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Why not use dynamic rope for one-sticking?

Spartan

Spartan

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 2, 2021
Messages
469
I was doing more testing/practice today to incorporate one-stick climbing into my tool box for next season. It's going very, very well.

For ropes, I'm currently using a couple of the standard commonly recommended static ropes, Canyon C-IV and Canyon Elite.

I find it awkward and (for me) potentially more unsafe to use either my lineman's belt while one-sticking or to advance me girth hitch as I climb up the aider and the stick to make a move. I find it much faster and easier to just climb without all the extra arm movements and things to draw my attention away from the matter at hand. So I've been climbing in the way I've felt the safest: Not using a lineman's belt and leaving the girth-hitched tether where it was when the move began, just above the stick.

So today, while my girth hitch was briefly near my knees, as it has been many times in the past, for the 20-30 seconds or so before I reset it higher, I thought to myself: Why am I not just using a dynamic rope for this in case of a fall?

So for all the experts out there: Since one-sticking is certainly a departure from how saddle hunters traditionally use tethers, and has a lot of parallels with both top-rope and lead-rope climbing, is there a potential benefit to shifting to a dynamic rope tether when one-sticking?
 
i make all my own bridges, i'm considering making my bridge out of dynamic rope this year as well as my tether....something to consider
 
Yes. Static rope is best for rappelling as it’s good for hauling stuff(in our case humans) and doesn’t stretch. So if you’re hauling your butt up a tree then getting the stretch of dynamic rope is annoying. However. If you’re using your rappel rope as your tether, or while you’re ascending/defending what happens if your knot slips or your rope grab slips cuz you’re using it out of spec or it’s raining or you’re not paying attention? You get set on your platform and just go to set your bow on its hanger and a 346” toad walks out from behind a tree and in all the excitement you twist, lose your footing and go a$$ over teakettle. As you’re falling you drop your bow and grab your bridge with your other hand putting pressure on the knot and cinching it tight. By this time you’ve fallen 6-10’. With a dynamic line your line will stretch, how much depends on how far you fall, diameter of line, etc. you’ll definitely feel it tomorrow and might herniate a disc or two but most like you’ll live after you slam into the tree. With static line you might as well be using steel cable. The knot will clamp down and you’ll snap like a twig when you hit the end of the slack in your tether. Like I said sure with dynamic you’ll feel it and might get injured but with static you’ll definitely break something if not your neck.
 
There is a thread in here some where. The concern is there is not enough rope to make the dynamic load cushion enough. No one has tested it one way or another. A saddle is not a fall restraint like a safety harness. So theoretically static or dynamic. It's gonna hurt. Screamers have been debates as well. I'll see if I can find the thread. Read it and make your own mind up.
 
Yes there’s a benefit.

There are tradeoffs. Tangible ones, and others that you can’t touch or measure.

Having your 6’ tether level with your shins, static or dynamic, will likely alter your life significantly, if not end it, if you fall.

This is basic math you can find calculators to do through a google search. And then you can apply those results to well established data on the force of falls on the human body.
 

Falling with slack in your line

GIVEAWAY YouTube link ‼️Saddles & rock climbing harness users‼️ ‼️stand and saddle hunters‼️ When 1 sticking or hunting from a tree stand, slack is inevitable. Saddles and rock climbing harnesses aren't exactly forgiving when falling....but they can be! Here's how! This probably isn't my best...
saddlehunter.com
 
MattMan81 said:

Falling with slack in your line

GIVEAWAY YouTube link ‼️Saddles & rock climbing harness users‼️ ‼️stand and saddle hunters‼️ When 1 sticking or hunting from a tree stand, slack is inevitable. Saddles and rock climbing harnesses aren't exactly forgiving when falling....but they can be! Here's how! This probably isn't my best...
saddlehunter.com
Click to expand...

I just threw up in my mouth a little…
 
MattMan81 said:
There is a thread in here some where. The concern is there is not enough rope to make the dynamic load cushion enough. No one has tested it one way or another. A saddle is not a fall restraint like a safety harness. So theoretically static or dynamic. It's gonna hurt. Screamers have been debates as well. I'll see if I can find the thread. Read it and make your own mind up.
Click to expand...

i think it somewhat cancels out because the further you fall the further you accelerate under gravity and faster you are going but you simultaneously have more rope to stretch

that's i believe why they refer to fall factors

a fall factor of 1 is you are at the anchor point of the rope....so you fall 10 feet on 10 feet of rope or fall 85 feet on 85 feet of rope

a fall factor of 2 would be you climb above where your rope is anchored....so you can fall 20 feet on 10 feet of rope (since rope is stretched 10 feet over anchor and will end up 10 feet below if dangling)

fall factor of 0.5 would 5 feet below anchor on 10 feet of rope, etc

lastly, any stretch is way better than none (work = mass x acceleration x distance.....increasing the distance, keeping the work the same, will drastically reduce the deceleration (negative acceleration) along the way)

airbags only add a few inches of deceleration but compare them to hitting something with zero give, like a block of granite....doing the same speed
 

Video of guy falling on rope with meter

So found this interesting. He drops him self a few feet on a solid anchor.. kinda like saddle hunting. If you put a few feet of slack in your system. Language is ruff. R rating. But worth the watch on what kinda force he is getting..
saddlehunter.com

This guy doing the videos has a lot of info on forces. But it is worth checking out.
 
MattMan81 said:
Yeah. Figured instead of re hashing it all here. Just read it there instead of bring it all back up.
Click to expand...

i remember a few of those threads, haven't revisited the one you posted

a lot of things that seem to make common sense are actually wrong, when it comes to physics
 
It seems to me that dynamic ropes would add some benefit to saddle hunters that one-stick climb, even if some claim that those short lengths of rope would only add minimum amounts of elongation.

But why not take that minimum elongation—instead of almost none—when falling? Why do most, if not all, one-stickers seem to choose static ropes?
 
I played around with this quite a bit last year and even got a hold of a discontinued Beal rope that is one of the ‘stretchiest’ dynamic lead ropes produced. My logic was the same as yours. Why not use a rope with much better dynamic elongation properties than a static one. The answer is that it doesn’t matter what you use for a tether when one sticking. A fall from a 6’ rope is going to smoke you no matter what. So use your linesman if you’re ganna one stick because that is your best chance for not needing to eat every meal from a straw for the rest of your life.
 
I think the logic surrounding this is very much skewed, and that there is a lack of practical testing and understanding.

To me, saying that people aren't using dynamic ropes for one-sticking because there will be no difference in the outcome is almost like saying there is no reason to wear your seat belt on the autobahn driving at 200 mph because it won't matter.

That's really just a non-answer.

If you can reduce the force of a fall by even a small fraction, why would we not do that? Why are static ropes so heavily promoted in the realm of one-sticking?
 
Spartan said:
I think the logic surrounding this is very much skewed, and that there is a lack of practical testing and understanding.

To me, saying that people aren't using dynamic ropes for one-sticking because there will be no difference in the outcome is almost like saying there is no reason to wear your seat belt on the autobahn driving at 200 mph because it won't matter.

That's really just a non-answer.

If you can reduce the force of a fall by even a small fraction, why would we not do that? Why are static ropes so heavily promoted in the realm of one-sticking?
Click to expand...

I wouldn't say they are heavily promoted in one sticking. People started using static ropes in saddle hunting because historically you're tether was used to hang with no slack.

As @kyler1945 said if you fall with your tether at your knees it doesn't matter what tether you are using. It will most likely end or seriously change your life. That's not a non answer, it's just pointing out worrying about your tether in that instance is pointless.
 
Spartan said:
I think the logic surrounding this is very much skewed, and that there is a lack of practical testing and understanding.

To me, saying that people aren't using dynamic ropes for one-sticking because there will be no difference in the outcome is almost like saying there is no reason to wear your seat belt on the autobahn driving at 200 mph because it won't matter.

That's really just a non-answer.

If you can reduce the force of a fall by even a small fraction, why would we not do that? Why are static ropes so heavily promoted in the realm of one-sticking?
Click to expand...
I think the answer is a much more basic answer. Static ropes are cheaper. Also, many folks just jump into saddle hunting and one sticking without really understanding or researching the nuts and bolts and safety features and they figure rope is rope, if I fall it won’t be very far and my gear will catch me. So they just buy some rope and start one sticking.
 
Yes there was a huge discussion about this last year I still use a screamer when one sticking even though the utility of it has somewhat been debunked based on the forces And calculations of which the screamer would be deployed but it does give me some confidence when one sticking. The only thing I wanted to add was it was earlier posted that we accelerate when we fall. I don’t believe that to be true. Everything falls at the same rate of gravational pull which is 9.8 m/sec2 I believe if I remember my physics correctly. However, increased mass at that constant fall rate equates to a harsher reality at the end of the fall. So if you drop a ping pong ball and a brick, they fall at the same rate due to gravational pull but The damage once they hit due to the difference in mass is worse with the heavier brick than the ping pong ball. Am I right??
 
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