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Climbing on Paracord is Possible - Here's How

Joined
Jan 21, 2024
Messages
64

I have been occasionally using paracord to climb, whenever I had no alternatives at hand, all these years. I'm surprised to find articles, youtube videos, and forum discussions where people are saying that even abseiling, on 550 paracord, is impossible. Thus I have just created this video evidence, including detailed instructions for those who are interested.

Risks and downsides are also explained in detail.

As a side note, I am not using the Swiss Harness, but a different design of improvised harness - which I think is less risky when working with thin cord.

Enjoy!
 
We must remember that not all paracord is the same. Some are made to stringent mil-spec, some are not. Also, even at 550 pounds test, there is basically zero safety margin. FWIW, on-line calculators show that a 180 pound person falling 1 foot can generate upwards of 540 pounds of force. You say it has worked for you, that’s great, but I personally would not use 550 paracord for any type of climbing unless there was absolutely, positively, no other choice. And then I would be as careful with it as possible.
 
Neat video. Hopefully nobody ever has to do it to survive. If you have enough to braid a simple rope it might not be too bad but if one cord was all there was between life and death I'd be just as worried about friction melting it or the movement from climbing causing a cut.
They do say you pass out before hitting the ground so at least maybe you don't feel it.
 
Impossible? no. Very dangerous? yes. I'm not really sure why you are doing some of the knots that you are, as there are more efficient knots, but that's a minor critique. As for demoing how to do a soft shackle with dynamic cord, dude, there is a reason they are made with spliced amsteel. You are reducing the strength of the rope, and leaving it in a position where it could untie itself. Showing it as any connector, that's a bad idea to even bring up without explaining why that's something to be avoided, and providing a better solution. As for keeping spare prussics in your pocket, it's a plan, you will only get a chance to replace one of them, and it's not your life supporting one.
I don't want to trash your vid because it's inventive, but it's closer to the margins than I think you are either understanding or making clear. Even with gentle rope climbing technique, you can easily generate the level of forces that will break paracord, not counting the knots which lowers the margins even more. Also, paracord is very dynamic, that means any rub point along your route is going to get mauled by whatever surface it's contacting, again, breaking down your safety factor. You mention that it is delicate but you don't describe just how little safety margin is in your system. That could lead someone to think that they just need to be a bit careful, not realizing that their margin of safety is essentially zero.
I know lots of people who carry a bit of extra cord for times when they might need it, and they are often carrying 6mm cordelette, as the cheap option, or one of the newer 5-6mm hybrid ropes. Sure it's far more bulky than 550, but if you need it to work, it needs to work. You clearly know about that stuff, and I'll bet if done right, your thin dyneema core cord will hold on your 6mm prussic rope, making for a much safer climb. At least in that case you have margin for your movement, just not a dynamic fall of any type.

I'm guessing that much of your knowledge is self taught, or self gained, and that's cool. The thing is, you cannot make all the mistakes yourself, you won't live long enough. A lot of why there are certain topics that no one writes articles about is that those topics are written in blood. The ones that are written are often not public. There have been people who've tried to do what you did. I know some people who have had to clean up afterwards. Please just recognize how risky your plan is, and make it clear to people that you tried it and lived, but saying you are a trained professional makes it seem like it's just a matter of being a bit careful, and not a matter of a massive amount of luck.
 
Impossible? no. Very dangerous? yes. I'm not really sure why you are doing some of the knots that you are, as there are more efficient knots, but that's a minor critique. As for demoing how to do a soft shackle with dynamic cord, dude, there is a reason they are made with spliced amsteel. You are reducing the strength of the rope, and leaving it in a position where it could untie itself. Showing it as any connector, that's a bad idea to even bring up without explaining why that's something to be avoided, and providing a better solution. As for keeping spare prussics in your pocket, it's a plan, you will only get a chance to replace one of them, and it's not your life supporting one.
I don't want to trash your vid because it's inventive, but it's closer to the margins than I think you are either understanding or making clear. Even with gentle rope climbing technique, you can easily generate the level of forces that will break paracord, not counting the knots which lowers the margins even more. Also, paracord is very dynamic, that means any rub point along your route is going to get mauled by whatever surface it's contacting, again, breaking down your safety factor. You mention that it is delicate but you don't describe just how little safety margin is in your system. That could lead someone to think that they just need to be a bit careful, not realizing that their margin of safety is essentially zero.
I know lots of people who carry a bit of extra cord for times when they might need it, and they are often carrying 6mm cordelette, as the cheap option, or one of the newer 5-6mm hybrid ropes. Sure it's far more bulky than 550, but if you need it to work, it needs to work. You clearly know about that stuff, and I'll bet if done right, your thin dyneema core cord will hold on your 6mm prussic rope, making for a much safer climb. At least in that case you have margin for your movement, just not a dynamic fall of any type.

I'm guessing that much of your knowledge is self taught, or self gained, and that's cool. The thing is, you cannot make all the mistakes yourself, you won't live long enough. A lot of why there are certain topics that no one writes articles about is that those topics are written in blood. The ones that are written are often not public. There have been people who've tried to do what you did. I know some people who have had to clean up afterwards. Please just recognize how risky your plan is, and make it clear to people that you tried it and lived, but saying you are a trained professional makes it seem like it's just a matter of being a bit careful, and not a matter of a massive amount of luck.

Thanks for the long reply.

You are highlighting multiple concerns. Let's take them one by one:


1. You say that there are "more efficient" knots and the ones I am using are weakening the rope. Can you be more specific to point exactly which of the knots you are referring to? And what are those better options? Please use the terminology from animatedknots.com, so that we speak the same language. I am always open to improvement and interested in exploring new horizons. I have tried tens of knots before I ended up concluding that this setup is the best for this particular application. If you have never tried to climb on paracord, your knowledge here is probably only made of suppositions. And if you know other people who tried this and failed (as you are saying), there is a reason why my setup works and theirs doesn't. If I am wrong, prove it in practice, please, not just in words. I don't exclude the possibility that there might be better options and I am open to find them out. But I want actual proof, not theoretical debates which are not paired by facts. If you are referring to the connector made of paracord - which I show up at the end of the video : when closed up, that brings together 4 strands to hold the user's weight. It is true that such a knot, distributing the pressure perpendicularly onto the buckle, weakens the cord compared to the situation when the 4 strands would be straighter or with less acute bends. But the overall resulted strength with all 4 strand segments is anyway higher than the single main cord (which is also paracord in this case). So if anything will fail in this setup, it will not be that connector. This type of connector is sold from different grades of rope for Truck offroad recovery and some have better tensile strength than steel carabiners. If you are referring to the improvised sit harness that I use, this type of triangle with buckles on the corners is significantly safer than the Swiss Sit when working with thin and slippery cordage. The reason is that with the Swiss Sit if you leave your weight uneven at any point in time (e.g. more on one leg than on the other), you risk of ending up with either your other leg or your waist strangulated. This type of simple triangle completely eliminates the slippage and transition of cord between subsections.

2. You raise a point about safety. Of course there is some risk, and that's why I explained each of these risks in the video. And also that's why I included the disclaimer in the beginning. However, you can easily notice that I don't wear any protective gear in this video. If I had significant fails before, I would have weared helmet, knee pads, elbow pads, back motorcycle armor, and I would have placed a soft mat onto the ground. As you can see, I'm just wearing a T-shirt and no type of protection. And I am climbing (ascending and descending) a significant height on that strand, while being alone deep in the forest. This means that I am confindent that a catastrophic failure cannot happen. And it cannot happen if you do it properly. I had slippages in the past, with the main strand melting, but that happened before I ended up with this exact setup (which I show in this video). An eventual fail at this point always starts with slipping on the cord and elongating and never with an instant snap. And it never happened to me with this setup, although I did it many many times (it only happened with other setups). If you do it properly, it won't happen. That means to cummulatively:

- use only knots and hitches - which have been successfully tested with that exact type of cordage and weight many-many times before.

- be a fit guy (this is for sportsmen who are still in shape, of course, not for armchair comando guys; if you are overweight, then you put additional pressure onto the cord and that adds to the risk; if you don't have decent flexibility and decent muscle strength, again, you will not be able to do this)

- move slowly (your weight gets multiplied by acceleration when moving; avoid abrupt moves!)

- assure to use only original paracord which is rated to 550 pounds (not counterfeit variants)

- ensure that your cord is brand new, and has not been used for heavy loads before (don't reuse the same cord multiple times if you use it for this type of task).

- ensure that your paracord is not too many years old since made (paracord is nylon and nylon ages with time becoming slightly more brittle).

3) You say that keeping spare prussics in my pocket is a plan, but I will only get a chance to replace one of them, and it's not my life supporting one... Not sure if I fully understand what you mean by this... I thought that I clearly mentioned it in the video, but now I realize that I wasn't clear enough. First of all those are not prussics; prussic knots are too slippery for this (those are just the buckles that you can use to make a prussic or something else). Second I hold those backup loops in my pocket for the situation in which one of the 2 Valdotain Tresse hitches locks too heavy on the main strand and becomes unmovable. In such a case, I can attach another Valdotain near it and then cut the locked one. I don't hold those for the eventuality in which the ones on the strand break. Those never break. Doubled dyneema cord featuring 250 Kg tensile strength each (so actually close to 500 Kg strength) won't fail there. The only thing that can fail is the main strand - which is paracord (which is just nylon).

4) You are concerned about my safety and say: "you cannot make all the mistakes yourself, you won't live long enough". Well, I have a venerable age already, and tens of years of hard training in many areas. I am nearly retired. What you see on my Youtube channel is just a small portion. Yeah, I had accidents as well, some ending up with surgery, but not from climbing. There are much tougher and riskier things than climbing on paracord.

Thanks a lot for raising all of these concerns and challenges! This type of discussions are the ones that help us evolve by getting deep into the details which make a difference.

Cheers!
 
Let me clear up a couple things since I've come across this before when translating. Not your fault, english is messed up. Prussic knots are essentially a class of knot. So a standard prussic, purcell, etc are all types of prussic. It's also used to designate that bit of cord. So for example when I was an instructor I had between three and five "prussics" on my harness at any given time. In my case I used all loop styles as my basis, and I have differing lengths for different uses, but I've looked into using "loop end" style cords as well, just didn't get the time to play with VTs. Have you tried that cord with Klamheist style knots? I've found some cord combos work better that way, and since you don't need them to be two directional, that works fine.

Knots, your leg loop knot, the one you are using looks more like a modified blood knot, but I'm not sure. This is actually a specific knot type best suited to monofilament line. What you likely want is a "fisherman's bend" and for a very dynamic cord like para, I'd use a triple, although with standard static 5-7mm cord I've had really good experience with doubles. Once they lock, they stay put. No issues with your improve harness, I've not played with those because it's just never been part of my risk assessments, I've always got another plan before that one.

Your connector. When made of spliced amsteel or dyneema, they are called a soft shackle. Amsteel is about as "dead" a material as you can get. Yes, they are used for vehicle recovery because they hold almost no elastic energy, something nylon does a lot of (and steel can do as well) So when you load one of those, you tend to load it once and keep the pressure on it. Even here in Australia where vehicle extractions tend to be "dynamic" they are supposed to be checked after every pull. If you make that same connector out of nylon, and then load it in a cyclic pattern, it will both wear on it's self, and you need to re-check that it is still locked every time you load it, since it could always slip free. That also means you are connecting "soft to soft" two abrasive surfaces against each other, that is something that climbers only do in certain conditions (tie ins, and the like where variables are minimized.) if you needed to use cord for that connector, then several loops through and then secured with fisherman's bends would be very secure. You would still need to watch wear, but the knot would remain stable. For what it's worth, break testing has shown that they are not 4x strong, it really depends on the configuration, but 2x is more likely (a minor thing I know)

You mentioned your backup cords are in case one locks up. Fair, I carry spares too. But the way you described it, it sounded like you would have to be fully unsupported to transition to the new cord. To me, if I cannot get a prussic method to reliably move when I need it, and it's not going to lock up, I know I need to modify something. I'm a little guy, I don't need many wraps, I've got buddies who rig a lot heavier. It's an individual thing, I misunderstood, as it seemed in the video like you were concerned about wear, and I was trying to figure out how you would replace your main without being totally unsecured. Minor details. Since loaded 550 is quite thin, I can see why you are needing to go overboard on your locking knots, a cord with more body would be grabbed far easier. The 2mm cord is going to be closer to a 1:2 ratio to the 550 than the ideal 1:3. This is minor because it's just a technique thing.

"And it cannot happen if you do it properly. I had slippages in the past, with the main strand melting, but that happened before I ended up with this exact setup (which I show in this video). An eventual fail at this point always starts with slipping on the cord and elongating and never with an instant snap. And it never happened to me with this setup, although I did it many many times (it only happened with other setups). If you do it properly, it won't happen." the key for me is "if you do it properly". I'm fine with that, but it should say "perfectly". As I said, it can be done, but you have no margin at all for error, your main line cannot rub on anything, your anchor cannot shift, your prussics must always work. I'm not even that worried about your prussics, its the rest of the mainline that is at very near it's capacity.

You cannot make all the mistakes yourself. I got that from an old small aircraft safety bulletin. As I said, you seem to have at least some experience, and in fairness, not everyone has the ability to explain all of their planning. But even guys who've been around a while have blind spots in their knowledge. The balaclava hides your age. I'm not here to compare skills and resumes. I'm also not here to armchair commando. I could do what you are doing, but for me, there isn't enough margin of safety. Also you just gave me a bunch of really good safety factors, I don't think you put any of them in the video. I don't need them, but whoever tries your video might. I honestly don't care how much someone knows. There is plenty of stuff that I know I can do safely that I'm sure as hell not going to teach anyone, let alone just over a single video. I just want to be clear, I'm not questioning your skill or experience, what I am questioning is why put something online that is so very close to the edge of safety. I've had this same discussion with other people who wanted to show their "skills" and mistakenly made very critical errors. If you fall doing this, you're an adult, you made your choices. You put this here, and I'm just giving feedback on why it's really not that safe. Rope climbing is dangerous anyway, not sure why I'd want to make it more dangerous. Again, I'm not telling you not to, just questioning why you would.
 
G gadgetgeek ,
I salute your knowledge and your openness to get into this kind of details with me here. This is actually the main purpose why I posted this onto the forum here: trying to see if other people, potentially more knowledgeable than me in some areas, can bring in additional ideas.

I fully got the thing with the prussics now. :)

I guess by "VTs" you mean Valdotain Tresse hitches. You are probably specialised as a rock climber (please correct me if I'm wrong). The VT is a controversial hitch even since François Dussenne introduced it during the early 90's. It is more popular within the tree climbing community, than in rock climbing. There are a few variants (including one with a pulley in its setup, designed to reduce the risk of locking). It's not a hitch for everyday use, being more complicated than prussics. Its biggest downside is that sometimes it locks so hard, that you need to completely release pressure out of it and work with two hands to unlock it. That's why some people called it "the suicide hitch". But this hitch is that magic thing that saves your day if you ever have to do with slippery cord (e.g. teared too much, with frozen ice on it, wet or accidentally soaked in oils, etc.).
If by "Klamheist style knots" you mean the Klemheist hitch described at this link, yes, I have tried that cord with this hitch, as well as with all the other friction hitches that have ever reached onto the internet somewhere (Distel, Purcel, Icicle, Blake's, etc., etc., etc.). They all slipped under my weight, onto that paracord. Even the Rat Tail Stopper slides, when you try to attach yourself to a paracord strand using 2 mm dyneema as secondary cord. And once the slide starts, the paracord outer sheath melts after just 3 cm of slippage. The Valdotain Tresse is the only one that works - and it works in this setup only if crossed around 7 times or more. That is why I cross it 9 times (7 as the minimum + 2 for extra safety). If I go more than 9 times it becomes exponentially harder to unlock when I want to move it up or down on the main cord.

My legs loop uses a Dropper Loop Knot to join the two ends. You are right that it is a type of knot best suites for monofilament line. Actually that's the context in which I learned it many years back. It is more difficult to taighten it with a braided or abrasive cord. There is not much need for a special knot on the legs loop. A Double Fisherman's, or a Figure 8 bend would work as well, and probably also the Zeppelim Bend. I had choosen the Dropper Loop because it is less prominent onto the cord, and thus less prone to dig deep into my flesh if touching my leg when under tension.

I think you are correct with everything about the soft shackle. The point is that it is easy to do, easy to untie when you want, and in this application it doesn't untie accidentally, even though the tension is temporarily released repeatedly. And for strength, it is still stronger that the main cord (which is a single strand from the same type of cord), so connector is not the weak spot of the setup.

You notice correctly that the ratio between the main cord and the secondary is 1:2 here and it is less than ideal, but it is 1:2 just in theory. Paracord is advertised as 4 mm thick, but its inner strands are lose on the sheath and it is deformable when pressed. When under tension, it is less than 4 mm in diameter (I think it's just 3 or 3.5). So the ratio is even worse than it seems.

Yeah, there is no margin for mistakes. You need to be focused and careful when doing it.

You are asking why would one make climbing more dangerous than it already is. And why had I put this video into the public space. These are both valid questions. Let's start with the simpler one: I made this video and published it for 3 reasons:

1. To give a solution that works, for free, to other people who might be interested in this type of capability.

2. To gather feedback and ideas from the community, that could potentially improve my setup further.

3. To prove that it is possible. It is similar to the reason why olympic champions in sports like weight lifting still strive to achieve new records (even though it is already too difficult). It is a sort of useful for mankind to know where are the limits of the "impossible".

And now let's end with the other question: what is the usability or the value of this application (i.e. climbing on paracord):

1. Burglary and intrusion. When talking these two words, most people think of illegal activities. But it is not always the case. Imagine that you need to go ultralight into a mission where you have constraints to carry less than 5 Kg including the water and food, and you have to carry specific devices that already take most of that weight. What if part of your route to the target area requires a small elevation gap which needs cordage to be passed? Of course, you would normally prefer to carry a thin kevlar, spectra, or dyneema cord (dyneema being the favorite), instead of paracord. But that may raise suspicions, compared with some paracord, when carried in an area where paracors is typically carried and used for other purposes by everyone. Also, if your plan at the extraction point doesn't include cord, you may simply dispose the paracord immediately after using it to climb, and reuse it for other purposes. Talking about weight and volume constraints, imagine situations when I needed to travel to the insertion point with a public line airplane, carrying no more than a hand luggage in the typical 22 x 14 x 9 inches, which needed to include a lot of exchange clothes and gear, from which the cordage was just a little piece. Sometimes I needed to run up a mountain route, in a specific time window, and then abseil or climb up a portion of that route, which could not be passed otherwise. In such situations, carrying the standard 11 mm thick professional static cord was practically impossible, or could compromise other aspects of the mission if carried.

2. Disaster evasion. Remember those people at World Trade Center, who were jumping off the windows, looking for an easier death than being burned? What if you get caught like that in a building, or in a context where abseiling 2 or 3 floors lower brings you out of danger? And what if you only have some paracord at hand (because that is the most popular type of cord - which everyone carries for preparedness, even when they think they won't need a cord)?
 
T TheTip , to be fair, while I don't agree with your logic, I do understand where it comes from. As for why you are using a VT, it makes sense, I had intended to start using a flat-webbing dyneema VT as my abseil backup before my medical incident. It's still something I'll pick up if I start training in that realm again, but in all likelihood if I get to teach that again it will be dual rope with an ASAP as the backup. Life wants to give lemons, I'll make the lemonade that I can. I live between the sport and industrial worlds.

I think that in many cases, adding the artificial constraint of "what can I not carry" means that someone might think that 550 and some dyneema core cord is as good as a more robust system, but I've already talked about that.
My training is in rock climbing/abseil, rope access and free-hang rescue, so most of my skill set sits in that middle ground between tree climbers and tower work. I'd like to do a tree climber's course at at some point, but it's not what I'm teaching these days, so for me it's a minor thing. I have the fundamentals, but SRT (single rope technique) is an interesting thing for me.

As for your other scenarios, I'd suggest that a zing-it ladder could be just as, or more effective. and there are some pretty long run fire fighter evac kits that rely on 4mm cord, just with a specific braking device. Even Edilrid's standard 4mm has a 6kn rating which is almost 3x 550 cord. yes far more expensive, but at least it's static and doesn't collapse.
 
As for your other scenarios, I'd suggest that a zing-it ladder could be just as, or more effective. and there are some pretty long run fire fighter evac kits that rely on 4mm cord, just with a specific braking device. Even Edilrid's standard 4mm has a 6kn rating which is almost 3x 550 cord. yes far more expensive, but at least it's static and doesn't collapse.
I am not stranger to zing-it ladders (and I already have a video with that on Youtube as well). But that isn't even close in packed size and weight to a single strand of paracord, so it's not a valid alternative when gear weight and volume is so critical.
 
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