Showerthought: the old climber at the Raleigh job site asked if I'd ever felt my rope with bare hands after a rain, and I hadn't

Fiona Walker · 2026-10-26T16:35:06.026614+00:00

I was getting ready to go up a red oak off Glenwood Ave back in March and this guy named Curt, been climbing since the 80s, watched me glove up and just asked me flat out if I'd ever run my bare hands down my climb line after it sat through a wet night. I said no, I always had gloves on and never thought about it. He had me feel the rope and right around 30 feet up from the tie-in there was a spot that felt slick and flat, and come to find out a little nick in the sheath had soaked up water and the core was starting to go soft on me. That rope was 4 years old and I would've climbed on it that morning without a second thought. Now I do a bare hand slide on every line before it goes up, wet or dry, takes 20 seconds and I've already found one more bad spot on a different rope since then. Curt didn't make a big deal of it, just said gloves hide what your hands remember. Any of you do a feel check like that or am I late to this one?

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Showerthought: the old climber at the Raleigh job site asked if I'd ever felt my rope with bare hands after a rain, and I hadn't | Arborists - Free To Speak