Half ropes as singles

Thank you for the helpful responses! Yes "climbing out of a burning building" is sort of a metaphor...I'm just curious about the strength of something like a 7.9 half-rope in a non-fall situation. Thanks again.

They edelrid protect pro 8mm or 8.9 is the ideal rope for alpine climbing these days.  Has aramid in the sheath which increases resistance to cutting substantially.  They say the 8.9 performs similar to a 10mm conventional rope.  I have an 8.9 and it is my go to now for alpine climbing.  I wouldn’t hesitate to use the half rope 8mm (as a single) too and would own both if I didn’t have 2 good 8mm half  ropes already.

I've done the majority of my climbing on half ropes and have taken many falls on them. Despite weighing 110kg I've never had a rope break on me (although have ripped plenty of pieces). Often only one of the two ropes will catch the fall. So no reason not to use a half as a single for easy mileage. As someone else mentioned, choose your belay device wisely - its way easier to grip two strands coming out of a device rather than one, even if only one is doing the work. Wouldn't want to use a single half rope to work a route though - its a PITA and will get stomped out way quicker than a beefier rope.

Hector P wrote:

I've done the majority of my climbing on half ropes and have taken many falls on them. Despite weighing 110kg I've never had a rope break on me (although have ripped plenty of pieces). Often only one of the two ropes will catch the fall. So no reason not to use a half as a single for easy mileage. As someone else mentioned, choose your belay device wisely - its way easier to grip two strands coming out of a device rather than one, even if only one is doing the work. Wouldn't want to use a single half rope to work a route though - its a PITA and will get stomped out way quicker than a beefier rope.

Might feel easier to grip but the stopping power of the belay device is considerably reduced if only one strand of the two is loaded.

JJ B wrote:

Greetings,

Question related to the discussion above: would a half-rope climbing rope such as the "Black Diamond 7.9 Dry Climbing Rope" used alone--i.e. not in tandem with another half rope--be strong enough to hold the weight of a single adult in an emergency (e.g. climbing out the 4th storey of a burning building) where the rope is not stopping a falling body but just holding the weight of an adult climbing down it?

Thank you for your time.

Whether you use the rope in tandem (as in a normal rappel where you tie the ends of two ropes with a knot at the rappel ring) or use it singly for hauling as you ask, the load (force) on the rope remains the same. Having two strands as in a rappel is not halving the load.

Any half rope would need to hold at least 5 FF 1.77 falls at 55kg load, which translates roughly to ~2 falls at 80kg. Again, no direct extrapolation, but that would roughly correspond to something in the range of 500+ kg static force.

In other words, you can haul a full-grown bison with your 7.9 Dry climbing rope. You can haul a normal sized human 1000s of times safely (protecting it from cuts/rubbing).

one should consider the environment as well. I've seen ropes being mangled pretty bad by rockfall - suspect a 9.8mm cord would offer a bigger margin of safety vs a single strand of 1/2