UKH

So, I read so much conflicting information on the internet about this. People recommending 30m-40m-50m rope for two-man rope teams.

Please correct me if I'm wrong but in my mind the best length would be 70m and a 60m could work if you used slings to lower the droploop.

Length between climbers: 12-14 meter (incl. braking knots), Both climbers having 2 times the length between climbers in coils.

This allows the climbers to put braking knots in between the climbers and both climbers are capable of setting up a drop loop 2:1 with prepared lip (bypassing brake knots and cut-in main rope) and a 3:1 pulley on top allowing the rescuer to haul the fallen climber with 6:1. Using microtraxion and pulley.

Any shorter rope and there is only one climber with the coils left to rescue the other.

Added benefit of >60m rope is the climbing and 30m abseils you can do.

With this in mind I'm very on the fence on buying either the Mammut 9.5 Alpine Dry Rope 70m or 60m or the Mammut 8.7 Alpine Sender Dry Rope 70m or 60m.

What rope would you recommend? Which length? Which rescue system would you use with that rope? How would you divide the rope amongst the climbers?

Thanks in advance for your replies!

Many schools of thought. Hauling someone up with a rope is not particularly hard but hauling someone over a lip is an absolute nightmare.

I presume you are not climbing? in which case you would choose ropes that are appropriate to your route objective and they'll be fine for glacier travel too. If only on glacier walking type stuff then personally 60M is overkill and 70 wouldn't even be on my radar. 

For my part I have used a 40m half rope (shock horror) and got on fine. we had 15-20m of rope between us and I felt I had plenty of rope spare to deal with setting up a hauling system. there would be a bit of resetting but they'd get to the lip.

In my opinion If someone drops into a hole then by far the best option is for them to self rescue by climbing the rope. If they happen to be incapacitated or badly injured then just straight away call for help, hauling someone who is unable to help themselves over an edge transition is unlikely to happen without serious manpower.

Spend some time practicing climbing ropes and hauling your pal up some crags/trees etc. Its a good laugh and a great way to build skills. It'll also help you dial your system in and figure out how much rope you want for yourself. Its surprising how easy it is to raise someone on a simple 3:1 if you clip the haul rope to your harness and use your legs to do the work. If you still need more oomph then its easy to adapt to a compound 5:1 without much extra rope. 

I think you would be being too optimistic to hope to pull your partner out of a crevasse as a team of two. Best case scenario is you hold the fall and get anchor in, then partner prusiks back up the rope out of the crevasse under their own steam.  If they are incapacitated by the fall, then I'd expect you'll need external assistance.

I agree. Im not particularly experienced with alpine climbing but it quickly dawned on me when I did some training how hard the process of rescuing someone would be in anything other than perfect conditions/scenario. Not that you shouldn't try and you shouldn't be prepared for it, but getting help if possible should be the number one priority in my opinion.

40m single is my answer

Honestly this reads like you’ve typed a question into chatgpt.

I think this is correct. The sunny optimism of ropework manuals is misleading. Apart from anything else, what sort of anchor are you realistically going to get in deep soft snow?

I have doubts about prusiking out tbh if there is a lip or similar.

One option which might actually work flagged by Jon (formally??) of around here is (as I recall):

10-12m knotted rope taught between climbers. This bites the edge and stops the fall. In addition, 40m *loose* unknotted between climbers, mostly carried as hand coils. This enough for an assisted hoist to be set up at either end, so you can both pull and there is no need for an anchor.

With a microtrax and tibloc you're not even close to needing two times rope length to set up a good haul. For pure glacier travel as a team of two, 40 to 50 meters should be plenty. If pitched climbing and abseiling is involved that changes.

That said however, I'd agree with above statements that as a team of two you'd be very lucky or very strong to haul somebody out unassisted. 

Hand coils??? On a glacier???  Does this mean coils carried in your hand?  All this does is makes sure your friend goes in a really long way

Read the two sentences before that bit..!

I would purchase the Bruce Goodlad Alpine essentials book, it has all the information you need.

If I was only completing glacier travel I would use a 40m rope with between 12-15m of rope between climbers on flat ground, I would adjust the rope depending on the angle of the ground and weight difference of the climbers. I however tend to have a 60m rope as I'm moving somewhere for a mountaineering/climbing objective.

Personally, I have equal coils tied off at each climber with the rope adjusted to a lower centre of gravity by a clove hitch tied off to a locking carabiner clipped to the harness rope loop. Add a prussic or mini traxion to the rope and clip back loosely to your harness, this is not essential but helps in self rescue situations with speed. I do not add any glacier knots to the rope, yes is can slow down any possible fall and can stop on the lip however; I have found them a real pain when either trying to prussic out of a crevasse or trying to set a hauling system up. Never use hand coils for glacier travel and for comfort whilst walking the rope between each climber should be touching the floor but not excessively slack.

Finally practice, practice and practice again your crevasse systems, it will pay dividends in the future honest.

I was lucky enough to do the Jonathan Conville Course back in the day & would recommend a day or two with a UIGM guide first- buying one specifically a 40/50m skinny single seems suitable. Alpine routes often have abseil stations set up for 50m ropes.. some are for 60's though.

Advice to keep a low tie off for the coils also good- fell in a hidden crevasse once & a tight rope from my (lighter/smaller) partner meant could scramble out- Bruce Goodlad book has all this-

I suspect for a lot of people that the drop loop approach will not be the standard one employed - I think the 'standard model' is still a 3:1 where the rope between climbers is used for hauling, and if knots were employed then (theoretically) additional effort is taken to pass them.

As such there is less rope required and so people will I suspect be running with 40-50-60m ropes depending on climbing plans off the glacier.

(I might be wrong about this, but at least in UK alpine 'culture' I haven't seen much reference of the drop loop approach, although having researched it a bit (I had to look it up) I can see the potential advantages.)

More generally I don't know of anyone that would choose to haul a 70m rope on an alpine route for the sake of facilitating a drop loop rescue - unless doing something gnarly/high altitude/cold and perhaps then carrying 70m half ropes, but again that would be more driven by climbing considerations than glacier considerations.

The main reason against this I suspect is that 70m means a lot of extra rope to faff with once on a route (taking and dropping coils for moving together, pitching, etc.), especially on more 'mountaineering' style routes sand ridges - and of course every extra 10m is probably an extra 500g of weight or so depending on exact rope weight per m.

I use a 60m triple rated rope and even that is arguably longer than needed for a lot of what I do (mostly lower grade F-PD-AD), although I am sometimes grateful for it on abseils. My understanding is that the 'standard' rope length for classic routes at least in the alps is still considered to be 50m for the post part.

But I also take that rope winter climbing where the extra length is nice, so I currently compromise there rather than buying a separate rope.

Alternatives if using a shorter rope might be to employ ab tat i.e. 6mm cord to extend the rope enough at one end to form a drop loop, or of course if carrying a tag line for abs.

Jim, you are absolutely on the right track with your thought process.  In my opinion, shorter than 60 m rope for a team of two is asking for trouble.

If only glacier travel and light/moderate alpine, I would by the thin 60 meter rope, and arrange the system as you describe with stopper knots (with can be very effective) planning for a dropped loop rescue is possible. 

A friend and I pulled 2 people (skier and snow boarder) out of a crevasse on the Argentière glacier 3 years ago using dropped loop.  In my opinion dropped loop works well in the unroped situation (ie skiing) and when people aren't down too far.  In the summer when you are roped, you are likely to need so much spare rope its not really practical (other than helping over the lip - incidentally Austrian "Munchhausen" technique is useful) and therefore either prusiking out or a Z haul are the way to go.  Of course another strategy that hasn't been mentioned is using another rope. In the summer you may well have 2 ropes if you are off to a rock climb.  One is in your sac (with any luck not the guy who has gone down).  

sorry to be thick! I still dont understand this.  I spend a lot of time on glaciers summer and winter.  Why would you carry coils in your hand?

The general idea is

1) A strand that is taught and knotted between climbers.  This stops the fall, with the knots cutting in providing good resistance.  However, taught knotted ropes don't provide a feasible haulage mechanism so in addition there is

2)  A rope long enough to allow a drop coil system to be set up if one climber falls in.  This is long enough so either climber can be at the top. Consequently there is a lot of slack, which is carried in coils

The advantages are a) no anchors are needed b) no escaping the system c) both climbers can hoist d) you aren't using the same line to hold the fall as the hoist.

I haven't tried it in anger but it sounds actually feasible for a party of two, unlike other systems.

No anchors needed? How so?

I was looking this up a bit yesterday as I’m also unfamiliar with the technique but wouldn’t you still need to transfer the taut rope to an anchor so that you can get the loop to the other party? And also just to prevent you slipping and thus also getting pulled in.

Well as above I haven't tried in anger but I assume if have held the fall, you won't be dragged further.  Since the knotted rope and slack rope are different lines, there is no need to transfer load. I'm seeing something like this

Thanks everyone for the great replies and discussion.

I'm going for the 60m 8.7 as it is the most versatile for my alpine goals.

Depending on the situation we can prepare for drop loop rescue, self-rescue (prusik + munchhausen) and hauling systems 3:1 (or 7:1) on knotted line. IMO having micro traxion and tiblocs for that helps a bunch for ease of passing knots.

IMO That assumption is a dangerous one to make. You should always make an anchor and make your way to the lip with a prusik to check on your fallen partner. You can calm them down and communicate on next steps for rescue. You can prepare the lip, set up a haul etc.

Hmm, I’m not sure I would share that assumption personally, if ground were steeper or somewhat icy. And how would you move around to set up a haul on the drop loop line (and then help with the hauling) if you’re basically holding all of the other climber’s weight?

Not picking at you, and sorry if I’ve misunderstood.

Don't know!  But it sounds easier to me than setting up an anchor on a steep slope with soft snow.  I suspect there isn't a panacea for two people and glacier travel is inherently risky.  

I think the idea is the drop line is effectively already there in the form of the loose rope.  

It's fine - it's worth discussing these things.

I can see that's the ideal and if possible, great.  Sorry for more poxy diagrams, but I suspect reality is more this!

Erm... unless you are only planning to snow-plod you are going to use the rope/ropes you have for whatever you're doing! So if you only have a single 70m (just for example...) then that's your "best" rope, if you have 2x60m then those are your "best" ropes

My non facetious point - is that you have some rope and you need to know how to adapt what you have to your immediate needs, like alpine coils and other skills.

Probably you will have knots in it if you're planning a lot of wet glacier walking, but if it's a lower risk short section and next you're going straight into belayed/pitched or simul terrain then you might not want knots. It really is a case of you need a selection of "tools in your toolbox" and learn how to pick the best one for that situation, rather than looking for the "best" length or whatever. Sorry of that sounds unhelpful since you did ask a specific question.

There's a wealth of resources out there and if you are OK post-brexit with johnny foreigner talking in foreign (they do insist on that   ) and can handle a little  French, then in my opinion https://www.youtube.com/@AlpinismeENSA/videos have some of the best  resources out there on this subject

Whooooaaa...lots to discuss here but first two points:

1-Stopper knots can help arrest a fal in certain conditions, and are a great tool for added safety, but in no way should they substitute for an anchor!  It would be extrmely ill advised to rely on stopper knots as an "anchor".  The plan would be to hold a fall with stopper knots and then build and anchor to do whatever you are going to do, even if that's just waiting while the other climbes ascends the rope.

2-If using stopper knots with the possibility of a drop loop for each climber, then, yes, a two-person team needs at least a 60 meter rope to maintain both a safe distance on a glacier and enough rope to arrange a rescue.  The extra rope that each climber carrier is typically in shoulder coils or in a backpack....not carried in the hand (!) as was perhaps suggested above.  I'm going to interpret that as the extra rope should be carried "at hand" (at the ready) and not in hand "in hand coils."  Carrying hand coils in a long plod accross a glacier would be ineffecient and tiresome

OK, askide from those points, most of this is ground that has been covered before...two ropes or one rope, rope diameter, drop loop vs direct haul, hauling systems...and so on. Lots of different methods and approaches are possible.

But the current best practices seem to be a 60 meter rope for a two main team.

B

Hmm, still not sure I understand. I think you're suggesting something like:

1. Climbers A and B tie in with say 15m between them (presumably Climber A at one end of the rope, and then Climber B about 15m along on a bight). This can be knotted with stoppers if desired.
2. This leaves approx. 45m of spare rope (assuming a 60m rope), which then runs back from Climber B to Climber A - but of course is much longer and so there is lots of slack
3. Climber A and Climber B manage the slack between them - loose backpack coils or whatever. The key point is that each climber has access to the loose rope, as it will become the haul rope in the event of a fall
4. Climber A is going first and falls into a crevasse
5. Climber B holds the fall
6. Climber A then has access to the loose coils, so the drop loop is already in place
7. Climber A connects the drop loop to a screwgate or pulley on their belay loop, so that they can assist with the hauling (2:1 if Climber B doesn't set anything else up)
8. Climber B takes in the slack on the loose rope
9. Climber A pulls up, creating slack in the haul rope
10. Climber B hauls, taking in the slack
11. Rinse and repeat

Is that what you're thinking?

If nothing else I still think Climber B really needs an anchor (albeit yes, usual caveats about it being hard/not possible to make one in some snow conditions, etc.) because they're going to be helping with the hauling, or at least taking the strain if Climber A is ascending the drop loop without hauling, and anyway the risk of them slipping or getting pulled in as well seems really significant in most scenarios. Also there is the wider opportunity for Climber B to make a 3:1 on the top side as part of all this, but not if they are holding all the weight and can't move.

Again sorry if I'm misunderstanding.

Pretty much that. If an anchor is feasible, great, but I think the possibility of it not being needed is a plus.

I think a bigger problem might be the rope biting in at the lip, rather than sliding. But softer snow means more biting *and* more difficulty finding an anchor. So you're stuffed, really!

I am shocked, this being UKC, that no one else has yet asked - so I must:

What is it that you teach it?

Something was niggling🙄

Maybe I'm not getting what you're saying, but, really, there's no way you're not going to need an anchor is you need to haul.  Sure, you might be able to lie/sit/brace in the snow with a niceley wedged stopper knot while your partner ascends a fixed line, but if you have to haul, you will need an anchor.  The idea with stopper knots is absolutely NOT that they take the place of an anchor.  Were you taught that somewhere??? 

I'm not for moment suggesting the knot prevents sliding on its own - it will be a combination of friction, knot, ice axe digging feet in etc - but it certainly will increase drag and help arrest a fall which is why they are considered a good idea.

My point however is that if you  do manage to arrest a fall somehow, the force while hauling cannot be more than that needed to arrest the fall, so in principle and anchor isn't needed.

Hauling systems greatly multiply forces.  The forces on the anchor when hauling are going to be greater than when arresting a fall.  I really beleive you need to re-think this.  But don't take my worf for it--just check the best opractices, advice, and instructions for any crevasse rescue system/process from any alpine organization or guide training program of whatever around the world--I am nearly certain that nobody--nobody--would advocate hauling on a stopper knot, for the reasons I enumerated.  I'm not trying to be pedantic, or start an argument, but what you are suggesting is simply incorrect, and contradicts the accepted knoweldge of the climbing community.  Somebody could read it and get very missinformed and dangerous ideas.  Please do some research.

Internally in the system, yes. The overall force can't increase however - gravity acting on the person fallen in is still the same  and that is resisted by whatever anchor you have with a drop loop system.

No one is suggesting that!!

I may not have remember all details correctly but the broad system I'm outlining came from ENSA originally.

Here the almost original thread it appeared in 

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/expedition+alpine/critique_my_crevasse_re...

Link:

https://www.alpinesavvy.com/blog/does-an-ma-system-put-more-load-on-the-anc...

Quote:

"In the real world, mechanical advantage systems often result in extra force on the anchor, because of the extra effort needed to overcome friction. The greater the MA of your system, and the heavier the load you’re trying to lift, and the more friction is involved, the stronger your anchor needs to be."

"This is discussed in the excellent book “The Mountain Guide Manual”, by Marc Chauvin and Rob Coppolillo, pg 276."

That book by Rob, who is a friend of mine, has all the information you need.

Exactly this point...

Skiing as a two have always used two ropes...

When roped one person takes in the spare (bit over half)  into top of their bag so can pull out fast.

Other person has second rope.

When roped you both have enough spare to set up an independent haul.

When unroped the only rope don't end up down the hole🤔

Can you drop the condescending tone and perhaps read what I write? Your mate is correct but discussing systems where the hauler is outside the systyem, not what I am describing. Draw a free body diagram and it's clear 

I'm sorry MG, I'm not going to drop the condesending tone.  Your posts demonstrate ignorance, and diseminate dangerous information.

You have several times suggested using stopper knots as a substitute for an anchor.

You've also stated that hauling systems do not generate more force on an anchor than the body weight of a falling climber.

For example, your words here:

"the force while hauling cannot be more than that needed to arrest the fall, so in principle and anchor isn't needed."

These statements are incorrect, and dangerously missleading. 

I'll completey admit that I am incorrect, and apologize here, if you find a specific, reputable source that supports what you are saying, and you show that organizations like the BMC, AMGA, the UIAGM, or equivalent, reccomend what you suggest.

TLDR: stopper knots are great, but they do not and can not substitute for anchors, hauling systems multiply the forces on anchors substantiually, so anchors should be bomber.

I'm going to drop out of this now because you are being a willfully dishonest, but, one last time, I am not suggesting this, and have been repeatedly, abundantly clear I am not 

In case anyone's interested, knots are highly effective in soft snow 

youtube.com/watch?v=IgNR-VZMwHo&

MG,

There is no willfull dishonesty on my part, just an honest attempt prevent dangerous information from spreading. 

Just to be clear, you clearly stated that with your proposed system no anchors are needed, at least three times.

Here are your words quoted with the pertinent sections highlighted in bold.

"10-12m knotted rope taught between climbers. This bites the edge and stops the fall. In addition, 40m *loose* unknotted between climbers, mostly carried as hand coils. This enough for an assisted hoist to be set up at either end, so you can both pull and there is no need for an anchor."

"The advantages are a) no anchors are needed b) no escaping the system c) both climbers can hoist d) you aren't using the same line to hold the fall as the hoist."

"If an anchor is feasible, great, but I think the possibility of it not being needed is a plus."

As above, I am totally prepared to apologize if you show clear and reputable links to what you are proposing.  I love to learn cool new glacier solutions!  But the method your propose is neither practical nor safe. 

yes the pull out fast bit is good as well.  loose in the top of the sac.  but this applies just to winter.  this whole thread seems a bit of a mish mash!