WHAT KIND OF ROPE SHOULD YOU HAVE?

Claims laid to the rope are different. Let's look upon them in a more detailed way. When you have lower insurance, in case of falling down, there is a great load on man and especially on the upper piton. According to the rules of UIAA (World Federation of Clubs of Mountaineering) the load on one man should be not more than 400 kilos. It is so because it's quite difficult to secure the rope on the relief. Thus, a rock piton can bear the load of 300 up to 600 kilos, elements which are put in the cracks can bear a little bit more (500 - 1000 kilos ). The most reliable point of securing - ice-axe on the dense ice - can bear not less than 1 ton. But the load on the piton is twice as much as that on one man. On the other hand, man overcomes the jerk of 400 kilos with certain difficulties. You can provide for the admissible conditions using soft (dynamic) ropes or using special breaking systems. Using one thing of the mentioned above, it is almost impossible to provide for the insurance soft enough. While moving along the rope handrails, there is another situation: man uses technical devices (жумар, шант ) as an additional fulcrum. It will be very good if this fulcrum is strong enough, created with the help of a hard (static) rope and doesn't go down under the load. Soft ropes, as a rule, quickly become wet and are covered with ice.Жумары держат very bad on such ropes. In the world practice different ropes are used for these purposes. Though, world leaders of producing ropes, such as EDELRID и EDELWEISS, produce double-hard ropes: they behave like ropes hard enough when the load is small ( to 300 kilos ), and begin to stretch out when the load is big and, therefore, they suppress the jerk. These are the ropes of the highest class.

YOUR ROPE WON'T LET YOU DOWN

If you don't want your rope let you down, it is important for you to know what influences the use of ropes. The strength of the rope considerably decreases on the bends which the rope suffers in the relief, in carabines and twists. Generally speaking, the angle of the rope bending, permissible while using a rope, must be not less than its diameter. But recently a number of ropes have appeared which can bear the jerk over the obstacle with the angle of bending 0,75 mm. Rather often ropes are suspended on wet ice, which sticks to the rope and then забивает жумары. Any pollution of the rope decreases its strength. Now let's proceed to the description of ropes.

HOW YOU CAN CHECK YOUR ROPE?

Firstly, the material. It is mainly synthetical fibres-perlon and nylon-66, sometimes you can meet ropes made from кевлара, they are very hard and reliable, are used as subsidiary (additional) ones. Any rope consists of сердцевины и оплетки, Approximately one third of the load is on the оплётка. The main characteristics of the rope used for the lower insurance is the number of jerks of UIAA, which it can bear. Ropes are checked in such a way: a 4,5 metre-piece of rope is taken , it is secured very hard, is thrown it over the carabiner, then the load of about 80 kilos is secured on the oppisite side of the rope and is thrown down from the height of 4 metres. According to the rules, there must be not less than 5 jerks for a new dry rope. Best foreign ropes can bear up to 12 jerks while ours can bear not more than 1 or 2. Ropes used for making of rope banisters are characterized by the maximum loading they can bear and by their hardness (relative lengthening while bearing the load must be 20% from maximum). A certain role plays also the quality of the оплётка: within the distance of 5 metres from the end of the rope оплётка should not move from the сердцевина having the maximum loading on the оплётка and the securing of the rope on the сердцевина. Minor characteristics are colour, diametre and easy knot tying.

ROPE MAINTENANCE

A rope is kept dry, by room temperature. You should better not dry it near a warm stove or under a hot sun. Small stone pieces, getting among fibres, dirty and spoil a rope. Besides some mechanical damages, a rope becomes harder. You can wash a rope but without any synthetic washing facilities and not in the mountain river: a strong current pulls it about and is able to rub it through with the help of underwater stones within 2 hours. Ultra-violet radiation almost doesn't influence the strength of a good rope, but any source of heat spoils and destroy it. And now some information about the length. There is a special unit of measurement in the mountaineering-a rope, used to measure the length of a difficult slope. It is equal to 40 metres.But lately a little bit longer ropes have been used, namely 50 metres long. Perhaps, it is the best length. And now let's have a look at the production represented on the Russian market of the tourist equipment. There are two rope producers in Russia (Kolomna and Kaliningrad) that produce ropes suitable for usage in the mountains. Kaliningrad produces ropes of different diameter and hardness. They have higher quality of оплетки and are of different colours as compared with that produced in Kolomna. Practically all Kaliningrad ropes are dynamic.