Racking your cordage - Do the Twist
A basic climbing skill is learning to rack your cordage - slings, runners, cordelettes, prusiks - quickly, in a tidy loop, and making sure they never hang below your knees, where they can trip you up.
I've seen lots of people take several minutes to rack their cordelette with some cutesy macramé project. Yes, it may look nice on your harness, but I prefer simple and speedy, especially for gear that you're using every pitch. Here's one good way to rack it:
Do the Twist!
If you take any sort of loop (sewn or tied), twist it a few times, and then hold the ends together, the material will rather magically do this sort of double-helix twist around itself, resulting in a tidy, compact bundle.
It may look like a complete mess, but to deploy, simply unclip it, give it a shake or two, and it should return itself to full length, ready to use.
This also works with 60 cm slings and even a long cordelette. You need to double up these longer slings to get them down to about two feet long before you start.
As we'd like to say around here, this one is a better show than a tell. Here’s a quick video demo on how to do this.
