Climbing rope is awesome. Expensive, but awesome. The reason it’s so expensive is that it’s trusted with saving a climber’s life. We’ve written a short blog post discussing what makes professional climbing rope so great (read here!), but this post is more discussing the next stage in the life of climbing rope.
Just Pet Products sells handmade repurposed climbing rope leashes and collars from both brand new rope and retired/recycled rope.
What causes a climbing rope to be considered “retired”?
- Time: Depending on the amount of use, climbing rope can be retired as soon as 1-3 years. After a certain amount of use it’s typically a safety concern as dynamic rope begins to stiffen, making it unsafe to a climber during a fall.
- Wear: Rock climbing does cause wear on your rope, regardless of how careful you are being. Rubbing against mountain/rock surface and strain from running through a climber’s gear causes a certain amount of wear that, after a while, can cause the rope to be unsafe to climb with.
Just Pet Products sources its retired climbing rope from across the U.S. from individual climbers. Sometimes these climbers have given their rope a great life with amazing climbing adventures, others may have had grand plans of climbing with their New Years’ resolution, but ended up never using. Regardless of amount of use, we classify all of our pre-owned rope as Retired/Recycled.
What to expect with retired/recycled climbing rope leashes/collars:
- Signs of wear: slight fraying of the rope
- Marks/stains: While we clean our climbing rope with recommended non-harsh detergents made for climbing rope, there are certain stains or marks on retired climbing rope that will remain. These marks give your leash character, in our opinion!
- Color fading: Over time, the outdoor environment and subsequent rope cleaning/washing does cause the rope color/pattern to lose its vibrancy that it starts out with
Given the uneven use of a climbing rope, your retired/recycled climbing rope leash will be 100% unique and one-of-a-kind! Not only is it a great conversation starter – rather than being straight out of a Chinese factory, your rope could have just come off the domes of Yosemite – it is very econ friendly.
Check out or repurposed climbing rope Leashes, Collars and other Training Leashes now!