Rope and sticky tape
I was out coaching a client at a sports climbing crag recently, when a couple of university students turned up to climb. We exchanged greetings and a few pleasantries and bits of banter, so I felt no awkwardness about chipping in at what happened next.
First, they had a bit of a belay epic, when the leader couldn’t make it past the next bolt but the belayer couldn’t pay out any slack. The reason was that rope wouldn’t pass through the belay device…. because it was too thick at a particular point….. because it had a few turns of sticky tape around the rope. I offered to lend a hand holding the rope. Eventually, he managed to remove the tape such that the rope could pass through the belay device.
“You do know you shouldn’t really put tape on your ropes,” I offered.
“Yeah, and now I can see why,” came the reply. “But it’s okay, I’m going to pull it off and then not stick so many layers on next time, the it will pass through okay.”
“No, that’s not what I meant. I mean you shouldn’t stick tape onto the rope because the chemicals in the glue can cause damage to the rope fibres” I explained.
“Really? I didn’t know that…..”
