Buying an Alpine Rope

Wanted to get some advice on whether or not a rope I'm looking at is a good buy.

Currently I have:

70m Sterling 9.8mm, Semi-dry (General crag rope)
35m Petzl 10.1mm (Gym rope)

I'm looking into buying a rope that I can use for glacier travel with a team and higher alpine routes. I want to get something a bit lighter weight. I'm looking at this:

https://www.rei.com/product/167809/mammut-alpine-95mm-x-60m-dry-rope 

I'm thinking about pulling the trigger since it's on sale. With my current rope setup, do you think this rope would fill a good niche?

I would go with either a triple rated rope such as the mammut serenity or the edelrid swift protect pro.  Or a set of twins ropes about 8mm in diameter.

For me alpine means long distance hiking and climbing so lighter is better. 

Eww - $187 is a horrible price. Heck no. Not a "sale".
and 59 g/m weight is heavy!

So 1 - expensive + 2 - heavy = no go on that rope.

Try something along the lines of
Beal Joker 9.1mm 52 g/m https://www.backcountry.com/beal-joker-9.1mm-dry-cover-rope 
Beal Opera 8.5mm 47 g/m https://shop.epictv.com/en/ropes/beal/opera?sku=BEA15_ROPOPEGD_60BLU 

For Epic TV - code "5EXTRA" usually works for 5% off. BackCountry is 12% cashback at AJ today

more triple-rated ropes at good prices: https://shop.epictv.com/en/products/triple-rated-ropes 

Is it a dedicated alpine/snow travel rope?  Then I would want twins or like a 9.0 (9.0 for weight savings twins for safety or weight savings using only 1 twin on snow travel)

If it's for "alpine" but harder alpine with more serious climbing and or might be used as a multipitch or "send" rope then 9.5 would make sense as a multipurpose rope but might not be much noticeable difference compared to the 9.8 you already have (other than 10m shorter saves a lot) for a multipurpose rope on the cascades I'd still want a 70m wa pass isn't that much of a hike.  If you are carrying it way further and it is truly a dedicated alpine rope 60 saves weight. 

I think you could go a bit thinner than 9.5mm. I've been using the triple-rated 60m Beal Opera 8.5mm Golden Dry for glacier travel, multi-pitch alpine rock, and ice climbing for a few years now and have been very happy with it. Looks like it's 25% off at Moosejaw (and probably other places) right now.

If you're anticipating the need for double rope rappels you may want to go with a set of twins as pat has suggested.

Dude(s), thanks for the feedback.

I was thinking I'd stay away from a double rope setup for now, but I imagine I'll eventually look into something like that.

I like the look of that Mammut Serenity, however it's not on sale at the moment. Doing a weight comparison it looks like the 60m Serenity weights in at 6.74 lbs where as the 60m Alpine weighs in at 7.79 lbs. I have a bit of an ultralight thru-hiking background, so the concept of saving a skosh over a pound sounds like a good idea. However, I also like the sale price of the Alpine.

I'm a tad confused on the different designations of "dry" rope. It seems there is a dry treatment that is applied, but you can also get a higher designation of "dry" if it has a dry core as well? Does someone have a good article or could they explain the difference? I'm not sure whether or not the Serenity has a dry core.

Edit - Some awesome suggestions and info in here. Sounds like 9.5mm is too fat for what I'm wanting to do. It also sounds like a twin setup is eventually what I want to do. Thanks for all the help!

Note that the Beal Joker is 52 g/m at 9.1mm and the Edelrid Swift Pro Dry and Tendon Master are both the same 52 g/m at 8.9mm rating. Go by g/m when comparing weight and even "size".

Double Dry means both the sheath and core are dry treated. Single means just the sheath. I also like Beal's Unicore technology and many other manufacturers have started to implement or partially implement it.

If going twins - you can go super light 7.x mm or get a triple rated 8.x mm now and add another later too...

+1 for the beal opera. there is dry (sheath) and golden dry (core and sheath).

When I think alpine rope i think using just one of my half ropes, if its easy use it like a single, when it gets hard fold it in half and use two strands. but it all depends though.def wouldnt head for the hulk with a setup like that. but def on a big ridge traverse.

9.5mm is more of a cragging diameter
9.0mm and under for hard alpine
8.0mm for easy alpine

What are some examples of routes you'd like to do? If routes are wandering, half rope system is really nice. You can use a doubled over triple-rated rope but you'll be limited to 30 meter pitches. You can also carry just one half or twin rope and double it over but again you'll only be able to climb and rap pitches that are half the rope length. If you're likely to be doing lots of rappels, it's nice to have two ropes for longer raps. Yes, you can pair a skinny single with a light tag line and save some weight over a half rope system, but rappeling is a bit more complex and if you get your dynamic rope stuck it can be a bit problematic if your tag is static. Yes, you'll probably spend more for two ropes than for one, but a half rope system is way more versatile and I think you'd get more from that than from getting a skinnier single-only rope like the one you linked.

You probably know this already but just in case: Half ropes can be clipped individually, twin ropes cannot. Confusingly, many half ropes are also rated as twin, and triple rated ropes are rated for half, twin and single. Keep in mind that sometimes the triple rated ropes will be less durable (lower sheath percentage) than a skinnier half or twin rope. Alpine climbing can be rough on ropes and durability can be valuable, or you may want to choose the path of replacing ropes more often to maximize weight savings. Many companies are starting to publish the sheath percentage by mass, which helps a bit to evaluate durability. The very lightest ropes are usually twin-only, and can be so skinny (<7mm) that they won't work in standard belay devices. For half ropes, 8.5mm is on the fat end and some of these have a good reputation for durability, <8mm is on the skinnier end. I find myself using my 7.9 half/twin ropes way more than my 9.2 single/half in the alpine, mostly because I need to rappel >30m to get down.

Sterling nano iX 9.0mm 60m dryXP IS THE  BEST ALPINE/light rock/snow rope  

Eliot Hack wrote: Sterling nano iX 9.0mm 60m dryXP IS THE  BEST ALPINE/light rock/snow rope  

I’ve got it in 50M.  Love it.  

If you decide to go with half ropes, consider two 50m. Saves a bit of weight and 50m is a nice length for Glacier travel. Sometimes go on sale for less than $100 each. 

What do you actually want to do with this rope? Alpine is many different things to many different people a sub 9mm won't last if you're doing allot of steep granite rock climbing but you wouldn't want to bring a 60m 9.5 just for glacier travel and some light scrambling, for that you'd just have a single half rope. 

Matt N wrote:  
Beal Joker 9.1mm 52 g/m https://www.backcountry.com/beal-joker-9.1mm-dry-cover-rope 
 

I just got this in 50M for short/easy sport and alpine stuff and I was genuinely surprised at how light it is. Haven't used it yet TBH but it does feel good. And not expensive. 

If you're going to be dragging this on a glacier in the summer, you want a really dry rope.  I thought all UIIA ropes were now required to absorb no more than 5% of their weight when submerged for X?? long.
I used a friends Golden Dry a few yrs ago (before the new UIIA standard) ice climbing all day in melting conditions. When we rapped at the end of the day no water squeezed out of my ATC. I was AMAZED !  

Robert Hall wrote: I thought all UIIA ropes were now required to absorb no more than 5% of their weight when submerged for X?? long.

It's an optional standard plenty of manufacturers sell "Dry" treated ropes that don't conform or haven't been tested to the standard, generally for a cheaper price too. 

Victor Machtel wrote:

I just got this in 50M for short/easy sport and alpine stuff and I was genuinely surprised at how light it is. Haven't used it yet TBH but it does feel good. And not expensive. 

Don't expect it to last long if you're using it for any real amount of rock climbing I trashed one in just 2 months of climbing in chamonix. 

that guy named seb wrote:

Don't expect it to last long if you're using it for any real amount of rock climbing I trashed one in just 2 months of climbing in chamonix. 

YMMV. My Beal Joker lasted two winters of Hyalite ice climbing, two desert seasons, a trip to Patagonia, and a whole lot of alpine rock climbing around Montana. I’ve chopped a bit off one end. And I still climb on it.

There really aren’t that many “bad” climbing ropes out there any more. Get one that fits your specs, is reasonably priced, and the length you want. The rope isn’t going to make the difference between you summiting or not. 

that guy named seb wrote:

Don't expect it to last long if you're using it for any real amount of rock climbing I trashed one in just 2 months of climbing in chamonix. 

I was indeed not planning to use it for anything on serious rock. Maybe some easy sport when no other rope is available but definitely not going to use it redlining. 

I've gone through two Beal jokers, one trad climbing in 6 months (no falls) and the other in cham in  2 months (lots of rappelling but not falls) and I've heard similar reports from others who've had one. Just a really fragile mantle.
Also matt there definitely are still bad ropes out there these days, edelweiss ropes and fixe ropes are garbage and beals entry level ropes have handled and tangled like shit with in the last 4 years.