Why climb with a 70 meter in the Gunks?

Now that I have  sprinter I don't have to limit myself to only 3 ropes on  road trip :)    One thing I found interesting talking to Exum guides. they buy ropes on big spools and custom cut them for different climbs so that they have the perfect rope for the job at hand . 

Latrowrote:

Since just about everything there was put up with 35-50m ropes originally, there is no need for a 70 to be able to climb there.  And having climbed there on a partners' 70m. it is damned boring hauling in and stacking the 180' of rope on a 50 foot pitch.

As far as using a 70 to go all the way in 1 pitch - you're just using the rope to keep you off the deck, maybe.  You need to be justifiably confident.  At 200' out you'll have 20 feet of stretch, and at 10' over your piece, that's a 40 foot plus slack in the system fall.  The Grand Traverse Ledge is at most 160' off the deck.  And usually about 5 feet deep.  

Additionally, there is the issue of your second leaving the ground.  Low difficulties will deposit them on it, unless you are tensioning them.  There are some routes aat the Gunks most accurately described by the parenthetical comment  (The bottom 10 feet are not rated.)

The ~20 feet of stretch you are referring to is what the second will experience if they weight the rope.  There have been some injuries to followers who fell near the start because of extra-long leads.  It helps to pre-tension the rope, but you can't fully eliminate the issue.  The amount of stretch for leader falls is greater.  Linking pitches into long leads requires carrying much more gear, or else spacing out protection, which plays badly with the rope stretch near the top and makes the whole lead more serious. The Gunks being what it is, the potential for rope-drag creating angles increases as the length of the pitch increases.  And communication is degraded or absent when team members are 200 feet apart. As soon as even small things go wrong, the inability to communicate easily mushrooms into a mini-epic.  So extra long ropes are not without their downsides.  Pick your poison.

I have done more than a few 70m leads on cannon with skinny doubble ropes and it did not escape me that  the rope was mostly psycological at that point and the the conesquences of a fall were not an option. 

I cant imagine how coiling and stacking an extra 30-50' of rope is terribly boring or a huge PITA but people need their specialty stuff I guess. Certainly the Gunks is a lesson in consumerism, especially on weekends.

rgoldwrote:

The ~20 feet of stretch you are referring to is what the second will experience if they weight the rope.  There have been some injuries to followers who fell near the start because of extra-long leads.  It helps to pre-tension the rope, but you can't fully eliminate the issue.

This ^^^.

In my 28 yrs of climbing in the Gunks, I've helped carry out 2 broken ankles and 3 sprains due to a second hitting the ground from rope stretch and a low crux (Drunkards being the source of 3 of those injuries).

Lotta n00bery goin on there for sure. I especially hated seeing people there getting brought up by one single 8mm strand of a double or a twin which was not even close to tight. Sketch.

something that isn't really being discussed in this pro/against 70m rope thing is that mega pitches and linking stuff is just fun. It's a blast to just be able to run a full 220ft of climbing without stopping.  Yeah you don't "need" a 70m, but you also don't really "need" a 60 or a 50 if you're just hiking off.  Shit, you could get away with a 30m rope in the gunks if you really wanted to.  Lots of short pitches and a few gnarly gear anchors, but you can do it. The difference in weight between a 70m 9.8 rope and a 60m 9.8 rope is literally less than 2 lbs and flaking 10 extra meters of rope takes what, 30 seconds? 

climbing is fun.  If carrying an extra 2 lbs means I can make some more of my own fun, I'm all for it.  

rgoldwrote:

I've done Birdland in one pitch with my 60's.  My impression is that I wouldn't have made it all the way with 50's, but I haven't tried so that's just a guess.  Linking pitches in the Gunks is kinda silly anyway, and the idea of buying an extra-long rope just to link a few ptiches here and there strikes me as even more silly,  Bottom line is you don't need a 70m rope for the Gunks.  If you need it for something else and want to use it in the Gunks, fine.

I'm curious why you think linking pitches in the Gunks is silly. I enjoy longer pitches and often found the broken up pitches as being more silly. It certainly depends on the climb and who you're climbing with, but I just found this an odd blanket statement. And, I love my 70 :)

Of course you can do whatever floats your boat.  I think passing perfectly good belay stances, carrying the extra gear for multiple pitches or else running it out more than usual, dealing with higher rope weights and drag potential,  diminishing or eliminating communication, and subjecting the second to possibly dangerous rope-stretch potential, in a place where any possible time-savings is irrelevant, this in the pursuit of a sense of enjoyment derived by not stopping when the rock makes it approporiate to stop, is silly.  But that's just me.  

And also just me, I have no need or desire to top-rope Son of Easy O or other long pitches that would require a 70 (and 80's are, no doubt, not far behind).  And this means I won't be clogging up popular routes with gang top-roping sessions that monopolize a presumably shared resource for just a few people.  

In fact I rather enjoy belaying from high places rather than back down on the ground.  But again, that's just me.

rgoldwrote:

Of course you can do whatever floats your boat.  I think passing perfectly good belay stances, carrying the extra gear for multiple pitches or else running it out more than usual, dealing with higher rope weights and drag potential,  diminishing or eliminating communication, and subjecting the second to possibly dangerous rope-stretch potential, in a place where any possible time-savings is irrelevant, this in the pursuit of a sense of enjoyment derived by not stopping when the rock makes it approporiate to stop, is silly.  But that's just me.  

And also just me, I have no need or desire to top-rope Son of Easy O or other long pitches that would require a 70 (and 80's are, no doubt, not far behind).  And this means I won't be clogging up popular routes with gang top-roping sessions that monopolize a presumably shared resource for just a few people.  

In fact I rather enjoy belaying from high places rather than back down on the ground.  But again, that's just me.

Those are all excellent things to mitigate, but I would argue that you can often eliminate those when linking pitches. And I’m not saying linking just for the sake of linking, but certain climbs, especially in the Gunks lend themselves to linking previously established pitches. Son of easy O and Bonnie’s roof come to mind as two I never do in 2 anymore. I find it’s often more enjoyable to do a long pitch with often the same rack as I would carry otherwise. Sometimes skipping an established belay leads to a better belay. The thing I would emphatically agree with you on is if safety is a concern (low crux, with tons of rope stretch. Drunkards Delight, anyone?)

But, like you said, to each his/her own.

Lastly, I don’t hang top rope. How dare you?! Haha!

Fair enough, but you don't need a 70 to link Son of Easy O or Bonnie's; 60's are fine.

Always be prepared is what I learned at a young age. That and dont always trust the locals.

M Mwrote:

Always be prepared is what I learned at a young age. That and dont always trust the locals.

^^ This. Also you need an 80m to climb high E. 

I did most of that stuff with a 50m and it worked just fine... 

Whats funny here is that many of the people advocating for shorter ropes because of the hassle of rope management and time lost are the same folks who climb everything with doubles.

M Mwrote:

Whats funny here is that many of the people advocating for shorter ropes because of the hassle of rope management and time lost are the same folks who climb everything with doubles.

Well, I'm one of those.  I never mentioned hassles of rope management with a single 70 other than rope weight and rope drag.  60m doubles run out to nearly full length are probably worse in terms of rope weight, but are orders of magnitude better in terms of rope drag, the trade-off coming down definitively in favor of the doubles, so if you are going to run pitches together things will usually go better with half ropes, and there are precious few climbs in the Gunks you can't link with 60m doubles.   I don't recall citing time losses as a drawback of 70's either, in fact just the opposite, I suggested that saving time on Gunks climbs is a pretty low-priority concern so who cares.  

So in addition to being mostly off-base, the comment clouds the issue, which was about the desirability of a 70m single rope for Gunks climbing.  It is however true that, in my opinion, a pair of 60m half ropes is a far better option, but as a half-rope user for many years, I'm certainly biased.

rgoldwrote:

Well, I'm one of those.  I never mentioned hassles of rope management with a single 70 other than rope weight and rope drag.  60m doubles run out to nearly full length are probably worse in terms of rope weight, but are orders of magnitude better in terms of rope drag, the trade-off coming down definitively in favor of the doubles, so if you are going to run pitches together things will usually go better with half ropes, and there are precious few climbs in the Gunks you can't link with 60m doubles.   I don't recall citing time losses as a drawback of 70's either, in fact just the opposite, I suggested that saving time on Gunks climbs is a pretty low-priority concern so who cares.  

So in addition to being mostly off-base, the comment clouds the issue, which was about the desirability of a 70m single rope for Gunks climbing.  It is however true that, in my opinion, a pair of 60m half ropes is a far better option, but as a half-rope user for many years, I'm certainly biased.

I don't think I ever said you need a 70 for climbing at the Gunks, just that I like it. My only issue was you referring to linking pitches as silly. All of these comments, yours and mine included, are mainly about preference, so whatever floats our boats I guess. As far as climbing with a 70, I do feel that the extra length sometimes give you other options, whether that's at the gunks or anywhere else. 2 specific instances at the Gunks that come to mind are Son of Easy O, and Mother Bird. You don't need a 70 to link them, but you do to lower or rap to the ground with a single. I know you mentioned that you would prefer to belay from above, which is fine, but sometimes the comfort and speed to move on to another climb next is fun as well. 

linking pitches in a way that eliminates comunication with your second and puts them at greater risk for injury is silly unless the second is rock solid and on the same page as you are. 70s are wicked awesome in situations where they are actually nessicary but rather silly when they are not nessicary.   likewise doubbles are  Awesome when you actually need Doubbles but they are wicked silly when you don't need them.  Proof of this is the Britts useing 400ft of doubble rope to climb a 20 meter gritstone heap with little to no gear.  Everyone knows the Britts are silly so this proves my point. 

Nick Goldsmithwrote:

linking pitches in a way that eliminates comunication with your second and puts them at greater risk for injury is silly unless the second is rock solid and on the same page as you are. 70s are wicked awesome in situations where they are actually nessicary but rather silly when they are not nessicary.   likewise doubbles are  Awesome when you actually need Doubbles but they are wicked silly when you don't need them.  Proof of this is the Britts useing 400ft of doubble rope to climb a 20 meter gritstone heap with little to no gear.  Everyone knows the Britts are silly so this proves my point. 

I guess we're all just silly, trying to rationalize and intellectualize choices that we all just feel like making. I can't wait til they make 120m ropes so I never have to stop to belay again. 

edited to say: at the Gunks anyways :)

If you want to cure yourself of wanting to carry extra rope around  a season in the tetons should do it. i think the shortest  approach for anything other than blacktail butte or  hoback is about 4 miles or so... thats where i learned to ditch my tricams....  anything you are not 100% certain that you Will use gets left in the gear bin..