Climbing Rope Care

Climbing ropes are not cheap items and like the rest of your gear, they are there to save you from falls, injury, and even death. Because of this, every climber should do the following.

• Make sure you are taking care of your rope and not damaging or wearing it out unnecessarily.
• Know how to take care of the rope to make sure it has as long of a life as possible
• Finally know the signs of damage and age that signal it is time to retire your trusty friend for a new one.

General Rope Care

Your rope is there to protect your life. It should be treated with care.

New Rope

Rope manufactures coil ropes so that they hold their shape and travel well. Before use pulling the rope out and re-coiling it to remove twists will help avoid tangles and kinks when you start using it.

Rope Storage

Climbing ropes should be stored in a cool dry place out of the way of any debris and dust as well as anything that may cause physical damage to the rope. This means not just throwing it in the bottom of your cupboard where it can get sand, dust, and object put on top of it.

Keep your rope higher up so that it avoids having things put on top of it.

A rope bag is also a particularly useful item for protecting a rope and we highly suggest getting one. Not only does it make a rope easier to carry but it will protect it in storage, most rope bags have an integrated drop sheet that you coil the rope into while climbing to keep it out of the dirt.

Ropemakers go to great lengths with coatings and treatments to try and keep dirt dust and debris out of the rope. You should take this as a guide on how you should take care of your rope.

Make sure your rope is completely dry before storing it for an extended period, mold is not a climbing rope friend.

One of the best ways to ensure a long life of your rope is to keep it clean and out of the dirt.

Rope Use

When climbing all rock climbers should be ever vigilant of their rope. Are there any possible chafe points on the rope, is the excess rope kept off the ground and out of the dust, is there enough rope available to absorb the shock in the case of a fall?

These are questions that every new climber should train themselves to think about all the time while climbing.

Top Points to think about when climbing.

• Is there enough rope to absorb a fall from the climber?
• Is the rope on a drop sheet, in a rope bag, or otherwise out of the dirt?
• Is the rope running through all gear correctly?
• Make sure there are no areas where the rope is running over a rock in a way that could cause it to be damaged.

Washing a Rope

FOLLOW THE MANUFACTURER RECOMMENDATIONS

Every rope has different coatings and treatments and therefore each one will need to be treated differently when cleaning is required. But with that said in general a wash in tepid water with mild soap is usually safe.

You can also wash a rope in a front-loading washing machine, beware top loader the rope can get tangled around the agitator. Be careful of the program and soap when using a washing machine.

NOTE: Never use a wet rope for climbing. The strength of the rope can be reduced by up to 30% to that of a dry rope.

Rope Damage

Ropes will get small amounts of damage over time and this is normal. A bit of fuzziness on the outside of the rope and the color not being as vibrant as when you bought it is all fine. But there are some kinds of damage, both external and visible and internal, that you will only be able to feel, that will mean you need to replace your climbing rope.

Kinks

Kinks are when the rope is “folded” under force, for example, if the rope is stood on. This can damage the rope and drive particles into the inner layers of the rope.

The rope should be somewhat stiff when bent in your hand, but it should not be overly stiff or overly easy to bend. You should get used to what a good rope feels like to bend so that you can identify damage in the rope that you are using.

When you build up some knowledge of the feel of a healthy rope you will be able to identify when a rope is damaged inside just by the stiffness or change in stiffness along the rope.

Chafing and Damage

Ropes will get furry on the outside during general use. This is normal and nothing to be worried about.

There is a lot of chafing and damage that is quite dangerous though. Anywhere the sheath or outer layer of the rope is cut or worn through to where you can see the white core, you should stop climbing on immediately.

You can recover ropes that have some damage like this at the end by simply cutting off the section that is damaged. But you will want to know what you are doing and be confident that the rest of the rope is still safe to use.

Falls

Ropes are designed to be able to deal with the falls of a climber but the more falls you have on a rope the faster you will wear it out.

You should retire your rope straight away if you have what is considered a factor 2 fall. This is a fall where you fall twice the distance than the amount of rope you must absorb the fall. For example, if you fall 6m with only 3m of rope between you and the belayer, it would be a factor 2 fall.

These kinds of falls are very rare and need some very specific circumstances to happen but you should learn about climbing fall factors here to try and avoid these kinds of situations.

When should you replace your Climbing Rope?

Ropes should be replaced after a certain period depending on the amount they are used. Use the below numbers as a general guide. Please check with your manufacturer for correct estimates of your exact rope as they can vary.

If you take a big fall

As mentioned above ropes are able to talk a lot of smaller falls but if you have even just one large fall where the amount of rope available to absorb the fall was not enough you may need to replace the rope immediately.

Thankfully, this kind of fall is very rare as you need to fall twice the distance of the rope that there is to support you.

Either way, you should try to avoid falling on your rope if you can.

When your climbing rope is too old

Ropes will either ware out through significant amounts of use or they will just get too old to be safe. Here are some general ages of ropes and use levels to give you a guide for how long a rope should last with different levels of use.

Rope used every day – Life usually 1 year

A Rope used once a week – Should easily have a life of about 2 years

A rope only used occasionally – should be retired after approximately 4 years 

A rope that has never been used – Ropes have a max shelf life of 10 years so even if it’s brand new and over 10 years old, sorry but it’s dead.

Summary

A climbing rope is quite literally your lifeline and should be cared for accordingly. Even though there are many other parts to your safety system, like harnesses, carabiners, quickdraws, and much more, the rope is one of the most sensitive to damage and the environment.

Climbing rope care should be a particularly important thing for every climber. Now if you need help choosing a climbing rope, we can help with that.