Extremeophile wrote:caverdan wrote:Looks like loaner rope to me.....
All this talk about the fact that experienced cavers could never possibly mistake this as "real" rope is interesting. I certainly hope people don't seriously believe anyone that isn't experienced enough to know the difference deserves to be injured or killed. I know of at least one serious injury (broken back) that was the result of using a clothes line as a hand line.
Dan, was it not recently discovered that kernmantle "tow rope" had been rigged in Narrows cave? I understood that it looked like 11 mm climbing rope on the outside, but that the core was some sort of multi-colored filament. Apparently the core had failed and only the sheath was holding the thing together. When they replaced the rope it was discovered that it wasn't a proper rope. I believe I used it myself just a month ago and nothing appeared unusual.
To follow-up on my own post... I think there's also a risk out there when it comes to the use of "hand lines". Seems to me that there's a tendency to go with less than optimal materials or rigging when the intended use isn't full SRT. I think the materials and rigging should reflect the worst-case scenario in a failure, e.g. if someone is using a hand line to cross a ledge spanning a 80' pit, then the rigging should probably be full strength. I've seen a number of such traverses rigged with a single spit on each end... maybe not enough to support a 200 lb person shock-loading the anchor. Perhaps this should be another topic though.