“Cast”, don’t throw, your rappel rope

Getting your rope down a cliff face when rappelling may seem very simple. But there are many nuances to doing it efficiently, which can save you huge amounts of time and frustration. Here are some suggestions.

Main idea #1: “Cast”, don't “throw”.

This idea is emphasized by Andy Kirkpatrick in his excellent book on descending mountains, “Down.” Think of casting a fishing line. There's a weight (lure) on the end. The line is carefully spooled on the reel. The weight is cast over the water, and the line smoothly follows it from the reel. No snags, no snares.

“Casting” rappel ropes uses the same concept. Create a weight with one end of the rope, prepare the rest of the rope carefully, and toss the weight to carry down the rope.

Let's start using that verb, “cast”, instead of “throw”, to emphasize the concept. “Throwing” the rope relies on luck. “Casting” relies on technique.

Main idea #2: The terrain dictates your rope toss method.

The method in the diagrams below can work best if you have a ledge to stand on with minimal rocks on it, and no one below you might get klonked by the rope. For other situations, lowering some or all of the rope can be better than throwing.

Completely overhanging or vertical smooth rock? You can probably simply lower one end of the rope at a time without even throwing it.
Reasonably vertical terrain? Try lowering down a bit less than half of one strand (for a 60 meter rope, that’d be 15 meters of one 30 meter side), and then making a simple butterfly loop as shown below, to cast down the remaining 15 meters.
Lower angle terrain, maybe with trees, boulders, obstacles? That's when making a weight and giving it a real cast can be the best approach.
Rappelling at a busy crag, with people below you? Consider lowering the rope as much as you can so you don't nail anyone with the rope, and hopefully so you don't have to scream “ROPE” either.

Main idea #3: Prep your rope before you throw.

You might feel like you're saving time by hucking the rope as quickly as possible from your anchor. Most of the time, you won't be. The time you “save” by making a sloppy rope toss will be likely used up when you stop on rappel to decluster your rope. It's better practice to take a minute or so to prepare your rope first, hopefully with the help of your partner, and make a good, clean cast to start with.

It's almost always better to separate the rope into two strands and lower or throw each one separately.

rope toss collage TEXT.jpg — Image credit: Andy Kirkpatrick from the book “down”, shared with permission

The classic beginner toss (which yes, I did many times my first year or so of climbing, and paid the price) is making one giant butterfly coil with both strands (photo above on the right). You might rarely get lucky and have a clean toss, but most times it's going to make a guaranteed snarl. Please don't do this.

(Method number two, a slight improvement, is to make one big butterfly coil in each strand and throw those one at a time. You have slightly better odds of getting a clean throw than with both coils together, but it's still highly likely you're going to have a snarl. Still not recommended for the most part.)

There are many approaches to efficiently getting your rope down the cliff. If you have any sort of a ledge, here's one good way.

Check out the diagram above on the left. Each strand is carefully flaked or even serpentine coiled on the ledge. Each half of the rope is separate from the other.

Two cautions: 1) This method can drag down some stones from the ledge you're standing on, so you might want to avoid this if you have rocks around your feet and people below you. 2) Keep your feet away from the rope that will be zinging off the ledge.

If you’re on steeper rock and don't have a convenient ledge to flake the rope, you can feed out about rope out so it drapes down the cliff below you, and then toss the weight. Another option is to butterfly coil over your partner’s outstretched arms, and then cast the end. The same basic concept applies: prepare each strand carefully, toss each one separately, and have some sort of weight that carries the rest of the rope.

After tying a stopper knot in the free end of the rope, you need form a weight of some kind; think of this your “lure”. You “cast the “lure”, and this pulls the rest of the rope down.

(Like all things in climbing, this is situationally dependent. If there's a crowd of people below you, you probably don't want to toss a bundle of rope that might klonk somebody. Likewise if there's a large deep crack below you, and there's a chance the rope could swing into it, you may not want to try this method. But most of the rest of the time it should work pretty well.)

Here are two short videos showing the “rope cast” in action, from @benmarkhartguiding on Instagram. (Click images to see the videos.)

There are several ways to do make the weight. Here's my favorite, known in some circles as the “rope bomb.” This works especially well if you need to get your rope down a slab or other lower-angle terrain. (The carabiner isn’t needed, it’s shown for scale.)

After tying a stopper knot in the end, make a small butterfly coil with short loops. I like to make 10 loops, with five on each side.

Finish it off by simply wrapping the rope a few times around the coils. This does not have to be very tidy.

When this mini-butterfly coil hits the end of the rope, it will usually untie itself. If not, just give it a shake or kick when you rap down to it.

Another way to close your rope system is to rappel while being tied into the end of the rope. If you do that, you could cast your rope as shown below.

Note that in this case, with a double rope rappel, you’re casting the middle of the rope, not the ends.

You get the idea. Take an extra minute or so, properly flake your rope, cast a weight like a “rope bomb” rather than hucking off 30 meters in a huge coil, and your chances of a cluster-free rappel are much better.

rope ross tied to end.jpg — Image credit: Andy Kirkpatrick from the book “down”, shared with permission

Finally, here's a nice video from IFMGA Guide Jeff Ward showing several different methods. The first one is what we demonstrated above, he calls it a “torpedo”.

Finally, if you read this far, here's a short Instagram video on how NOT to throw your rope.

Below are a couple of screen grabs.