Webbing : Tips on Caring for Rock & Mountain Climbing Gear

Video Transcript

" Hi! My name is Dan, and I am here with Expert Village today to talk about webbing for climbing. There are a number of different types of webbing. Today we are only going to talk about hollow core webbing, which, as you can see, is called hollow core for tubular webbing, since it is tubed or hollow. Because of this, each piece of webbing is twice as strong as a similar single strand piece of webbing; it’s twice as thick. It is good for use in building an improvised climbing harness, but it can also be used to anchor around trees and other rocks or items. You can also use it to set up an anchor around trees or rocks when setting up a top rope belay. The nice feature of it is that it lays very flat when you wrap it around something. It also has a great amount of surface area, so it provides a lot of friction if you were to wrap it around a slippery object. Another interesting thing you can do with webbing is, if you have your climbing rope that is running over a sharp piece of rock, you can slide if you have a short piece of webbing a little bit shorter than this one. You can slide your climbing rope inside of the webbing, and by placing the webbing on a rock it provides little less friction on the rope, so your webbing will get chewed up before your rope will. It will save you a lot of time and headache at the gear shop. Webbing is nice to have in a variety of different lengths as well. Longer pieces can be used for attaching an anchor to a faraway tree, or for making a slack line, which is a good means to improve your balance. Short pieces are good around the house and for most applications while climbing, so those are some of the basics of hollow core webbing. "