When to Retire Ropes....

[le Voyageur]

 

As both an A5 climber/rigger with over 30 years of experience, and a BSA Climbing Director, I feel that the Current BSA Climbing Standards of 4 years is excessive, keeping ropes much too long in inventory. It needs to change, requiring Councils to at least consider new ropes every season for their summer camp climbing programs based on the use of the previous year.

 

As I see it, the current Standards have the potenial to set the stage for an incident when used by inexperienced Climbing Directors/Instructors lacking real world climbing experience (nothing in the requirements requires a CD to be a climber, or even have a minimum number of years of climbing experience prior to showing up at Camp School).

 

For myself, I retire rope at 100 hours of use, and/or 500 belays for a dynamic, and 250 to 300 repells for static, reserving the right to retire sooner should I feel that there is something wrong with the rope.

 

Thoughts from other CD's, CI's or climbers on this?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Gunny2862]

My personal Guide rope(10.5mm) got retired at a liberal 10(Short) falls with thorough inspections after each. But I did have about 170 hours in Joshua Tree and at Sam's Throne on it. I didn't track the number of belays, I tend to blind feel, and then look for wear after each excursion/day and track falls. (If you aren't falling, you aren't challenging yourself)

 

I would never have let the same rope be used by the Scouts after the first 5 falls however - me is one thing, someone else is another. And as a personal rope, good rope isn't cheap.

 

I don't see anything wrong with your guidelines except that the organizational beancounters will say its too expensive - until someone falls, the rope fails and the liability lawyers show up. I have seen good Static ropes used for a lot more than 250-300 rapells though. But, any rope should be retired at anytime when that "uncomfortable" feeling hits an Instructor or owner.

 

Just an semi-experienced climber... no certifications unless you count Climb- on safely

[Beavah]

Do a regular rope inspection, and retire it whenever it doesn't pass, eh? Especially for BSA top-ropin' use, that's a reasonable way to go. For any kind of active program like a summer camp that typically means retirin' ropes after 1 season or less. For semi-active unit programs, I've never seen a rope go for more than 2-3 years. But I could see for less active unit programs or council "once a year camporee" programs goin' the full 4 years or even more, eh?

 

Just depends.

 

I wish they'd get rid of da "hard falls" language - none of the top rope guys understand it; a rope can take 1,000 top-rope "falls."

 

I think da biggest thing is the BSA needs to spend some effort gettin' real climbers involved, not just minimally-trained site leaders.

 

Beavah

 

[hops_scout]

I'd be interested to hear how often you'd replace rope at an event like the National Jamboree. At your rate of 250-300 rappels, you'd have to replace the rope every day for the tower I was working.

 

That said, our director said in the caves that he works (doing some Scouting programs) they replace every 1400 rappels or so.

 

Sure I believe there needs to be some sort of standard... but what?

[le Voyageur]

I've no desire to staff a National Jambo hop's, it's not my thing since I only work real rock, not towers. My concern is rope useage on natural rock, not towers. Towers can be built with anchor systems that reduce shearing forces, avoids sharp bends, as well as provide greater protection from abrasion for ropes. Not so natural rock where you have to work with what nature has provided.

 

Saying that, in Yosemite, I've seen on several occasions what happens when a rope fails with climbers taking 3,000 plus foot falls. As such, it's made me fairly conservative in how much I'll push a rope to it's "limits". Ropes are cheap and can be replaced, lives aren't and can't.

 

As to why my "low numbers" for repells, it's due to the eights aluminizing the rope, along with friction compromising the sheath over time making the rope stiff and difficult to work with, thus making a rope inspection dicy, with the big unknown in how the transfer of heat has affected the inner core. Better to err on the side of caution then keep pushing it an extra 100 or more repells to save a few bucks.

 

Now, I would consider maybe 500 to 750 repells on a Bluewater 13mm line with steel eights, but our Council's preferance is for the less expensive, and imho, less safe 10.5mm's. Just not enough guts under that sheath for me to warrant pushing it beyound 300 repells....

 

 

 

 

[Gunny2862]

Your points are very valid.

 

Rock and tower work are very different animals, you can need to shorten or retire a rope after one bad abrasion on rock - you'll "almost" never see that on a tower.

 

I personally like to know the history of my rope, I know where it has been, how many times it has been washed, how it was stored, and the environments it was used in - rather than having one handed to me with a list of: # of rappels, and # indicating hours, and falls. Which is why I am liable to be much more liberal with my rope than any organizational rope.

 

I rely on my inspections and unfortunately I don't think my gut feel for any changes really translates to metrics of x number of anything.

 

Any organization needs to be more stringent about their ropes because they will not keep track of all of the details of the ropes usage and storage, and the inherent subjectivity of the different users of the rope.

 

To include that there doesn't seem to be a readily availible number to say

"This size rope gets cut up after this number of..."

 

I do like to take my cut up rope and hand it out for knot tying practice after I get as new color sling(rack) out of it.

[le Voyageur]

 

hijacking my own thread....

 

Gunny,

 

If you're climbing in Josh, then these climb sites are fairly close to you.

 

- Mt. Woodson between Poway and Ramona (Poway is N. of San Diego). Great bouldering, everything from free climbing to Aid.

 

- The Tahquitz and Suicide near the small town of Idyllwild (not far from Palm Springs)

 

- East Face, Mt. Whitney (great techincal, i.e. A5 routes)

[Gunny2862]

Nope, only rare trips back there any more. Closer to Sam's Throne in Arkansas now and some Bouldering at Elephant rocks - split the difference and you find me in the Ozarks.

 

Did spend some time playing around near Idyllwild though. Didn't know what I was climbing in terms of any established climbing locale though. Have you ever gone to the apple festival they have near there? Apple Dumplings, mmmm....

[le Voyageur]

ah yes, the October apple fest in Julian. Been awhile. However, I'll be leaving for California mid Sept to climb in Yosemite, and an alpine on Shasta. Maybe I'll check the calendar for the date of the next fest, and if time permits, make a visit. Would be great to do a side trip to Woodson for a little bouldering....

[SSScout]

I do not do 'serious' climbing, but watch alot, and have been bottom belay for my sons Troop with much direct oversight by some very experienced climbers. Retire rope conservatively...

 

Education... Some years ago,I was given about 200' of 1/2" Plymouth "Goldline" and since I had a set of double blocks, I thought I'd use it to help move some large rocks and concrete chunks. Made a yoke, wrapped the rock, set the up block on a sturdy Oak tree branch and set out to hoist the first rock and push it over to its desired spot.( four fall, plus a pull, about 18' or so rope in each fall and about 25' in the pull). The two of us pulled and pulled (yo heave ho!!) and pulled. The four fall set didn't move the rock, but (by measurement) the 200' of rope became almost 300'!! Never knew nylon rope to stretch like that, but we had, I guess, over reached the limit of the cord! Eventually the rock moved, but , boy!

[Gunny2862]

I think you have just demonstrated a weakness (in that application) of a dynamic rope and one reason why there are static and dynamic lines.

 

The dynamic line is made to elongate under load to reduce the shock load at the end. Because of the stretch it isn't usually used as a lifting or load bearing line.

 

A static line would never have stretched that much without failing before it got that far. And would have reduced the work you put into it to lift your load if it didn't fail.

[PeteM]

QUOTE:

When it becomes easier to pull them instead of pushing them

 

/QUOTE

 

Added in edit: Something from another site(This message has been edited by PeteM)

[GernBlansten]

 

 

Back during the Carter Administration, when I was an active climber, when men climbed on rocks and not inside warehouses, we didn't count the # of rappels, or days out, but we did make a note of falls. A rope that took a long screamer or several short peals was usually relegated to top roping, rappelling and hauling. We would save the fresh ropes for lead climbing, use the questionable ropes for static loading.

We inspected the ropes every time you uncoiled it. If there were any flaws in the mantle or hard spots(boogers) in the kern, that rope became retired. So we would have three classes of ropes. Lead, support and retired. We climbed every weekend and a lead rope was lucky to survive one season. Support ropes could last several seasons. The retired ones were usually cut up and tossed in the back of the garage to be used for lashings, kids swings, and general household uses. I'm still digging out some of these ropes for use with the scouts.

 

Typically, we did multi-pitch climbs with 3 climbers and take two ropes. One for leading, one support rope between the middle and the follower. At the summit, we would tie the lead and follow rope together for the rappel if necessary. If we were just out top-roping, we'd grab one of the support ropes out of the bag. Was this risky? Perhaps, but we all survived.

 

I think any properly inspected rope will meet safety standards for the type of climbing we are allowed to do in BSA. I've never heard of a rope failure of a properly inspected rope while rappelling or top-roping, save for an outside source like a razor sharp edge. The loads just aren't there. We can't lead climb per G2SS, we cannot put ourselves in a situation where the shock loading of the rope will be much more than our own body weight.