Best Ropes

I have had edelrid and sterling ropes. I was not a fan of the edelrid but I love the sterling. It's time for a new rope and I'm thinking about getting a beal? I have seen mixed reviews online. Anyone owned a beal? Or have recommendations? 

+1 for a mummut infinity. I have multiple partners that have the same rope as I do and it holds up quite well. Feeds great through my vergo and atc. 

Not sure about the intended use but I do own some Beal ropes. 

The Booster III is the one I use for the gym and its a really good rope for that. 

I use 2 different sizes of the Beal Opera, for ridges (30 meters) and for mountaineering (50 meters) and this, for me, is THE best rope I have ever own (the OP question) 

The weight, the handeling, the durability (for a rope this skinny), the waterproofness, I love everything about this rope, even the blue color ;)

Edit: Used it again yesterday on a hard (for me) 6a alpine multipitch, in conjunction with a Edelrid Rapline II and it was the perfect setup IMHO

+2 for Mammut infinity. I won't get anything else until I need either half ropes or something super technical, but even then they make a dry treated one.

just FYI, mammut changed their naming structure (rope review) so the infinity (9.5mm) is now the alpine or crag (+/- dry).  it's their only 9.5mm rope, easier to look at that than the name.  I have a pair of phoenixes (plural?) and just bought an alpine sender pro (9mm) and will let you know how it goes.

Arthur W wrote:

just FYI, mammut changed their naming structure (rope review) so the infinity (9.5mm) is now the alpine or crag (+/- dry).  it's their only 9.5mm rope, easier to look at that than the name.  I have a pair of phoenixes (plural?) and just bought an alpine sender pro (9mm) and will let you know how it goes.

Thanks for the heads up!  

Beal makes some great ropes. 

Edelrid makes some great ropes. 

Serling makes some great ropes. 

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Wait, wut was the question again? 

Oh, the 9.4mm Beal was the best rope ever until climbing with my kid and it got chopped off in some lame route in Red Rocks. Now the short part is keeping the dawg tied up after the rockfall chopped it in 2. Hmm, want to say it was the Beal Dominator. Such a great rope. 

Lets ask the dog. 

"Woof"....see, she loves it. Meh..

I haven't tried the new Beal Ropes, but Michael Beal kicks ass and I'm sure they are great. Here's the 9.4mm Dominator story and it's worth the read  https://blog.weighmyrack.com/bluewaters-skinny-climbing-ropes-9-1mm-icon-9-3mm-wave/, regardless, all 3 companies make super product, pick one that suits what you want to do and then factor in price but most importantly: "don't worry, be happy" is my advice. 

No joke - everytime I clip the dog off onto the reminder of the chopped rope II thank the dear lord that he/she/it spared my son that day as the kid heard rocks, ducked under cover and just as he reached to grab and pull the rope into cover the rock fall came down. It killed the rope and missed the lad, that is, missed him and took my best rope.  I have a great rope end that is the best dog leash ever as a reminder and  have a son still with all digits and everything else. No complaints at all. BTW, we finished the route with all kinds of core showing, I told the pups (we were simuling 3 of us on a 60M rope) "don't fall, not sure the rope will take it". So we climbed. 

Switched to Beal from sterling. Love Beal ropes: soft catches / falls, best dry treatment, and unicore ( admit not all my beals are uni). so far 5 ropes from 5mm tech tagline, 8mm double, to 10mm single with a mix of some uni and dry. They've all been bomber and my sterlings mostly sit in the gear shelf now

I've climbed on the Beal Booster III for a number of years. It's been great and durable with several hundred pitches on each of the two that I've retired. The catches are soft already so getting a "soft catch" from a belayer is less of an issue. It's downside - it stretches a ton which makes toproping a pain. My most recent one is a Sterling which is doing fine. In the end, get whatever meets your needs and is on sale.

Climbed on a friend’s beal stinger (?) 9.4- it handles really nicely and doesn’t seem to have issues with coiling.  Dynamic elongation is a little on the high end so it’s a soft catch but can feel a little unnerving if you’re used to a different rope.  

We’re on our 2nd mammut infinity dry, it’s very durable but the handling is a little stiff and it coils like an mf with the gri gri.

gym rope is a sterling, I love it, it handles beautifully, catch is lovely, thinking about getting one for outdoors once I get fed up with the mammut’s coiling and get a bonus at work (they’re $$$$)

Mammut Infinity 9.5 classic. Love it. Smooth and catches nicely. 

The last Beal rope I bought also included the best $200 rope bag and tarp I’ve ever purchased. Junk Unicore. Liberty Mountain replaced it after 20 pitches or so and the second one wasn’t much better. I use Sterling and Mammut. 

Mark NH wrote:

The last Beal rope I bought also included the best $200 rope bag and tarp I’ve ever purchased. Junk Unicore. Liberty Mountain replaced it after 20 pitches or so and the second one wasn’t much better. I use Sterling and Mammut. 

What was the problem with your Beal? I don’t own one so curious how they hold up.

Elizabeth Townsend wrote:

What was the problem with your Beal? I don’t own one so curious how they hold up.

After about 20 pitches it was super fuzzed up, kinked like I’ve never had a rope kink and had scary soft spots throughout the rope. Those twenty pitches were a combo of easy trad and sport. To Liberty Mountains credit (distributor) they sent me a new one and had me return the old one for analysis. I never heard anything though. The second rope lasted one season and I retired it essentially for the same reasons. It was early on when the Unicore product was launched. I know people use and like the Unicore but my experience was enough to make me never buy a Beal rope again. I’ve climbed almost 40 years - mostly Mammut and now all my ropes are Sterling. Happy with both and you can’t go wrong with either. 

Unicore should make you feel warm and fuzzy inside - bummer if it made your rope fuzzy outside. My only disappointing rope so far was an Edelweiss 9.5 that had similar complaints with sheath issues - It happens sometimes.

https://shop.epictv.com/en/category/ropes

for some deals on Beal and Tendon ropes (sometimes others too) - EXTRA5 is usually good for a 5% discount too, and I think free shipping at $150 now (used to be $100 when I bought ropes from them before)

I like my Beals so far. 9.1 Joker and a 10.0 Tiger (which handles/weighs like other brands 9.6-8s)