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Oplux vs canyon

treefox 1

Active Member
SH Member
Joined
Nov 12, 2015
Messages
168
Location
Southeast pa.
Hello,is there anybody that compared oplux and canyon for repelling I know canyon is recommended with a safeguard but I'm still on the fence on which one to chose.
 
Oplux was very packable and worked really well with a figure 8 to rappel. What sold me on the canyon was the water resistance, works with safeguard, and I also bought it in 40’ so I could SRT as well. I read where sterling came out and said that oplux is not a climbing line also.
 
I’m using canyon c-Iv for my srt and rappelling setup with the safeguard I can fit my rope which I think is 50-60 ft in a DanO pouch with the safeguard with not much room to spare. It’s a pretty stiff rope which I like using but the end of season I started hunting around a lot of water and got the rope wet and just this one time rappelling while the rope was wet I had trouble rappelling. It wasn’t slipping it actually wasn’t letting go now it was cold that night and I was rushing so it could’ve been operator error too but that was the only trouble I had out of this rope with safeguard.
 
I’m using canyon c-Iv for my srt and rappelling setup with the safeguard I can fit my rope which I think is 50-60 ft in a DanO pouch with the safeguard with not much room to spare. It’s a pretty stiff rope which I like using but the end of season I started hunting around a lot of water and got the rope wet and just this one time rappelling while the rope was wet I had trouble rappelling. It wasn’t slipping it actually wasn’t letting go now it was cold that night and I was rushing so it could’ve been operator error too but that was the only trouble I had out of this rope with safeguard.
Packability is good,but it's slippery when wet ?
 
Not slippery to me but I also haven’t used the oplux to compare it to. I’m not one that likes using anything out of spec so I went with the c-iv but I never really tried to replicate the scenario again to see why it wasn’t feeding through the safeguard smoothly I just guessed it to be because of it being wet was why I had the minor issue.
 
Oplux was very packable and worked really well with a figure 8 to rappel. What sold me on the canyon was the water resistance, works with safeguard, and I also bought it in 40’ so I could SRT as well. I read where sterling came out and said that oplux is not a climbing line also.

Yeah, Sterling never clarified what they meant on that. Did they mean "this is not a dynamic rope meant for sport rock climbing where you will fall".....then okay that should be common sense but maybe someone tried it and got hurt (?).

I hope they didn't mean "do not use this to ascend, descend, or rappel".....because that would make me ask "well then what the heck is this rope good for then? tying mattresses down in the back of an old truck?" I believe it is a tactical rope and touted as heat resistant, so I'm betting it is okay to hang from etc. Just don't take a fall on it!
 
Packability is good,but it's slippery when wet ?
I was using Oplux in the Safeguard, and still do when its dry outside. The issue I had with Oplux was it seems to absorb water very fast and that made for a very "sporty" rappel out of the tree in the rain. In reality it was more a controlled fall between jerky stops. I won't be using it anymore if rain is even remotely in the forecast.
 
I have the Teufelberger Resc Tech 8mm from Dan-O, and in the description it states this:
"Thanks to its UHMWPE/Polypropylene blended core, the rope does not take in water."

So maybe Resc Tech is superior to Oplux in this respect?
 
It’s the cover that is absorbing the water, Technora does a little and the polyester more of a percentage on the Oplux and RescTech, less water intake with the all Technora cover of the C-IV. Nylon absorbs more than polyester, but the dry treatment must help on the Elite.
 
I was using Oplux in the Safeguard, and still do when its dry outside. The issue I had with Oplux was it seems to absorb water very fast and that made for a very "sporty" rappel out of the tree in the rain. In reality it was more a controlled fall between jerky stops. I won't be using it anymore if rain is even remotely in the forecast.

Interesting. Being wet seems to make TRC grab better onto Oplux than when dry (or it at least changes it but doesn't make it break free easier by much or at all).
 
Here is an alternative "9mm Canyon Elite – Eastern Woods Outdoors" https://doublesteps.com/product/9mm-canyon-elite/

It is 9mm but more supple than the Canyon IV, similar to oplux.

Sent from my SM-G981V using Tapatalk

I bet Sterling 6.8 mm T-Vac would work well on these 9 mm ropes. I am experimenting with it on 9.9 mm climbing rope and it is grabbing really well with a distel hitch. It is the same as TRC but slightly wider, which can make a decent difference when starting with these smaller diameters to begin with. It works on the 9.9 mm rope better than the TRC (which grabs and sinks in way too hard).

I had a really hard time finding the T-Vac by the foot. It's something that @DanO might find a market for.
 
A little more background on my experience. I sat in a steady rain for approximately 4 hours. During that entire time the Oplux was stored in my pack, not to say my pack was completely dry but it's contents shouldn't have been saturated. It was raining hard enough and long enough that water was visibly running down the tree. When I finally had enough, I took out my Oplux rappel line and girth hitched it to the tree. It took me no more than five minutes to hook up to my Safeguard and remove and stow my hunting tether. In that five minutes that Oplux was so saturated that the Safeguard was wringing water out of it as I rappelled. The releases of line through the Safeguard were so sudden that I almost shot clean past my platform and stick before I could remove them. The rest of the trip down the tree can best be described as a series of controlled 3-4 foot falls as I alternately opened the cam and then let go of the lever. I had so little friction through the Safeguard that I couldn't grip the tag end tight enough to control my decent. I might as well have been hanging off a pulley when the cam was open. When I reached the bottom of the tree and pulled down the Oplux it was soaked/saturated its entire length from certainly less than 5 minutes on the tree. I have never had that happen using any of my 11 mm ropes previously.

Now, to be completely fair, Oplux is out of spec for use in the Safeguard and I knew it full well beforehand but I hadn't experienced any issues with it in a dry condition. However, wet seemed to put it over that threshold. Let's just say I won't be carrying the Oplux if there's any possibility I may need to rappel in a wet condition.
 
A little more background on my experience. I sat in a steady rain for approximately 4 hours. During that entire time the Oplux was stored in my pack, not to say my pack was completely dry but it's contents shouldn't have been saturated. It was raining hard enough and long enough that water was visibly running down the tree. When I finally had enough, I took out my Oplux rappel line and girth hitched it to the tree. It took me no more than five minutes to hook up to my Safeguard and remove and stow my hunting tether. In that five minutes that Oplux was so saturated that the Safeguard was wringing water out of it as I rappelled. The releases of line through the Safeguard were so sudden that I almost shot clean past my platform and stick before I could remove them. The rest of the trip down the tree can best be described as a series of controlled 3-4 foot falls as I alternately opened the cam and then let go of the lever. I had so little friction through the Safeguard that I couldn't grip the tag end tight enough to control my decent. I might as well have been hanging off a pulley when the cam was open. When I reached the bottom of the tree and pulled down the Oplux it was soaked/saturated its entire length from certainly less than 5 minutes on the tree. I have never had that happen using any of my 11 mm ropes previously.

Now, to be completely fair, Oplux is out of spec for use in the Safeguard and I knew it full well beforehand but I hadn't experienced any issues with it in a dry condition. However, wet seemed to put it over that threshold. Let's just say I won't be carrying the Oplux if there's any possibility I may need to rappel in a wet condition.

This sort of experience is a great part of this site, you might've just saved someone a hard time. I'm glad you are okay. My current tether prospect is a dual dry treated rope (sheath and core) because of wet weather concerns.

I'll add that one thing I did with my Oplux and TRC (not rappelling) system was to get it wet with a hose and then use it at ground level. It's probably obvious to a lot of people, but you can test your system in the rain before it rains!
 
A little more background on my experience. I sat in a steady rain for approximately 4 hours. During that entire time the Oplux was stored in my pack, not to say my pack was completely dry but it's contents shouldn't have been saturated. It was raining hard enough and long enough that water was visibly running down the tree. When I finally had enough, I took out my Oplux rappel line and girth hitched it to the tree. It took me no more than five minutes to hook up to my Safeguard and remove and stow my hunting tether. In that five minutes that Oplux was so saturated that the Safeguard was wringing water out of it as I rappelled. The releases of line through the Safeguard were so sudden that I almost shot clean past my platform and stick before I could remove them. The rest of the trip down the tree can best be described as a series of controlled 3-4 foot falls as I alternately opened the cam and then let go of the lever. I had so little friction through the Safeguard that I couldn't grip the tag end tight enough to control my decent. I might as well have been hanging off a pulley when the cam was open. When I reached the bottom of the tree and pulled down the Oplux it was soaked/saturated its entire length from certainly less than 5 minutes on the tree. I have never had that happen using any of my 11 mm ropes previously.

Now, to be completely fair, Oplux is out of spec for use in the Safeguard and I knew it full well beforehand but I hadn't experienced any issues with it in a dry condition. However, wet seemed to put it over that threshold. Let's just say I won't be carrying the Oplux if there's any possibility I may need to rappel in a wet condition.

So do you think Canyon is better overall then Oplux? I am still using Oplux for tether before switching out to Canyon for rappelling. Should I just use the Canyon rappelling line as the tether? I'm just a little worried about taggling the rope while climbing.
 
A little more background on my experience. I sat in a steady rain for approximately 4 hours. During that entire time the Oplux was stored in my pack, not to say my pack was completely dry but it's contents shouldn't have been saturated. It was raining hard enough and long enough that water was visibly running down the tree. When I finally had enough, I took out my Oplux rappel line and girth hitched it to the tree. It took me no more than five minutes to hook up to my Safeguard and remove and stow my hunting tether. In that five minutes that Oplux was so saturated that the Safeguard was wringing water out of it as I rappelled. The releases of line through the Safeguard were so sudden that I almost shot clean past my platform and stick before I could remove them. The rest of the trip down the tree can best be described as a series of controlled 3-4 foot falls as I alternately opened the cam and then let go of the lever. I had so little friction through the Safeguard that I couldn't grip the tag end tight enough to control my decent. I might as well have been hanging off a pulley when the cam was open. When I reached the bottom of the tree and pulled down the Oplux it was soaked/saturated its entire length from certainly less than 5 minutes on the tree. I have never had that happen using any of my 11 mm ropes previously.

Now, to be completely fair, Oplux is out of spec for use in the Safeguard and I knew it full well beforehand but I hadn't experienced any issues with it in a dry condition. However, wet seemed to put it over that threshold. Let's just say I won't be carrying the Oplux if there's any possibility I may need to rappel in a wet condition.
There's definitely a limit to how much you can control an 8mm rope by just grasping it. I agree that gets sketchy right quick.

A few things that I've tried (I won't claim that these are best practices/recommended/etc.).

  1. First of all, good gloves help a lot
  2. You can always wrap around your hand low by your hip, release the brake on the safeguard to support yourself with your hand, and then just move the hand up toward the safeguard to lower under control. Reengage the brake, slide your hand down while unloaded, and repeat the descent in steps like that. There's no rule that you need to drop down like some smooth ninja assault guy
  3. You can reroute the rope to add friction. Example using a carabiner from GriGri+ docs at the end of the post
  4. My preferred technique has been the following: I give the rope a wrap around my arm. As I loosen my grip and the rope takes some weight, the friction between rope and jacket provides most of the firction needed. Very little force needed from the grip to control, even if I were to fully open the safeguard.

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I use a hitch cord clipped to my linesman's loop for more friction and control when using the safeguard. But I haven't tried this in the rain and I'm not using either of these ropes but it does help control the friction and if I let go with either my safeguard(left hand) or my hitch cord(right) hand I will stop.
 
So do you think Canyon is better overall then Oplux? I am still using Oplux for tether before switching out to Canyon for rappelling. Should I just use the Canyon rappelling line as the tether? I'm just a little worried about taggling the rope while climbing.
I can't personally make that comparison. I haven't ever had my hands on Canyon. FWIW though, from its documentaiton it seems to be specifically intended for potentially wet applications.
 
I have both. The oplux is more pliable and packs easier. But the canyon isn’t that far off, although slightly stiffer. I use the oplux with a Grigri+, which is only rated to 8.5mm and I’ve had zero issues. You won’t be dissatisfied with either. Canyon C-IV is a dry rope, meaning it doesn’t absorb water. But it’s still going to need to be cleaned off. It is my opinion that everyone should have more than one rope. If you come home after a hunt, clean your rope, and change it out with the rope you cleaned after your last hunt. So buy a length of each.


Semper Fi,
Mike
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Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
There's definitely a limit to how much you can control an 8mm rope by just grasping it. I agree that gets sketchy right quick.

A few things that I've tried (I won't claim that these are best practices/recommended/etc.).

  1. First of all, good gloves help a lot
  2. You can always wrap around your hand low by your hip, release the brake on the safeguard to support yourself with your hand, and then just move the hand up toward the safeguard to lower under control. Reengage the brake, slide your hand down while unloaded, and repeat the descent in steps like that. There's no rule that you need to drop down like some smooth ninja assault guy
  3. You can reroute the rope to add friction. Example using a carabiner from GriGri+ docs at the end of the post
  4. My preferred technique has been the following: I give the rope a wrap around my arm. As I loosen my grip and the rope takes some weight, the friction between rope and jacket provides most of the firction needed. Very little force needed from the grip to control, even if I were to fully open the safeguard.
To be honest, it only happened to me that one time and I have not tried to repeat it (nor will I) but it the issue as I recall it wasn't that I couldn't grip the rope tight enough, it was that I couldn't really control the decent with one arm. As I said, for me in that instance it was more like the Safeguard was a just pulley once the cam was opened. With little/no additional friction in the device I was supporting my entire body weight on the rope with one arm. There wasn't a slow transition to my arm as the cam was opened or any noticable reduction in force. When I opened the lever far enough to feed rope, I was suddenly trying to support my full body weight with my semi extended right arm. This is not how the device operates typically. Under normal circumstances the friction in the device limits the amount of force you need in your arm (and hand) to slow/stop your descent.

Luckily when the lever was released the device grabbed the rope again so it ended up being a series of sudden drops and short stops. I got to the ground OK, just not comfortably.
 
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