the comment to mean more of the actual feel of the rope, but either way I agree, it's good to learn these techniques. That said, the statement that keeping the anchor organized with two ropes rather than one is more difficult and requires more attention is still valid and should be taken into account...whether this is a pro or con is a different matter.

the biggest problem with half ropes around here is finding folks who are experienced at belaying on them

and i dont mean people who do it once or twice a year on moderate multi/alpine climbs ... but folks who you trust to catch cragging (harder climbing at your limit) whippers on and not fiddle with the ropes ...

the second biggest problem is that they cost twice as much overall ... and may wear out faster in generally than say a good beefy 10mm rope ...

the advantages have already been listed by others

the bottom line is will you have partners that are proficient in half rope techniques ... or will they have to learn from scratch and by then you might have moved on to different partners to repeat the process

if you dont then yr may better off using em as twins rather than have a fumbly belayer

as to the maxim glider, that is know as a stiff rope ... get a beal, tendon, sterling if you want supple ropes

;)

I've got a set of Edelweiss Oxygen 8.2's and I really couldn't be happier with them, especially so in combination with my AlpineUp. The ability to do full length rappels is quite handy. Always having a spare lead line in case of stuck rope has saved my ass more than once. With half-ropes, a party of three is just barely slower than two once you get stuff dialed in. I also occasionally take just one half rope up easy climbs that I'm sure I wont be falling off. Honestly, the only downside I've experienced is a tendency to get the ropes a bit twisted at belays in a team of three, but that's relatively easy to avoid/manage once you've done a few multi's as a team of three. I'd recommend going for 60m rather than 70m, 120m is already a ton of rope as it is.

bearbreeder wrote:the biggest problem with half ropes around here is finding folks who are experienced at belaying on them

Sigh. This is true. A number of the advantages of half ropes are lost if the belayer can't handle the strands independently. For example, a belayer who pumps out slack in both strand when the leader is trying to clip with one strand is ruining one of the half-rope advantages. And a belayer who pays out both strands when the should be paying out one strand and taking the other strand in is ruining another advantage of half ropes.

Belayers are, of course, always supposed to be paying attention, but we know how that works sometimes. The penalties for belayer inattention with half ropes are more severe, so the half rope belayer had damn well better be focusing on the leader and not jabbering with folks nearby, etc.

One trick for half rope management that I've found not to be universally known is that the belayer will do best if they pay attention to the ropes directly in front of them; what these ropes are doing provides more immediate information about what to do than the leader's motions. Of course you watch the leader too if they are in sight, but watching the ropes just in front of you is equally important.

As a number of people have said, clusters at belays are one of the potential problems. If there is a ledge for the ropes to be piled on, I've never had an issue with just piling the ropes together as they're taken in---they'll feed out fine. This is assuming swinging leads. If the same person is leading consecutive pitches and there is a ledge to pile the rope, I think the best thing is to re-pile the rope so that the leader's end is back on top; trying to turn the pile over doesn't always work and the time cost of one major tangle is far greater than the sum of a bunch of small re-pilings. If the team has their changeovers dialed, then the second will have the rope re-piled by the time the leader has re-racked and no time will be lost.

The real issue with rope tangles is when the ropes can't be piled and have to be flaked over the tie-in. Then careful stacking with graduated-length loops is required, in an order corresponding to who's leading next. Although I'm not generally a big fan of belaying the second off the anchor with some sort of guide plate, that method makes it much easier to do a good stacking job.

Another handling issue on multipitch climbs is getting the ropes twisted around each other. This could be viewed as a "feature," because it detects that the rope as a whole has been twisted, something you can't tell if you are using a single rope. But how you untwist determines whether you exploit this "feature" or not---untwisting should be done by having the climber rotate in an appropriate direction. Repeatedly putting one strand over the head and then stepping over it untwists that strand but leaves the overall twist in the other strand, which could eventually lead to kinks in that strand.

They do rock, but +1 on the funky-belay issue.

I try to clip at my waist (or close to it) as much as possible if I know I've got a guy on the other end that is newer to half ropes. Helps to remove the need to pay one out while taking in slack on the other, plus clipping lower is a good habit to get into anyway, even with a single.

I always love when I'm on lead and they start scolding me because I'm not alternating my clipping of ropes evenly. I'm traversing, baby! Be cool!

rgold... great reply.

this is what I do:

"One trick for half rope management that I've found not to be universally known is that the belayer will do best if they pay attention to the ropes directly in front of them; what these ropes are doing provides more immediate information about what to do than the leader's motions. Of course you watch the leader too if they are in sight, but watching the ropes just in front of you is equally important."

My main partner, grew up climbing in the Gunks. When we started climbing together I had to learn how to do this. I am glad I did cause IMHO this is the way to climb in the MTS.

Adam Burch wrote: I try to clip at my waist (or close to it) as much as possible if I know I've got a guy on the other end that is newer to half ropes. Helps to remove the need to pay one out while taking in slack on the other, plus clipping lower is a good habit to get into anyway, even with a single.

Yes but...one of the advantages of half ropes, one I use a fair amount with funky pro, is to get the crappy gear as far over your head as possible so that you have an upper belay through it for as long as possible. This is exactly the kind of thing you might not want to do with a single rope because of all the slack you get if that high piece pulls. But with half ropes properly handled you pay no penalty for that overhead piece blowing.

Adam Burch wrote: I always love when I'm on lead and they start scolding me because I'm not alternating my clipping of ropes evenly. I'm traversing, baby! Be cool!

"Alternating evenly" is one of the myths of half rope use. You want, as much as possible, to run them up the route in parallel lines. Striving for parallelism is what determines which rope is clipped, and for face-climbing with meandering pro, this may or may not result in alternate clipping.

As a number of people have said, clusters at belays are one of the potential problems. If there is a ledge for the ropes to be piled on, I've never had an issue with just piling the ropes together as they're taken in---they'll feed out fine

As mentioned the problem comes when the belay is without a ledge and you have to drape the rope over a tie in point. Stacking the rope like this has caused me problems too...untangling rope is annoying not to mention time consuming... one trick ive used is to have two tie in points...say clove hitch to a master point and a runner to the "upper deck" clipping point (or a bolt or piece of gear) basically any rigging that will allow the ropes to be coiled separately. its a little tedious, but not nearly as bad as untangling ropes.

I don't bother on short routes, but for long routes I've found Metolius rope hooks to make hanging slack collection efficient and much more tangle-free than flaking over a sling or the tie-in.

The reason the rope hook is better is that you can lift the leading rope off the hook and drop it, you don't have to pull it off. Pulling a rope flaked over a tie-in shortens the loop opposite the strand you are pulling, and if that loop catches on any other loops you're off to the tangle races. With the lift and drop process, no loops ever shorten. This means you don't have to try to have graduated loops and don't have to despair when you fail, as I usually do when trying.