When To Retire A Climbing Rope (And What Happens Next)

Afella came up to my stall last month with a rope in the boot of his car. He had driven it around for two years. He kept saying the same thing over and over. It looks fine.

That is the whole problem, right there. It always looks fine.

A climbing rope does not go off like milk. There is no smell. No date stamp you can squint at in the shop light. It just quietly stops being as good as it was, and the part that goes first is the part you cannot see.

When to retire a climbing rope

Rope makers give you a window, not a date. Five to ten years from the day it was made, even if it never once came out the bag. Less if you climb every week. A lot less if it has caught a proper fall.

Retire it now, no arguing, if any of this is true:

• You can feel a soft spot, a flat bit or a lump when you run it through your hands
• The sheath is worn through anywhere and you can see the white core
• It caught a hard fall with a low fall factor, the kind that made everyone go quiet
• It has had chemicals, battery acid or anything you cannot name near it
• You do not know its history, because somebody gave it to you
• It is simply over ten years old

That last one catches people out. Nylon ages sitting still. Sunlight, damp and time all have a go at it whether you are climbing on it or not.

The core goes before the sheath

Here is the bit that gets missed. Your rope is two things. A woven sheath on the outside doing the scuffing, and a core of nylon fibres on the inside doing the actual work of catching you.

Every fall stretches those core fibres. They do not fully spring back. So the rope gets stiffer and less able to absorb the next one, and none of that shows on the outside. The sheath can look almost new while the core underneath is done.

Which is why looks fine is not a safety check. If you are having the debate at all, you already know the answer.

So what happens to it next

This is where most people get stuck, and honestly it is where most ropes end up in a bin bag in a cupboard for three years. Nobody wants to throw it out. It held somebody up. It feels wrong.

It should feel wrong. That rope is roughly 46.6 kg of CO2 to make, about half of that the nylon itself, and nylon takes hundreds of years to break down. Binning it is the worst option on the list.

Your rope is still brilliant material. It is only finished for the one job it was built for. I turn it into things people actually use, like recycled climbing rope belts made to your exact waist size, climbing rope bracelets made to wrist size, and rope keychains from the offcuts.

If you want the full list of options, including the ones that are not me, I wrote that up separately in what to do with old climbing rope. And if you are wondering whether kerbside recycling will take it, the honest answer is in can you recycle climbing rope.

The fella from the market posted his rope up a fortnight later. It is a belt now. He sent me a photo of him wearing it and said it was better than leaving it in the boot, which is about the least dramatic review I have ever had and also completely correct.

Retire the rope. Keep the story.

Stay classy and remember,
Make Waste Useful.

George