Having a clear & accurate middle mark on your climbing rope is important for a number of reasons:
When rappelling, best practice is to have the middle of the rope at the rap rings. Of course, you knotted both ends, right?
For long pitches, the belayer should see the middle mark pass through the device, and they can let the climber know. It is helpful when leading a long pitch to know when you’ve travelled half a rope length, especially if you are looking for hard to find anchors, or worse yet, if you might have passed the anchors.
Once a leader has passed halfway, they can no longer be lowered all the way back to the belay; this can create significant complications when a rescue or retreat is needed.
Depending on what you’re doing with the rope, you might want to coil it from the middle. This is faster, and great for static lines, TR solo setups, etc.
Step 1 — Start by finding the middle of the rope.
Spread your rope out and find both ends. Line them up and start pulling them along until you finally hit the middle. Be careful not to pull one strand more than the other, and don’t be afraid to put a small marking on the rope and try again to be sure you’ve really found the middle.
Step 2 — Mark it!
Use a rope marker from a reputable climbing company. We carry one from Black Diamond. There are countless blog posts and forum threads discussing whether using a sharpie will cause immediate death. Those willing to dig deeper than forum anecdotes might even find data from testing that Black Diamond and the UIAA did on this topic (separately, and with mixed results).
Our recommendation? Spend the $10 and get a marker designed (and tested) for climbing ropes.
Pro Tips:
- Put another mark 10 meters from each end of the rope. This will let your belayer warn you when you’re almost out of rope on your rope-stretcher linkup lead. This will also give you a warning while rappelling that you’re nearing the end. You did knot those ends, right?
If using these additional marks, be sure to differentiate them from the middle mark, for example by using three stripes in the middle and only one toward the ends. - Stick a sheet of paper under the rope while marking to avoid bleeding ink onto the dinner table, or the seat of your sprinter.
