New rope

Our ropes are rather old. We were climbing on them in '93, so more than three decades. They still look fine, and I'm still trusting my life to them¹, but perhaps it is time to start thinking of renewing our infrastructure. So, I bought an Edelrid Skimmer Eco Dry 7.1mm x 50m in Icemint for £127.50 from Rock+Run.

I bought it online unseen and unfelt, because AFAIK no Cambridge shop stocks ropes or indeed any other climbing gear any more.

I chose it mostly on weight: it is a 7.1 mm half rope and weighs 36 g/m; according to Edelrid it is The thinnest and lightest half rope on the market. I would have preferred a colour more distinct from the deeper patterned blue I already have, but the only other option was black, which I thought would be hard to see.

As you can just about see from this, it is marked as a half rope.

Disappointingly, they aren't nearly as slinky as the existing blue, which I think was a Calanques (see this review which considers them outstanding for handling, so maybe they are exceptional).

New slings

We managed to leave my favourite long sling (the red-and-gold one) somewhere in the Ecrins, I think. And so I bought some more.

These are Mammut Contact Slings Dyneema 8 mm, 120 mm, £12 each. I realisied as I bought them that I didn't actually know how long a long sling is, having always bought them on sight before.

Notes

1. They have had very few falls, because I'm fairly cowardly. And of course they've had a rather long gap in use while the infants were infants. I think there is little genuine info on how long ropes really last - see e.g. this thread - but the answers appear to be "inspect for damage" and they're fine from that viewpoint.

Refs

* Climbing: lightweight rope / rap cord pondering.