How much rope for 3 man glacier team?

Looking at getting a new rope. Weighing my options currently, would love any personal recommendations on what rope to get.

Generally speaking, what length of rope would you usually go out with a 3 man team with, provided you were going to traverse glaciers?

Thanks!

60 is a very versatile length for this sort of thing

An additional consideration would also be what glaciers/ranges are you traveling on/in. Some of the greater ranges can have pretty wide crevasses so you'll want some additional distance between the team so you don't end up with two in the crevasse rather than just one. Places like the PNW generally have relatively narrow crevasses and shorter distances make things more efficient. 

Hey Gunnar,

Short Answer: 60M Rope

Longer Answer:

 I've used 120M (2x 60's), 90M, 30M and 60M traveling as a team of 3. 60M as Chris mentioned is a pretty reasonable length.  However it depends on a few things...

I'm typically following the the spacing protocol of 10-N (N=Number of climbers on the team). In your case, I'd be left with 7x "wing spans" (5-6 feet per wing span) between climbers.  

You also need to account for less or more spacing depending on what type of glaciated terrain you are traveling in (AK? Cascades? Europe?). The bigger the cracks, the more space I want between us.

Are you using brake/stopper knots? (They take up 2-4' per knot)

How much spare rope do you want on each end of the team for rescue purposes? If you plan on using the 2:1 Drop-C, you need enough rope for that somewhere in the system.

What's the risk tolerance and technical knowledge of the team?

Here's a way to think through it:

With a 60M Rope, you will have approx. 12 meters between climbers (without the use of brake-knots) and 34M or rope to use for rescue. If you decide to split that evenly, you'll have 17M of extra rope on each end of the team. 

Full disclosure I haven't done this yet, it's purely theoretical at this point:

Some friends and I have been playing around with the idea of using two 30m half ropes instead of a single 60. It takes a tiny bit longer to set up because the middle person on your team of three has to tie in to two ropes (or you tie the ropes together if you're a team of two), and is slightly more of a pain for doing 30m rappels, but the advantage is that you can spread your ropes out among people. For one this helps with weight distribution on the team (not a huge issue and generally solveable in other ways with stove/tent etc., but still nice), but the bigger bonus is that it keeps your entire rope from disappearing on one person if you're going to do any unroped travel. A lot of times on mellower sections/late season climbs we'll find ourselves transitioning between roped and unroped, or unroping on a traverse if we're not going to place actual protection. If you only have one 60m rope and that person gets extremely unlucky you're just kind of stuffed, whereas having two ropes at least gives the possibility of some type of rescue.

Ryan Mac wrote:

Some friends and I have been playing around with the idea of using two 30m half ropes 

Ryan, it's a great idea and a very commonly used technique.  In the skiing world, we often bring 2x 30M RAD Line.  1 is in service on the glacier, the other is on one end of the team for rescue systems. It spreads out the weight on the approach nicely.  

Aha glad to know it works well

A 70m rope sounds like a great rope for sportclimbing, I wouldn't cut it. Just get a 30-40m 7.5 for glacier + abseils, it's fine for it to be a skinny halfrope since you're not taking lead falls on it. Simond make one that costs 50E at that price

For glacier travel in Olympic National Park - Blue, Hoh, & Humes Glaciers, we took a 40m rope as a threesome. Before the trip, we practiced some setting up for crevasse rescue assessment with the same rope and gear we planned to take. Seemed about right for those glaciers where most travel can be pretty pedestrian.

I’d take a 60m. As an Alaska guide, here’s my rig:

If the terrain is straightforward, I’d section the rope into 1/4ths: tie-ins 15m apart. The last man on the rope would carry the remaining 15m coiled.

If it were tricky terrain and you were worried about the last man going into a crack, I’d section the rope into 1/5ths: tie-ins 12m apart. First and last man would each carry coils.

if all 3 members are equal when it comes to rope work in glaciar...and your gonna do a long expe? 60 sounds good. If its just for guiding 2 people 50.

Jason’s answer is great, as are the others. For some more considerations there’s a good book called Glacier Mountaineering.