Best Lightweight Glacier Travel Rope

What is the best glacier travel rope that is the lightest weight for big day, minimal gear missions? Don't need to use it rap. Should work with a prusik, microtraxion, atc/megajul, munter... Dry treated? What length? I think for a 2 person team, 20 meters in plenty.

Sterling Fusion Photon DryXP Climbing Rope - 7.8mm =====41 grams/meter @ 30 meter  2.71lbs

Edelrid Skimmer Pro Dry Climbing Rope - 7.1mm ==== 36 grams/meter @ 30 meter 2.4 lbs

Sterling 6 mm XTec ??

EDELRID FLYCATCHER 6.9MM  ==== 35 grams/meter @ 30 meter ~2.35 lbs

Thoughts?

How small are the holes you intend to cross? Are you intending to do any short-roping or short pitching with it? I would say 40 m total is minimal for a team of two, and you can split into two 20 m lengths if you have significant stretches of unroped travel and want to distribute the load.

Three of the four ropes you names are nominally too small for an ATC (minimal 7.7 mm diameter) and one appears (Xtec) to be just accessory cord. All would be difficult or even unsafe with a munter. The Dry treatment is pretty much required for glacier ropes.

You should be able to get prusik cord to work with all of these ropes, if you select an appropriately supple cord or a hollow block. I find this cord works very well on dry-treated small diameter ropes. sterlingrope.com/store/clim…

20 meters is not enough for a two person team if you travel with thirds for hauling which one should. You need to rethink the length of rope needed. I like 15 meters between people which means each climber carries 15 meters of rope thus requires a 45 meter rope.

None of those ropes will work on a micro traction and only one with the Mega Jul.

Rethink your requirements.

I once bought super skinny ropes and had the hardware to work with it, my climbing buddies didn't. So end up getting back to the slightly thicker ropes... Now i got two microjul's laying around.

If it's purely for glacier travel, Petzl RAD line might be an option. But you definitely need more than 20m of it and it only works with certain devices that Petzl has specifically tested with it. And you can't lead on it. 

How about the Beal Rando. 8mm, 37g/m. I think it's sold in 20/30/40m lengths. I would go with 30m minimum for two people on a glacier (more depending on the average hole size). With skinny ropes you may be more likely to need to use a drop loop as they can really cut into snow lips making a 3:1 a bit of a bugger.

Also why do you use rope spacing, weight per length and diameter in metric but total rope weight in imperial?

for example...running into gannet peak during the late summer. going with 1 other person, each having 1 tool, rescue gear, microspikes. I could see a 30 meter rope having more benefit i suppose 

To be honest, if you're using this for Gannett Peak late-summer, skip the rope. I've never found any of the crevasses in the Winds to be hidden that time of year, and haven't ever felt weirded out travelling over them by myself. But if this is for other uses/places, the RAD line that's been mentioned works well for that purpose. I bought the 60M and ended up cutting it down to 40M; I'm using it mostly for rapping into ski lines, but it's intended purpose is to be used for glacier travel. I works perfectly with a MicroJul, which is the device I use with it. It's light enough that is literally stays in my pack throughout the ski season and I don't notice the extra weight. It's there when I need it, and stays in the bottom of my pack when I don't. I've seen people double the line for use in an emergency lead situation, but I haven't personally used it that way myself. Not sure that I'd want that being my life-line, but if it's all you've got....

The Rando is also a good option, and much cheaper than the RAD line. It's also bulkier, heavier and thicker. My experience has been with the Edelweiss Discover, which is very similar to the Rando. It's sold in 30M lengths. It comes with a dry treatment (nice for glacier travel) and has a 9kN "rating" (if I can remember correctly), which I would equate to a half rope. Plenty for glacier travel and rapping, but a little on the "unsafe" side (depending on your risk tolerance). Still pretty bulky, but a good option if the RAD line is out of your price-range.

Carl Smith wrote: for example...running into gannet peak during the late summer. going with 1 other person, each having 1 tool, rescue gear, microspikes. I could see a 30 meter rope having more benefit i suppose 

But the real question is do you even want to bother with a rope on gannet in late summer? Or a tool.

Whoops just read the above post by davis

Allen Sanderson wrote: 20 meters is not enough for a two person team if you travel with thirds for hauling which one should. You need to rethink the length of rope needed. I like 15 meters between people which means each climber carries 15 meters of rope thus requires a 45 meter rope.

None of those ropes will work on a micro traction and only one with the Mega Jul.

Rethink your requirements.

I have the Sterling fusion in 7.8 and 70m (Got a great deal on a pair), my Roll-n-lock works on it, girlfriends micro traction works for progress capture and prussiking up a rope.

Agree that 20m is not enough. 30m may be doable, but make sure you have your haul system worked out, (mariner 7-1 would probably do it). I personally think 50m is about right for a party of 2 people (able to do drop loop from either end).
For strictly glacier travel, and not leading Petzl RAD looks interesting. BD just released their static 6.5mm "tag line" which may be interesting to use for  glacier travel specifically.

mmm..Not sure you'd want to be on a static line if you dropped (as in free fall) into a "hole".  

Agree 20m is too short; 30m is minimum if your planning on crossing crevasses with a party of just 2.  Even that is pretty short once you put a fig 8 knot in the rope every 6-8 ft or so (this greatly increases the stopping power of the rope running over the cevasse's edge. Read about it. [ Hopefully this is not another "out-of-date-advice from an "old fart". ]

Your buddy is in the hole, there's a big weight on your harness (him/her), your ice axe only goes in 12 inches before it hits shitty ice, too shitty for ice screws and besides it's 85F and in the sun.  You can hardly move.  Best that the other end of the rope is already in the crevasse and attached to your buddy. i.e. Walk with doubled rope between you.   At least that's what I did when there was only 2 of us, a situation I tried to avoid. 

The RopeMan2 ascenders work fine on 8mm rope. I suspect other do too, even if the instructions say "8.5mm" min.

 I'd look at 40m or 50m of about 8mm (7.8 to 8.4 or thereabouts) making sure it's a "really dry" rope.  50m has the advantage you can "twin or double it" and have a pair of rock climbing ropes once you get off the glacier. Of course you can do the same with a pair of 40m's, but many rock pitches are longer than 40m.

 The 40m saves a bit of weight and is OK if you're only doing snow/glacier/ice and Class 4 rock. (Remember the best-kept semi-secret in the UIAA world is that every Half Rope has to pass ONE full weight "fall test". (but not so Twin Ropes].  Think about it: Leader leads off the P2 belay, climbs 2 ft, puts in a piece, clips in one of the 2 half ropes (as intended) then climbs another 8 ft and falls. 16 ft fall with 10 ft of rope out has to hold. )

 
 

Below is from https://www.petzl.com/BE/en/Sport/News/2015-12-1/Tips-and-techniques-for-glacier-travel-on-skis

"To stop a crevasse fall when traveling on a glacier, always making sure to keep the rope as tight as possible, people most often use a small-diameter dynamic rope. Several tests in the field prove that a lightweight static rope can also be used."