Page 14 - Nate Fitch, Ron Funderburke "Climbing Knots"

CHAPTER 1

The Rope

ike anything anyone chooses to study carefully,
L the climbing rope can be studied beyond all value
and practical import. All of the rope’s contortions,
including all knots and hitches, the rope’s chemistry
and physical attributes, its history and its symbolic
value, involve disciplines of science and history that
predate rock climbing. An archeologist, for example,
can tell us when humans first began to spin fibers into
cords, and an anthropologist can tell us why they did
it. A chemist, a physicist, and a product engineer can
elucidate the way hemp rope molecules interact with
heat, dynamic loads, and UV light; they might further
contrast that behavior with any number of polyam-
ide, polyethylene, or other synthetic rope materials.
Furthermore, even with this level of academic rigor,
all climbers have their own experiences and informal
tests that confirm, contradict, and complicate the sub-
ject. Sometimes scientific and anecdotal expectations
coincide; sometimes they do not.
What information do climbers need to know, and
what can they leave for the scientists? And how do
we communicate all those criteria to each other in a
language everyone, scientific or otherwise, can under-
stand? In this chapter we will try to consolidate the
way we talk about ropes and ropework. We will draw
a climber’s attention to the physical properties and
behavior of kernmantle ropes and nylon slings with an
emphasis on practical use.

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