Can you Rappel with an Old Climbing Rope?
I received an old climbing rope, whose history is unknown. I know this rope should not be used for any situations where a fall is possible since it may have already sustained one.
However, can it be used for rappelling (from a tree) as this will not allow the chance of a fall?
Is there any way to evaluate the condition of the rope by examining it?
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2 answers
No, it’s not worth the risk. Ropes aren’t that expensive and if it breaks you could hurt yourself.
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You probably should not use it any more. Old ropes seem to be surprisingly strong. A German mountaineering magazine made tests with old ropes. Of 14 tested ropes, 10 would still have been strong enough to lead on them without risk. However, these were unused or only little used ropes. The results may differ for ropes that have been used very often or have prior damage.
Your biggest problem is not the age of the rope. Pure ageing is unlikely to degrade a rope to break at 2-3 kN while rappelling. Your problem is that it is not possible to determine the safety of a rope with unknown origin by simple inspection. The only way to reliably test a rope is a destructive test fall until it breaks. See also this and this SE questions
This post was sourced from https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/a/24788. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
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