How to Escape When Your Rope Is Damaged!

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Because I tend to climb in the alpine, with often blocky and edgy terrain, and because I also like mixed climbing, with all the sharp things, I have had my fair share of damaged ropes. On more than one occasion, I have decided to turn around due to some rope damage. That’s multiplied across decades of climbing, of course; it’s not like have I rope damage every week ;)

So, I’ve had the “opportunity” to rappel past a damage-isolating knot a number of times, and in the video, I provide a walkthrough for four methods I’ve used. Then we can add into the frequency the number of times I’ve practiced these things.

Taking all of that into account, I’ve developed my preferences for certain methods, and as I call out in the video, I’ve come to prefer the “double-fix” method as long as I can mitigate the potential communication risks that come with that method. (Take a look at the video to see what I’m talking about.) The reason is that it is - if done correctly - very secure while adding no additional risk to getting our rope stuck when pulling it.

While it is already never fun to get a climbing rope stuck when pulling it down after a rappel, it is even less so when the pull strand has damage to it. When we pull our rope and it get’s stuck, should we have to lead climb back up to free the rope, we end up using the end of the rope that we have available to tie in as the lead climber. That end is the pull strand. Well, in this scenario, the pull strand has the rope damage. While the damage isolating knot is designed to let us use the rope despite the damage, we are now adding in risks: not only are we climbing on a damaged rope, we’ve got a knot on the belay strand.

So, I really try to tilt my risk management away from methods that increase the odds of the rope getting stuck. Most accidents happen through a set of smaller, compounding issues. It’s not as frequently one catastrophic issue that gets us. We did a whole video on risk probabilities to underscore this point. So, I am trying to be vigilant against these compounding issues.

Of course, risk assessment is always both contextual and personal. So, all the more reason to have multiple techniques at our disposal so that we can select the technique that makes us feel better about our plan for self-extraction. Maybe, then, take a look at the video, weigh the pros and cons, and make your own assessment.