UKC

Hi,

does anyone know what the world record is for the longest single abseil in the world?

Not quite the same, I know, but we lowered 2 heavy haul bags in a clean drop from the top of Angel Falls, a lower of probably a little over 1000m

No, does Google not know ? I think it might....

No, but one 'stand-out' comment from the recent Ben & Jerry partners article for me was where Ben mentioned being lowered down Verdon on a 500m rope!! I had to read that twice to be sure...

Way back (19th Century ?) I believe someone did the cliffs at Bristol, not from top to bottom, but top to across the river Severn. Seem to remember it being noted it an old guidebook - 1000 ft comes to mind.

Doubt it's a record but here's a guy "rapping" of El Cap  youtube.com/watch?v=Bos_FCt4sxg& 

God knows how they got the rope up there, must be massive and weight a ton?!

Why?

Abseiling is a means of descending from a crag/mountain. So what do you mean by "world record"? You make it sound like a sport, which it isn't.

If you are climbing a mountain who would want to lug 100s or 1000s of meters of ab rope up with them when the established procedure of using the climbing ropes in stages works fine?

In theory I suppose there must come a point at which the weight of the rope itself must compromise it's strength, no doubt an engineer could calculate that.

Did you not watch record breakers... there are lots of Guiness world records for things that arent sports. I watched someone sit in a bath of beans AND someine else eat bean2s with a cocktail fork in the same episode for 'World Records'.

Not the same beans, I hope...

You wouldn't want to sit in a bath whilst someone was prodding around with a cocktail stick !

Also helicopters and man made structures as part of charidee stunts.

Surprised that the bars didn't melt on the rack. Think you can make out some burring on them at the end.

Sure I've seen cavers having to pour water over to keep them cool whilst descending deep caves. 

I probably hold the record for the worlds largest tangle  and most steeplejacks from Middlesboro pissed off when I dropped 1.6km of ropes (4x400m) down the middle off Eggboro powerstation flue chimney at once after an inspection job. It took three days to untangle and coil the ropes...

Were they rushing for ice creams ? 

Classic or with a figure of eight?

See previous thread on this https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/off_belay/longest_abseil-562237

Intriguing.

Was it one rope, or lots of ropes tied together end to end?  What did you do afterwards?  Was there someone at the bottom to untie the bags?  Did you drop the rope(s) when the bags reached the deck?

Nobody at the bottom.

Used every bit of string we had, including static, single rope, half-rope, tag line and even a dozen or more slings!

Needed to save a couple of ropes to ab down another line, so lowered the entire thing down with the last 100m actually being a retrievable loop of two 100m ropes together. Dropping one end of this then let 900m or so of line fall to the ground, a kilometre away!

Was actually hard to tell that the bags had touched down as the rope itself wasn't perceivably lighter with or without the bags. We had someone check by looking through a camera with a long lens.

Was fun, and I'm really glad I thought of it and we had only just enough line, as trying to get down with all the gear we had in the haul bags would have been absurd, and we weren't rich enough to want to risk dropping the whole lot and seeing much of it crumple.

Clever stuff, and answers my follow-up question about how you then got yourselves down.  Must have been quite a tangle to tidy up when once you were eventually reunited with all the kit.

Ta for the details, much more interesting than the op. 

Depends how you define abseiling, as above a given height the rope is just too heavy to lift through traditional devices and as mountaineering devices are built to be small and light, their heat dissipation isn't any good. These are part of the reasons why you rebelay in large cave systems to reduce the amount of any individual descent or ascent. I know of people and places where drops of several hundreds of metres have been done, but as John states above that most bigger drops are lowers, not abseils. 

I'd imagine Google or the purchasing of a certain book will provide you with your answer. 

The Clean Hand Gang abseiled off the Clifton Suspension Bridge (well clear of Suspension Bridge Buttress) in Bristol, to the deck. Quite a long single abseil

Actually it was a doddle, as it all fell in sequence and all within an area of maybe 20 or 30m across, on the scree slope below. Lots of knots to untie and ropes to coil though!

No problem. Happy memories for me too!

I'm sure i can remember reading about a huge descent on Baffin Island in the early 1980s; possibly on Mt Thor as mentioned in the previous thread. One point I definitely remember is that they took large squeezy bottles of water with them to cool down whatever descendeurs they used.

Seeing as I had 10 minutes to kill... A 10 mm Mammut Performance static rope has a reported breaking load of 27 kN (2.7 t) and a reported weight of 66 g per metre.

2.7 t of rope is 40,909 m, so I guess about 41 km of this rope would snap at the top if suspended (I'm ignoring basically everything other than purely weight and breaking load here!). I did wonder if 41 km up would have a measurably different gravity regime, but it appears to only a percent or two lower.

You specifically mention compromise though; that's beyond me, I'm not an engineer! Was just interested in roughly how self-supporting a rope was...

Sorry for the thread hijack, but do I need a 41km rope for Kalymnos, or will my 70m get me up (and down) most routes?

Probably, yes, but it's ok as you'll be able to take it as hand luggage.

Rope weight isn't an issue if you have the rope bagged and hung under the abseil device on a  sling.

The Cave of the Swallows (Sotano de las Golondrinas) has a recorded drop of between 333metres and 370 metres and has been abseiled in one drop many times.

If I remember correctly, the longest recorded abseil is Mount Thor at 1250m or just over 4000 feet.

If the rope is being fed out of a rope bag hanging on your harness (which would weight about 90kg at the start) then you're mainly dealing with heat build-up in the device.

If the rope is in-situ you'll need a device which can vary the amount of friction it supplies. Very very little at the start because of the weight of the rope hanging below you. Then as you progress down, the weight of rope decreases so you'll need to add in friction. This is what caving racks are designed for.

Standard srt set up. It can kink though as it doesn't have chance to naturally spiral. Dekinking and careful rope bagging required. 

But there comes a point where you need a much bigger bag. And unless you really want a record, what's the point. Longest I've used was 500m and it was a pain in most respects. 

I recall reading about rescues on El Capitan by the Ranger Service where they dropped ropes the full length of the wall to abseil down to casualties then continue down with them to the valley floor. That is 880m.

What a muppet ....... Oh Yes I see where the first part of your name came from.