Your climbing rope is your best friend when hanging high up on the side of a cliff face or clinging to a gym wall. The rope that will save your life is the rope that you know inside and out.
To make sure to get the best climbing rope possible, make sure to look at durability, feel, thickness, and material to ensure you have the best and safest climbing experience.
Black Diamond 9.9 Mm Climbing Rope
The best climbing ropes have great comfort, durability, and stretch to make your rock climbing adventure perfect. But no all ropes are created equal, or even have very similar features.
Making sure your next rock climbing trip is the best it can possibly be is done by looking at several different features and trying to find the best climbing rope that fits your needs.
The Black Diamond climbing rope utilizes a 2×2 construction, allowing you to use it consistently.
The climbing rope is also balanced very well between reliable stiffness and soft comfort. Stiffness is important to increase durability and withstand consistent use. Softness allows for comfortable use of the rope in any situation and also feeds through different belays with ease.
The ability to feed your rope through a belay easily is extremely important. This ease will greatly affect your entire climb.
Even though the Black diamond climbing rope is thicker, its still light weight enough for it not to be cumbersome when toting it from one place to another.
The coating around the climbing rope does a great job of keeping out dirt and grime, thereby lengthening the life of the rope.
However the ropes coating may cause a certain amount of slickness. The slickness isn’t enough to be particularly dangerous, however it may cause a problem when lowering yourself or other people. Yours or their descent may be faster than you would like it to be.
Sizing will not be hard with this climbing rope because Black Diamond allows you to select several different ones. Either the 35m, 40m, 60m, or the 70m.
The Black Diamond climbing rope features a very large swath of the rope to represent the halfway point, an important marking used to determine where to start rappelling off different lines.
Pros
- Can be fed through most belay devices
- Manageable size
Con
- Low durability
- Too slick
Peak Grit Dynamic Rock Climbing Rope
Technology used to give the Peak Grit climbing rope a low stretch and much better control is its shining feature. The nylon cord is made to stretch, but not so much as to wear down the rope quickly.
Its build also allows for a quick dry feature so as not to let the rope to absorb too much water, damaging it.
The climbing rope is also easy to coil so that you can store your rope compactly. Even though the rope is compact it is still tear resistant.
To attest to its strength, larger users have said that though their weight keeps them from using other ropes, this rope is perfect for them.
Being able to knot and bend your climbing rope to utilize it in a variety of different situations. Pliability mixed in with durability is extremely important.
Though thicker ropes are definitely recommended for harder climbs, there are absolutely times when a thinner, more compact rope is needed.
For this rope, the feel of the material in your hands is very comfortable. Rough or coarseness can lead to painful and even hand and skin damaging climbs.
The Peak Grit has two different climbing rope lengths. One is 20m or 30m length. Depending on your climb length, the shorter or longer may be needed. It is usually recommended to go with a longer rope, as it can be difficult to measure out exactly what is needed for your next rock climbing stint.
Pro
- Compact
Con
- Short length
Edelrid Eco Boa 9.8mm Dynamic Climbing Rope
Thermo shield treatment allows the fibers of a climbing rope to be shrunk which relaxes them and works out anomalies. Basically, it creates a much longer lifetime for the climbing rope. This technology is implemented in the Edelrid Eco climbing rope.
Straight out of the packaging, the Edlerid won’t kink or knot up and is completely ready to go with you on your rock climbing adventure.
Two black lines mark the halfway point in this climbing rope and is very visible. This rope feeds very easily into an appropriate belay and the softness lends itself to being comfortable in your hands.
The only downside to this rope is that it is a little heavier than other ropes of the same quality. However, the heaviness mostly comes from it being built with durability in mind. Though skinnier ropes are built for faster and lighter descents, this performance based, heavier rope will last a long time.
The feel of the rope could be describe as somewhere between not too limp in your hands, but also not too springy either, a good combination.
Eco conscious rock climbers will definitely be pleased with one of the best climbing ropes out there because all unused yarn in the production is used in future Edelrid ropes. None of the excess is thrown away but put back into the manufacturing of more climbing rope.
Pro
- Durability
- Strength
- Eco Friendly
Con
- Clipping may be difficult
- Heavy
Edelrid Tommy Caldwell DuoTec 9.6mm Pro Dry Dynamic Climbing Rope
The Edelrid Tommy Caldwell climbing rope also features thermo shield treatment for a more easy handling of the rope and increased longevity, but this model of Edelrid rope has some unique features not seen in the Eco Boa model.
The DuoTec technique is used to mark the very middle of the rope, but the markings are actually a part of the rope strands, so no fading is possible which will make this rope useful to you for a very long time.
It is also made with a Pro Dry feature that keeps water and dirt away from it more effectively than other climbing ropes. And actually, water absorption is able to be kept to a very low minimum, less than 2% absorption to be exact.
Resistance to abrasion is a key factor in the Tommy Caldwell style of Edelrid climbing rope. This is totally necessary because sliding and scuffing of the rope over rocks and outcroppings is definitely going to occur.
With its pro dry, thermo shield, and water absorption abilities, the Edelrid Tommy Caldwell is ideal for cold and wet conditions. This will give you a larger range of climbs and the ability to climb anytime of year.
The only flaw is that though a feature of this rope it is also supposed to be dirt and grime resistant because of its roper treatment, this particular type doesn’t seem to be able to keep out dirt any better than most.
Pro
- Lightweight
Con
- Not as dirt resistant as other ropes
Petzl – Volta 9.2 mm, Ultralight Rope
The Petzl can be used for optimal functionality due to its thin and lightweight construction. However durability is extremely present in this climbing rope.
Snowy, icy, and wet conditions are not a problem for the Petzl, due to its Duratec Dry treatment, making the rope much more resistant to dirt and water. It also allows it to be abrasion resistant.
Durability of the this climbing rope comes from the core and the sheath being bonded together at the very end of the ropes. This is done by an ultrasonic process called Ultra Sonic finish. It boosts durability and keeps the edges of the rope from getting frayed.
The thermal treatment, a special treatment called EverFlex, stabilizes core strands and ensures even with consistent use it will still offer great grip and handling.
As with other ropes, the middle mark, meant to show the exact center of the rope, is available for easy spotting.
Sheath percentage, a measure of what percentage of the rope are the strongest cords, is very high in the Petzl. The percentage is 42% sheath and 58% core strands. This attributes to a much greater durability if the sheathe is at a high percentage, as is the case with the Petzl. And even thought the actual diameter of the rope isn’t all that big, since the sheath percentage is so high, it allows for strength and compactness.
Large climbers will definitely be pleased with the durability but slimness, as for the most part they will have to get heftier ropes to get the kind of stability they are looking for, which may be more uncomfortable.
Pro
- Lightweight
Con
- Longevity
Buyers Guide
When looking for the best climbing rope, you have to consider several different factors and functions of the climbing rope. This will let you have the best possible experience when using it outdoor, indoor, in warm weather or in cold, on harsh climbs or easy ones.
The body type go the climber, the experience, and the goals of the climber all have to be taken into account, but only you can determine those things. Here are a few considerations to look over and determine what are the key features you are looking for.
Weight
The weight of the rope will play a big role in what your rock climbing adventure looks like.
Not only will the weight of the climbing rope determine how easy or difficult it is to carry from point A to point B, but the way that it fits into your carabiners, how easily it slides through your belays, and how well you can fit it into a carrying pouch when not in use are all things to consider.
Comfort is also another factor that weight greatly affects. Smaller, lower weight ropes will be more comfortable, where as bigger bulkier ropes will not. However performance for weightier ropes will be higher, and the reverse will be true for smaller ropes.
Durability
Durability is always in questions when rock climbing because your equipment will always take a beating, and when your safety depends on how much of a beating it can take, you want to be sure durability is high.
The best way to determine durability is to look at sheath and core percentages. The sheath is the outer strands of rope that help protect against abrasion and absorbs shock. High percentage of sheath is great for durability.
Core is the inner strands of rope that make up the majority of rope underneath the sheath.
Dynamic Versus Static
Dynamic ropes are manufactured to be able to stretch either during a climb going up, or in the incident of a fall on the way down. You want to have a good amount of stretch in the rope so as you impact during a fall, the cord acts sort of as a bungee to greatly decrease the impact of the rope jerking your body.
Static rope is more meant for holding inanimate objects still for long periods of time and attempting to use these for rock climbing may be dangerous. However some ropes that are listed as static still have stretch in them, and climbing ropes listed as dynamic sometimes have a lower stretchability than necessary.
FAQS
Q: Does the length of the climbing rope matter?
A: Yes. Depending on how high or low you are planning to climb, you want to make sure you have enough so that you will not get in a bind on the way up or down. Also, you will give yourself a lot more versatility to change the direction or aim of your climb if you have a generous amount of rope. However, you have to remember that you will be carrying this rope the entire climb, so will you want find out what length you are comfortable with carrying.
Q: Does it matter if I get a dynamic or static rope?
A: Yes. Static ropes are for the most part not meant for heavy impact. For example, you falling a short way and being caught by a static climbing rope will feel almost as if you have hit the ground wherever the static climbing rope covers. But with a dynamic climbing rope, when the rope impact happens, the rope stretches to soften the impact.
Q: Is it better to have a thin rope or a thick rope?
A: It depends. Durability is usually a littler higher with thicker ropes but they will harder to deal with on the climb. Thinner ropes usually feed better through a belay system making your climb a little easier, but durability may be low.