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    A Guide to the Use of Climbing Rope - A Collection of Historical Mountaineering Articles on Rope Technique
    A Guide to the Use of Climbing Rope - A Collection of Historical Mountaineering Articles on Rope Technique
    A Guide to the Use of Climbing Rope - A Collection of Historical Mountaineering Articles on Rope Technique
    Ebook90 pages1 hour

    A Guide to the Use of Climbing Rope - A Collection of Historical Mountaineering Articles on Rope Technique

    By Spencer Press

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    About this ebook

    This book is a collection of vintage articles on the subject of mountaineering and the use of climbing rope. Written in simple language and profusely illustrated, this volume is highly recommended for anyone with an interest in mountaineering, and will be of most utility to beginners. “The Principles of Rock Climbing” has been carefully selected for a modern readership, and would make for a fantastic addition to collections of related literature. Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, high-quality edition complete with a specially commissioned new introduction on mountaineering.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSpencer Press
    Release dateJan 8, 2021
    ISBN9781528764025
    A Guide to the Use of Climbing Rope - A Collection of Historical Mountaineering Articles on Rope Technique

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      Book preview

      A Guide to the Use of Climbing Rope - A Collection of Historical Mountaineering Articles on Rope Technique - Spencer Press

      The Climbing Rope

      *

      A favourite aphorism of mountaineering savants half a century ago was: ‘The climbing rope is used for moral support only’. A later comment on this was expressed in verse:

      ‘According to some schools of thought

      The rope is moral in support;

      But should the climber fall, the rope

      Affords him some (immoral) hope.’

      Today—setting aside the direct-aid system of Artificial—the rope in free-climbing is still considered rather as a safeguard than as an aid, and to receive any physical assistance from it, such as a pull-up for the Second or a top rope lowered from above to the Leader, is interpreted as a confession of failure. All the same, the old-timers’ tendency to treat their linking rope as a sort of spiritual encouragement instead of as the vital safety-factor in mountaineering has gone. In place of those frighteningly casual belay methods illustrated in the climbing photos of the ’twenties a safeguarding system as mechanically sound as possible is used, and for the hard move at the end of a long run-out (which the pioneers regarded as a test of nerve) the Leader does not hesitate to protect himself with a sling and running-belay.

      The nature of the rope has changed since those early days. The natural-fibre rope, hemp, still has its uses, particularly as waist lengths and abseil belay slings. For the climbing rope nylon has superseded hemp. A hawser-laid rope, each strand consisting of many thousands of nylon filaments, has the great advantage of extra tensile strength—a 100-foot length will stretch under strain to 110 feet before breaking—and is not subject to deterioration like natural fibre. It has one major fault, its low melting-point, which makes it liable to failure if overheated by great friction; and a minor one, that it is smoother than hemp and less easy to grip. The ideal rope for climbing has yet to be produced, but in spite of later productions from polyethylene, perlon, and polypropylene, and the popularity of the perlon kernmantel rope, hawser-laid nylon rope is so far the best for use in free rock-climbing.

      British Standard 3104 was compiled to establish the minimum requirements of a safe climbing rope, and the heaviest of the nylon ropes, Grade 4, conforms to these. Here are the particulars of the four grades of nylon rope:

      The circumstances in which a rope may be put to its severest test in climbing are so various that tests to provide for them all are difficult to devise. It is well known that if a knot is used to secure the rope to the climber the rope is markedly weaker at the knot than anywhere else; yet in the few cases where the rope has broken under a fall it has never broken at the knot. On several occasions it has been the severing of the strands over a rough edge that has caused the break, and for this reason some climbers prefer to climb on two ropes of Grade 3 rather than a single rope of Grade 4, arguing that the severing of both ropes by abrasion is very unlikely.

      The kernmantel rope has special merits in Artificial. Its straight perlon filaments are enclosed in a braided sheath, which allows it to run through karabiners under tension more easily than a hawser-laid rope. The sheath also protects against abrasion to some extent. However, the kernmantel under strain is less flexible than Grade 4 nylon, and its extensibility is much less. It is also heavier and thicker, the sheath contributing nothing to its strength.

      The point of vital importance about nylon rope has already been mentioned: the generation of heat by friction in its use must be avoided. Nylon must never have the chance of chafing against nylon, which much increases the possibility of damage by heat; waist lengths and other cordage with which the moving rope could come into contact are therefore of hemp. Similarly, the use of special abseil gadgets of metal (descendeurs) or abseiling with the nylon rope running round a karabiner in two or three turns are best avoided. Long Alpine abseils by one or other of these methods have been known to damage the rope. Apart from this danger, the resistance of nylon to damp and rot inclines many climbers to assume that it is everlasting and needs no attention. This is far from being the case. A nylon rope can become seriously damaged without revealing it to a cursory glance, and since it is the climber’s life insurance it should be examined regularly and carefully and discarded if found to be faulty.

      Examination should be done foot by foot, in daylight.

      Look for the following:

      External wear caused by dragging over rough surfaces or running loaded through karabiners; a flattening of the outside of the strands reveals this. The ‘fluffiness’ of the surface only indicates normal wear.

      Bad abrasion of a strand—many torn filaments showing their ends. Tension over a sharp edge can cause this.

      Internal wear; if the strands part easily, or loose fibres can be pulled out, this is present. It can be caused by particles of grit getting between the strands—as from dragging the rope carelessly on wet glacier.

      Chemical attack; shown by surface softening or weakening locally so that fibres can be rubbed or pulled off.

      Heat damage; this may be fairly obvious—the fusing of the fibres making a hard glazed skin, or beads or globules of melted nylon, but it can also be difficult to detect. If a nylon rope is known to have been subjected to violent friction, such as a leader’s fall may cause, it should not be used for rock-climbing again.

      In using the rope on a mountain, don’t tread on it, even in vibs, and see that nobody else does. Avoid dragging it over rock, snow, or ice. Keep it clean from mud and grit as far as possible.

      After using it, store it in a dry airy place away from strong light. If it has been badly soiled, rinse it first in clean water. Never dry it by heat or in hot sunshine. Be sure it is not placed or stored near battery acid, creosote, carbolic acid,

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