*This was previously emailed to members*
Hi aspiring and fellow climbers,
I would like to address an issue that was discussed by members at the crag last week. This is an issue about marking your climbing ropes in the middle, as to make it easier to identify the middle point of the rope especially when multi-pitching. Most climbers use a regular permanent marker when doing this.
HOWEVER, after much research from various resources, I will make this straight to the conclusion….. DO NOT mark your ropes with any kinds of marker (whether organic or chemical). This also applies to the SHARPIE pens that are used by many climbers and also pen markers sold by rope manufacturers such as BEAL. In fact, since several test has been done by Mammut & Lanex (both are rope manufacturers) on various rope products, BEAL & Bluewater has pulled those marking products out of their catalogs. (Beal came out with a new marking dye instead)
We may assume that certain organic dyes are safe, BUT nothing has been proven. When it comes to climbing ropes, UNLIKE your harness and runners, there is NO backup for a rope. If it snaps, thats it. We don’t want any of these to happen to anyone in our lifetime of climbing. We can only assume it is safe, but an assumption is NOT good enough, no climber’s life here should be part of an experiment.
Many respected sources online has served warnings to climbers and the International Mountaineering & Climbing Federation (UIAA) has performed test on these markers and tested the marked dynamic ropes to failure. The results were scary as some of the marked point of the ropes were weaken by 50%.
Please heed the advice from the UIAA (please read) :
http://www.uiaa.ch/article.aspx?c=185&a=78
http://www.justropes.com/shop/custom.asp?recid=8#MR
safe climbing everyone,
AH LOK KOR
