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Edelrid Starling Protect Pro Dry 8.2mm Rope: Handles well, highly cut resistant
Rob Coppolillo
MSRP: $209.95 (for 60m)
We all dread getting the chop. We climbers generally utter the phrase to imply getting killed during the practice of our meaningless pastime of scaling rocks, mountains and frozen waterfalls. In the climbing world, the phrase channels a spooky double-entendre, pulling in the idea of having our ropes cut because of some terrible accident.
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Luckily for us, over the past 30 years, documented rope failures are rare. Failure usually means a cut rope, as opposed to a rope failing because of chemical contamination, for example. The climbing industry and the L Union Internationale des Associations d Alpinisme (UIAA) has flirted with the idea of trying to quantify cut resistance, but testing protocols have been difficult to reproduce and short-lived.