What rope for my BOB / GBH Bag?

Please, come add to the conversation regarding rope selection for a BOB or GBH Bag over at the 2012 Tiger Valley Bug Out Drill thread.

You and your fookin' rope.

what the hell do you honestly need rope for? 100 foot hank of 550 should cover all the bases.

Hanging it all out on 6mm is exciting enough for me, thank you.

For a BOB what kind of rappelling do you expect to do? Just curious.

Yeah, unless your bug out plan requires rappelling and you're trained for it, it's not an essential. With that said, it is nice to have either 30-40 feet of 1" tubular webbing or even that ~30 feet of emergency rappel line (it's a kit) with both mini figure eight and carabineer (don't forget a harness or belt with attachment).

I typically pack the 1" tubular webbing and have used it to lower my back down small rock walls or even assist when descending a steep hill.

ROCK6

This......

If you intend to rappel during a bug out you will want the rope to last more than one rappel, which means looping the rope around a tree so you can pull it back down. This means double the length of your highest expected cliff. That will most likely mean a lot of rope weight. You can't walk a little further and find a better way down than rappeling?

No. Rope is very frequently recovered with accessory cord after a rappel, and it is quite simple to use 550 instead of 3-4 mm. Standard rigging, and nothing at all complicated about it. Rappelling is not always about going vertical either; often it is simply an expedient means of descending a terrain feature that you wouldn't necessarily want to attempt unaided. It is a very useful skill if properly trained, and the HSLD application that many associate with it is practiced by a small minority (some LEO; military) of those who actually engage in its use. Adequate gear for short rappels requires neither excessive weight nor bulk.

To the OP: The type/size of rope you choose will be a personal choice based on your working weight requirement, terrain/climate, and length of expected descent. There are many good quality name-brands available from a multitude of sources. Narrow your requirements and do a google search; you'll find what you need pretty quickly. I'm assuming you are experienced? If for some reason you are not, it is a simple matter to become so, and it is a MUST before attempting rappelling. It's not rocket science, but you do need to be very sure of your safety procedures and rope/gear handling.

Good luck!

OP are you trained to use this equipment? If you have no experience climbing/repelling/related you're asking for a lot of trouble and potential injury adding gear to your BOB that have no idea how to use properly.

That is explained by following the magic red link at the top of this thread.

1. Get down from elevated freeways (rappel)
2. Get across waterways or other spaces you can span with a rope (rope traverse)
3. Get across wires or cables already spanning spaces (wire traverse)
4. Get up a rope (ascend)
5. Raise and lower heavy objects (hauling)

In general, would you consider it a tactical advantage in an urban bug out scenario to be able to go places nobody else can go, up, down, across, or other?

(insert motivational poster here)

Reading . . . Nobody here does it.

In short, the number of times I have entrusted my life to a rope is probably more than 500. My experience is touched upon in my post after you follow the red link at the top of this thread. I also mention in an earlier post on the TVBO thread that one should take classes BEFORE buying equipment.

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