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How do I take care of my climbing rope?
Home » Climbing » Ropes » How do I take care of my climbing rope?As John Long writes in How to Rock Climb!, "Climbing ropes are both durable and fragile...they are made of supple nylon, which is easily damaged when even slightly abused. Since you're hanging your all on the rope, you'll want to pay extremely close attention to the use and care of your lifeline."
A good first step toward proper rope care is to buy a rope bag that folds out into a rope tarp. You can store the rope in the bag, and set the coiled rope on the rope tarp as you climb, to protect it from the dirt. Never step on a climbing rope, since the dirt can work its way into the rope and cut and abrade the core.
When your rope does get dirty, machine wash it in cold or warm water with mild detergent. Do not dry it in the dryer or outside in the sun; hang it up somewhere inside, where it can evaporate dry over the course of a couple of days.
Always store your rope in a dark, dry place. The sun can degrade a nylon rope, so do not leave it outside or expose it to UV rays unnecessarily.
If you’re top-roping and the rope runs over the rock edge from its anchor above, use a piece of old carpet to protect it from friction. The main danger of rope breaking while you’re climbing is from the rope running over a sharp edge; so avoiding this will lengthen your life and the life of your rope.
Do not allow the rope to become abraded or frayed, and inspect the rope from time to time to ensure there’s not serious damage, especially to the core of the rope. Every so often, you should feel along the length of your rope from end to end, feeling for places where the rope’s core may have deformed or thinned. If present, this indicates serious damage to your rope.
Many rope manufacturers offer similar guidelines for the lifetime of a climbing rope:
3 months of constant use
2 years of weekend use
4-5 years of occasional use. Never use a rope for longer than 5 years even if it looks perfect.
Top-roping and rappelling shorten the life span of a dynamic rope. Retire your rope immediately if it has any damage or if you take a serious fall on it. Some rope manufactures define “serious fall” as a fall of “fall factor 2”: a fall twice the distance of the amount of rope run out from the belay.
Resources:
Long, John. How to Rock Climb. Evergreen, CO: Chockstone Press, 1993.
www.uiaa.ch/article/aspx?c=185&a=76
www.rei.com/outlet/learn/climb/chropes.html
www.rockclimbing.com
http://www.lookingglassoutfitters.com/climbingropes.html
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