Rope pigtailing

Hello MP,

just throwing this out there to see if anyone has come up with a way to keep newer ropes from pigtailing. I do get this occasionally at the pile end of the rope when sport climbing but on multipitch trad its the worst. when I get my second up to me the end he's tied into has a couple feet of badly pigtailed rope. last time he had to go in direct to the anchor and untie to fix it.
i've been told its the belay device I use but i've seen other people use my same device (CT alpine-up) and i've use other belay devices and still have the issue.
my most often used rope for trad is a mammut infinity protect in 70m. its a very well reviewed rope and I don't recall seeing any complaints about pigtailing.
anyone have any recommendations or prevention or quick fixes when its already happened?

thanks

hmm mammut ropes come preflaked. what devices are you using to belay?

do a couple full length raps (dont tie the ends together)

duggk wrote:hmm mammut ropes come preflaked. what devices are you using to belay?

climbing technology alpine-up. I also use the click-up for sport which seems to not be as bad on the pigtailing

Is it the purple 9.2? I have the same rope and the same problem. No solution on my end unfortunately.

MattH wrote:Is it the purple 9.2? I have the same rope and the same problem. No solution on my end unfortunately.

green 9.5mm

Nathanael wrote:do a couple full length raps (dont tie the ends together)

This, and take your rope to the top of a cliff and hold it from the middle point and let the two tails hang down the cliff, then give it a couple of really good whips. Someone taught me this trick and I found it to really help get a rope settled a little after unpackaging it.

If a clean, dry, grassy field is more accessible than a clifftop: flake out the rope and then drag it around by one end. The effect is similar to un-twisting your fishing line by taking the hook off and letting it out downriver.

It's not the belay device.

Are you following the proper uncoiling instructions?

Mammut ropes and Petzl ropes are packaged ready-to-use. No special uncoiling instructions necessary.

For most other ropes you need to read the manual and following the specific uncoiling instructions so that you don't end up with a twisted mess.

(I have found the specific instructions for uncoiling sterling ropes to be the biggest PITA of all the many different ropes I've bought)

Most people do not know that they should be doing this. They end up blaming the rope or their belay device.

A modification of what Lee said above to get rid of kinks, is to drag out your rope in the woods, running it over reachable (i.e. 4ft to 6 ft high) branches every 20-30 ft to keep it off the dirt and ground. The twists sort of work their way to the end of the rope and when the free end rotates the kinks come out. If the free end is hanging down off a tree branch I guess it's even easier to rotate than if it's on the ground. Same theory as the guy who said to let-em-hang and flick the ends, but more effective. Back in the days before everyone rapped off, you'd see this being done often at the Gunks, walking back from the climb to downclimb the Uberfall.

BUT, there's something putting all those kinks into the rope. From my experience, one of the #1 reasons is rapping off those double bolt anchors, where the bolts are parallel and there's one ring fixed in each. Worse, much worse, seems to be to lower off such an anchor. I don't know why, but it seems that every time I rap off one of these, there are kinks for quite a while. Something, I guess, about the sheath and the core, and the fact the rope is forced to do it twice. With single-point anchors I don't see the problem.

ps- I agree with comments above that it's probably not the belay device, and could be how you uncoiled the rope when it was first uncoiled. If you think you may have "goofed" first uncoiling, try the "walk through the woods" mentioned above. Walk for, like, at least 3 or 4 times the length of the rope. Then repeat, walking the other way, holding the other end (i.e. holding the end that was free-to-rotate on the first walk.)

I know it's not the same... when I was laying hardwood floors and we bought a new air hose we would get a person on each of the ends and have a little tug of war. It really seemed to help get the twist out. I have done this with my ropes but can't tell if it helps

Khoi wrote:It's not the belay device. Are you following the proper uncoiling instructions? Mammut ropes and Petzl ropes are packaged ready-to-use. No special uncoiling instructions necessary. For most other ropes you need to read the manual and following the specific uncoiling instructions so that you don't end up with a twisted mess. (I have found the specific instructions for uncoiling sterling ropes to be the biggest PITA of all the many different ropes I've bought) Most people do not know that they should be doing this. They end up blaming the rope or their belay device.

im confused, I have a mammut rope so theres nothing I should need to do with it?

Kurt G. wrote: im confused, I have a mammut rope so theres nothing I should need to do with it?

No, that person is wrong. Maxim is the only company that uses a normal coil. You will have to do the special uncoiling technique. The instructions that come with mammut ropes is not very good so just watch one of the numerous videos on youtube.

Since you already have the pigtails, the best thing you can do is rap from a multi-pitch climb where the ends can hang freely and untwist under gravity. If this isn't in option, you can just flake out the rope from the middle mark to each end a bunch of times. When you do this, the kinks will gradually move toward the rope ends where you can get them out.

Is it possible that you were introducing twists due to the way you were stacking the coils while belaying?

Clip the rope into a carabiner as high up as you can find, pull the rope through from end to end and watch the twists undo themselves as you go. if a twist makes it to that carabiner then you must pull the rope through one more time. Repeat as needed. It's worked for me the handful of times I've developed twists, usually from bringing up my follower on different sides of the belay and stacking the rope improperly on long routes.

I get this too when sport climbing outdoors and at the gym. It seems to be more pronounced when lowering off the anchor. I just occasionally flip ends of the rope being used and flake it. Another option is to pull all of the rope through the anchor to undo the twists.

For multi pitch I believe the issue is different and is addressed in the following thread:

mountainproject.com/v/doubl…

I'd also add that if you rappel with the Alpine Up in self locking facilitated mode where the rope ends go through the added carabiner to keep them out of the V grooves to lessen friction, this twists the ropes a lot. Only use this particular function when the rope ends are free hanging on a vertical or overhung descent so the twist can undo themselves.

I recommend a single-strand rappel. That way you start at 1 end of the rope and unkink to the other end. Do it on easy terrain, too.

Are you switching ends often or are you leading off the same end all day long?

Kurt G. wrote:... has [anyone] come up with a way to keep newer ropes from pigtailing ... on multipitch trad its the worst. ... anyone have any recommendations or prevention or quick fixes when its already happened?

I've seen seriously bad pigtail-ing like that in a few circumstances:

• top-rope-ing through through an anchor where the biner the rope runs through is held out of alignment with the natural way it would otherwise orient to the run of the rope;
• redirecting the belay when bringing up the second - again, likely with the redirect biner kept from naturally orienting to the pull from the rope.
• rapping on a munter;
• after a lead, down-climbing an adjacent route after redirecting the rope through a bolt/quick-draw on that other route - again with the rope-side biner likely kept from naturally orienting towards the run of the rope.

Largely, the common thread is having the rope run across a biner that is prevented from naturally orienting to the rope tension.

What might be the culprit for you? Hard to say. I can imagine ...

Belay gadgets can definitely do this. I once tried belaying with an ATC using two specific kinds of lockers. While I got the friction I wanted, the shape of the two lockers sort of asymmetrically oriented themselves to each other and would push coils into the rope.

Or I'd guess that using quick-draws on multi-pitch or even clipping direct to a piece of protection might cause a biner to be held off of its natural orientation to the running rope.

If it is not your belay gadget, I think you will find the answer if you focus on what might be causing the rope to run through a biner that can not fully orient itself to the run of the rope.

Bill

P.S. If you are seeing this only on new ropes, the suggestions up thread about using care in uncoiling the rope are worth considering.

eli poss wrote: No, that person is wrong. Maxim is the only company that uses a normal coil. You will have to do the special uncoiling technique. The instructions that come with mammut ropes is not very good so just watch one of the numerous videos on youtube. Since you already have the pigtails, the best thing you can do is rap from a multi-pitch climb where the ends can hang freely and untwist under gravity. If this isn't in option, you can just flake out the rope from the middle mark to each end a bunch of times. When you do this, the kinks will gradually move toward the rope ends where you can get them out.

My Mammut came pre-flaked. I had to do nothing to uncoil it and I have never had any kinking or twisting problems. Mammut Infinity 70m 9.8mm

OTOH, my Maxim rope was not pre-flaked. I carefully uncoiled it following directions, and it was mostly fine. A bit kinky at first, but straightened out after a couple of raps.

Surprising pig-tailing can happen ...

For years, my preferred rap gadget was an HMS locker with a tube-style device. I then began doubling up biners - two of the same HMS lockers - for added friction and started getting pigtails

The two lockers just didn't cleanly nest together.