Convince Me to Buy Half Ropes Or... Not

Benjaminadk wrote: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.

My biggest rope managament hassles come when belaying 2 seconds. When belaying one I just flake the ropes together, but as soon as you start flaking them seperately, if you don't have a nice ledge to spaghetti pile them, it can become a mess rather quickly.

Personally I have never like twin/double rope technique. I believe in K.I.S.S.

Something to consider:

Climbing in a party of 3 on doubles should be taken case by case. Its probably fine on ice, where everything the rope touches is round, blunt, and slick. Less than ideal on rock routes that are straight up. Potentially dangerous on rock routes with traverses and roofs (which is sounds like you might deal with frequently).

Doubles are substantially less durable than singles, even skinny singles. Combine this with the tendency to alternate which rope is clipped in order to alleviate rope drag during traverses, roofs, etc (which is why your climbing on doubles to begin with) and you have a propensity to create a dangerous situation for your followers. i.e. follower falls, leader didn't place pro or clip pro in a manner that protects the follower, follower's rope cuts or core shots on sharp roof or flake as follower pendulums.

Not to mention the increased elongation of following on 1 double rope, and the cluster fuck that occurs while belaying 2 followers and stacking the ropes are at different rates.

Brent Butler wrote:Something to consider: Climbing in a party of 3 on doubles should be taken case by case. Its probably fine on ice, where everything the rope touches is round, blunt, and slick. Less than ideal on rock routes that are straight up. Potentially dangerous on rock routes with traverses and roofs (which is sounds like you might deal with frequently). Doubles are substantially less durable than singles, even skinny singles. Combine this with the tendency to alternate which rope is clipped in order to alleviate rope drag during traverses, roofs, etc (which is why your climbing on doubles to begin with) and you have a propensity to create a dangerous situation for your followers. i.e. follower falls, leader didn't place pro or clip pro in a manner that protects the follower, follower's rope cuts or core shots on sharp roof or flake as follower pendulums. Not to mention the increased elongation of following on 1 double rope, and the cluster fuck that occurs while belaying 2 followers and stacking the ropes are at different rates.

yes and no ...

- it requires practice especially by the leader

- on straight up pitches alternating clips is fine

- on wandering/traversing pitches the leader should basically use the twin techniques ... but rather than clipping both ropes through each biner, but clip rope separately into its own biner/draw ... this way the weaker second (middle) can simply uncilp the draw ... this requires extra draws of course

- this means that the leader shouldnt drag up two seconds in autoblock on something close to their limit of course with the extra clips and draws needed

- when done properly rope management is actually pretty easy with doubles with 2 seconds ... simply use autoblock and flake both ropes as one over your tie in .. if theres a ledge its actually really easy to pile them up separately ....

- regardless the moment both seconds come up they immediately reflake the rope over their tie in points

- the extra person also sort keeps the rope running clean for the belayer once the leader starts off ... this also acts as a backup belayer in case of nasty high factor falls or rockfall

- simply because its a half rope doesnt mean its less "durable" abrasion wise than a skinny single ... for example ....


For instance, our Genesis 8.5mm half ropes are designed for ice and alpine climbing. Climbers rarely fall in these situations but they do subject their ropes to incredible abrasion and they need them to be very cut-resistant. With these ropes we consider a high number of test falls held to be of relatively less importance, so we sacrifice the falls-held rating—which reflects to a large degree how long a rope will last under repeated hard falls—in order to build a rope that will be ultra-durable under very harsh abrasion conditions and will be more difficult to scrape through to the core. We do this in part by altering the tension the rope is braided under, the pattern of the braid, chemical treatments that are thermally applied during the heat-treating process, etc—but we also use a relatively thin core and a very thick sheath, because that helps the rope to be as durable as possible under these types of situations.

Some of our ultra-thin single ropes like the Serenity 8.9mm have a relatively thin sheath because even with all the tricks we can muster we still need a certain amount of core in order to pass the UIAA test for a single rope—in this case we use a thinner sheath to achieve a very low weight and thin diameter, but we do thins knowing that this is a very specialized rope that is only appropriate under very specific circumstances. In these cases they are used by very experienced climbers for hard sport climbs or alpine routes where they are willing to sacrifice a level of abrasion resistance in exchange for lighter weight—this is why we recommend that people do not use any of these very thin single ropes for workout climbing or toproping. People also need to recognize that even though these are single ropes, and even though the diameter is larger than our Genesis half ropes, under conditions where the main danger is cutting or abrasion the thicker rope might actually be LESS durable and have a lower safety margin.

highinfatuation.com/blog/st…

the main thing is to practice these skills before setting out on a longer multi ... and make sure the seconds you take up have practiced them as well

also your self rescue skills better be practiced (not just watching you tube vids) and up to the challenge of potentially dealing with two stuck climbers

i climb with two seconds a decent amount ... its absolutely and utterly fine on most routes that are within your limit if you know and practice these skills

if everyone is competent, IME it adds about 25% to the time of the climb ... and can actually be better in some ways if more gear needs to be carried as both followers can carry a pack

;)

Brent Butler wrote:Something to consider: Climbing in a party of 3 on doubles should be taken case by case.

Almost everything we do in climbing should be taken case by case.

Brent Butler wrote:Its probably fine on ice, where everything the rope touches is round, blunt, and slick. Less than ideal on rock routes that are straight up. Potentially dangerous on rock routes with traverses and roofs (which is sounds like you might deal with frequently).

If all this is based on misinformed durability arguments, then it is wrong, otherwise it is merely unsupported.

Brent Butler wrote: Doubles are substantially less durable than singles, even skinny singles.

Bearbreeder has made it clear this is about as wrong as it is possible to be.

Brent Butler wrote:Combine this with the tendency to alternate which rope is clipped in order to alleviate rope drag during traverses, roofs, etc (which is why your climbing on doubles to begin with) and you have a propensity to create a dangerous situation for your followers, i.e. follower falls, leader didn't place pro or clip pro in a manner that protects the follower, follower's rope cuts or core shots on sharp roof or flake as follower pendulums.

All that is really being said is that a very useful tool in incompetent hands may lead to problems. That said, when two followers are going to be following simultaneously, the leader often cannot lead on doubles they way they would if there was only a single follower. The ropes do end up being used more like twins at least some of the time, although often half rope alternate clipping strategies that would have left a follower with a pendulum can still be implemented by having the first follower clip the rope for the second follower. In any case, the leader is never worse off in terms of rope drag than he or she would have been with a single rope.

Any technique has trade-offs, but if you want to climb in a rope of three, I think it is almost impossible to argue that two followers, possibly strung out over two pitches, with all the gear issues, delays, and isolation issues for the last person, is even remotely preferable to the double rope method. Having both followers climb simultaneously does assume that the party knows what it is doing, but once that assumption is dropped all kinds of dangerous scenarios become possible no matter how the ropes are employed.

If you are going to try this, make sure everyone is already familiar with half rope techniques and then work out the kinks on small crags without time and/or weather pressures before taking the show to bigger venues.

Great discussion gang. Rgold, the short-term toprope you describe is nice, but I always worry if I'm dealing with a newer belay. Most of my partners watch the ropes in front of them, so they know the score on what I'm up to if the ropes are moving opposed.

As far as the traverse goes with two followers, and protecting from/avoiding a pendi, I'll sacrifice the rope drag and clip them to prevent that. One follower? Standard halfrope technique, baby!

Regarding rope weight, our Metolius Monster twins are about the same weight as our 70M 9.4, and the packaged ropes are slightly smaller bundled in similar rope bags.

Benjaminadk wrote: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 like this method too. It's not a bad idea (from a redundancy argument) to have two tie-in points anyway, IMO. Also makes it much easier if you have to untangle something untie/retie, etc. I've also found that if you're using an autoblock-type belay device it's not too hard to stack the coils separately even on the same tie-in point, provided it's long enough.

Alexey Dynkin wrote: 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.

Agreed. It takes careful management, which I'm still terrible at.

I wouldn't want to do any complex alpine, snow, ice or mixed routes without my 1/2 ropes. I love them.

As for weight - one of the benefits of a half rope setup? You give half the weight to the other guy.... ;-)

(Granted you still have to carry the other half...)