Tape and cord are consumables in climbing. You're supposed to replace them after falls, specified time periods or prolonged extreme weather usage. Reality is a different story of course.
At the weekend I took:
- 2x 3m and 2x 1m closed tapes that have been used too often indoor to ever use them outdoor again. I'm going to open up the long pair but they worked fine as they were, there's just more uses for them open because then you've got both options.
- A set (2x 3.5m and 1x 2m) of 6mm prusics that got retired last year.
- 4 clips that I've been using with the old prusics for securing things on the canoe(so regular sea water = they're goosed for the rack as well
).
- 10m or so of cheap cord that I thought might do for a ridgeline. It's just as well the black lines hold the tarp up themselves because this was drooping 40mm by the morning with just the weight of the wee headlamp hanging off it and the tarp was on it's own.
What was the point? Was there a point?
Oh, aye - I'm not really sure what paracord is. As such I'd not be keen on trusting my weight to it. Climbing brainwashed maybe but there are times where tying together a bunch of cords is better than not being roped up at all
.
The real point though was the tape
. It is a good bit softer than utility tape. It's designed that way so it can form itself around rocky edges and be tight yet distribute the load around any jaggy protrusions to protect itself.
The same applies in reverse, utility tape is more abrasive than climbing tape because it'll not form itself around around the irreglarities in the tree. It also won't grip as well(for just the same reason).
....and with a climbing tape and a clip you can confidently rig up a harness to go with your tied-together ridgeline rope. Opens up scope for making small cliffs a bit safer to get around.
On the whole I reckon spreading your weight over two trees is no big deal to the trees and the folk here have good ethics. As a one-time hammockeer I reckon everyone's onto a winner and I wish I'd tried it years ago and as a climber I'd like to remind everyone that if you're at the foot of a rocky outcrop with just one tree to play with, slide a wee rock/pebble into a crack with a bit of cord around it for a bomb-proof belay(sorry, fixing point).
That's why climbers call their high-tech rocks "rocks".
