UKC

I'm keen to practice 'Clip & Drop' at my local climbing wall to get over my fear of falling when leading.

Will this damage my rope? How much punishment can it take?

In reply to Graham at Aston:


Eventually. More than you can possibly imagine.

jk

Reply from Mammut:

Here are some general advise about falling and rope damage:

Short, sport climbing falls only minimally damage a rope; it can withstand hundreds of them. If the rope end becomes stiff or rough you can cut off the damaged section. Also, bigger falls of ten or fifteen meters don’t have to mean the end for the rope, assuming a dynamic belay technique has been used. fall factor and impact force are critical for the well being of a rope. A longer fall with fall factor over 1, which is not gently braked, can clearly reduce a rope’s safety reserve. Even then it may still hold simple sport climbing falls, but can, however, break with edge loading, even over a less sharp edge, when compared with a new rope. Under no circumstance should it be used in alpine terrain or in climbing areas with rough edges. Safety oriented climbers will replace a rope after such a «heavy» fall.

Here are some more information about the life span of a rope: http://www.mammut.ch/ropes_handling_lifespan.html

In reply to Graham at Aston:

Depends on your rope. What sort is it?

In reply to Graham at Aston:

In general, alternate which end of the rope you lead on and allow the rope to est between falls (regain its elasticity). Use a dedicated low cost wall rope.

In reply to Graham at Aston:

As far as I am aware the only recorded instances of ropes breaking are when they have been stretched over a sharp edge or subjected to exposure to some chemical agent. I change my ropes as soon as they feel spongy or do not handle well regardless of falls held. If a rope was subjected to a particularly large fall I would consider binning it but as a general rule ropes do not break. I am not a qualified expert if someone like Scott Titt comes along and says I'm wrong you should believe him, I'm just a climber with many years of experience..

In reply to Graham at Aston:

it will damage your rope a tiny bit in the same way that standing on footholds damages your climbing shoes a tiny bit? if you never fall you are not getting any value for money from your rope anyway

In reply to Graham at Aston:

Generally speaking, as above, a rope cannot be made to break in normal use. Although it can be cut be a sharp edge or damaged by some chemicals (I read a case which found that a rope broke after exposure to petrol). Each time a rope takes a fall a stretches and it takes a while for it to recover back to it's original state, hence the above suggestion to rest the rope by swapping ends. In more severe falls (or after prolonged normal use) it never fully recovers back to it's original state and will lose some of it's elasticity. A less elastic rope will produce a higher impact force. Eventually after several severe falls the impact force would be great enough to break the rope, but before this happens you would get warning signs such as a stiffer feeling rope, more abrupt fall arrests, etc.

The minimum standard for a single climbing rope is that it will take at least 5 falls of almost factor 2 with an 80kg mass tied to its end and a static belay. See here for more info:

http://www.theuiaa.org/safety-standards.html

In reply to Graham at Aston:

The rope is a Beal Edlinger 10.2mm 35m.

'Clip & Drop' will be generating a very low fall factor too I guess.

In reply to Graham at Aston:

From memory Beal ropes are usually quite soft (but give much nicer handling), but at that diameter it'll be pretty robust so you should be fine and clip-drop practice shouldn't damage it noticeably.

In reply to Graham at Aston:

Your rope will be fine, you're never going to subject it to high impact forces falling from a few metres above a bolt with plenty of rope out. I'd make sure that you and your belayer are good with soft catches though, especially if you're using a gri gri or similar, as whipping back into the wall because you've been shortroped is unpleasant and a bad fall like that can undermine the confidence you're trying to build up about falling.