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Topic Date User

Rope running over itself 30-Mar-2015 At 9:48:40 AM climbingjac

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Fabric on fabric moving at a fast enough lowering pace can generate heat. I'm always very nervous being lowered when the two "sides" of the rope are close together and am not to proud to ask the belayer to lower me very slowly if needs be.

There was a very nasty accident in Spain some years ago whereby the climber threaded his rope through a sling at the loweroff point. That's right, there was no metal (such as screwgate) between the sling and his rope. He got lowered like this, heat built up and the sling sheared straight through and the climber took a 30m fall to the ground. The belayer didn't have a direct line of sight to the anchor itself and could not understand what had happened. As such a group climbed up afterwards to see what they could see and got the shock of their lives, firstly to find a sheared sling, and secondly that their friend had decided to lower directly off the sling.

Treasure your caution, it'll help keep you alive.