How to remove twist in rope?

Somehow my 70m rope seems to have developed a twist, when I belay with a grigri it starts developing a twist and makes lowering and feeding slack a pain. I've always used a butterfly coil so I'm now sure what caused it. Aside from a giant free hanging rappel which I don't have access to, is there another way to remove the twists? 

Flake the rope from one end to the other a few times. Make sure the twists are going away from the pile you are stacking. 

If you can’t get to a cliff, just rap down the sidewalk at home. After the first rap leave it there. Go back to the middle mark and do it a few more times as needed. Not quite as good as a free hanging rap. But it will work.

Running it through an ATC while flaking it may help. 

Take your rope out. Start at end A. Flake the rope out onto the floor, making sure that end A is poking out so you can find it again. Try to shake out whatever twists you can along the way until you reach end B. Then grab the whole pile and flop it over the best you can. Now repeat the process, starting at end A and flaking the rope out. Always flake from A to B, don't go back the other way.

If you do this enough times, you'll end up pushing most of the twists off of the B end of the rope. It's tedious, but it gets the job done.

Chuck Parks wrote: Take your rope out. Start at end A. Flake the rope out onto the floor, making sure that end A is poking out so you can find it again. Try to shake out whatever twists you can along the way until you reach end B. Then grab the whole pile and flop it over the best you can. Now repeat the process, starting at end A and flaking the rope out. Always flake from A to B, don't go back the other way.

If you do this enough times, you'll end up pushing most of the twists off of the B end of the rope. It's tedious, but it gets the job done.

Did it this way a couple days ago, it worked.

Back in the days of the "mountaineer's coil" we used to do the "walk in the woods"  flake out the rope as normal. then take the top end and start walking, as you walk look for a tree with a branch you can reach, put the end of the rope over the branch and keep walking, repeat so there's 4 or 5 per rope length. Try to walk in a reasonably straight line, but a bit of gentle curving isn't a problem.  Walk at least 2x the length of the rope (more is better) so that the free end can flip around and let the twists out.  Worse the kinks, longer the walk in the woods. Really, really bad?  After doing the above, reverse ends and walk the other way.  Coil as normal (butterfly).

Most probably kinks got in when lowering off an anchor that was, effectively, "two points", even if it looked like single-point; that or, during rapping,  pulling down off of one (or more!) of the anchors with 2 rings set apart.

Dan Daugherty wrote: This is more for prevention, but switching between a GriGri and a tuber seems to cause twists faster than just using one or the other.

Im not sure if that’s the problem? In my experience it seems to be the Gri Gri that fucks it up.

Now that you have your twists out, try to keep the rope running straight through the device as much as possible to keep twisting down to a minimum.  Of course, if you need the extra holding power, pull the rope over the side of the device.  But if you don't need it, a straight path will keep the kinks down.

Matt Himmelstein wrote: Now that you have your twists out, try to keep the rope running straight through the device as much as possible to keep twisting down to a minimum.  Of course, if you need the extra holding power, pull the rope over the side of the device.  But if you don't need it, a straight path will keep the kinks down.

I assume you are specifically referencing the grigri? I do have a tendency to keep the brake strand to the side and a finger under the lip for quick slack on lead belay. 

Greg D wrote: If you can’t get to a cliff, just rap down the sidewalk at home. After the first rap leave it there. Go back to the middle mark and do it a few more times as needed. Not quite as good as a free hanging rap. But it will work.

+1, not perfect but it sort of works. And is just plain funny when people drive by or your neighbors come out

Christian DuBois wrote:

Im not sure if that’s the problem? In my experience it seems to be the Gri Gri that fucks it up.

My experience too.

More generally, any rope path that causes a running rope to travel in a net spiral - even ‘partial’ - will cause coils ... especially if running under load.

I had a rope that had terrible coiling. What I did was put a quickdraw from a ceiling point. clipped the rope at the middle mark and pull it all the way through. Reclip at the middle mark and pull through the OTHER direction. Keep doing this from middle mark out in both directions. Pay special attention to let the accumulated twist spill all the way out when it's freehanging at the end.

You can also do this pulling it through an ATC if you don't have a good overhead attachment point. 

5.Seven Kevin wrote:

+1, not perfect but it sort of works. And is just plain funny when people drive by or your neighbors come out

Reminds me of the Monty Python sketch.

Dan Daugherty wrote:

Odd. It was definitely our experience when we added a third to our crew who used an ATC and we used GriGri's. As soon as he was added to the crew, we started having twisting issues in the rope. I believe it's more the use of different device types that caused competing twists in the core.

Admittedly, I don't have much data about belay devices related to coils in ropes ... just my experience with the only partner I have who uses a grigri.

Mainly, I just wanted to bring up what I think is the fundamental circumstance that causes coiling:  the rope running through partial "net" spirals, especially under load.  The circumstance can be enabled by certain belay devices.  Or by how the brake strand is held coming out of the device. Or simply anchor biners that are not allowed to naturally orient to the rope load.

The best way to remove twists in a rope is to not introduce them in the first place.  ;)

Do a single rope rappel on it with a munter hitch  

Paul Pesto wrote: Do a single rope rappel on it with a munter hitch  

Even better: double strand rap and let the two strands below get intimate.  ;)