Ron picked up a length of 10mm Sterling HTP and he was nice enough to let me climb on it a couple of times. I hate to sound like a salesmen for Sterling but I have to be honest, I was very impressed.

For my first climb we set up a ground anchored SRT climb that used the entire 150’ piece of rope. We also put a metal conduit sleeve saver over the branch to minimize the friction so it would feel like I was hanging on the full length of the rope.

I entered the tree using a Yo-Yo setup. As soon as I tensioned the rope and sat down I felt a major difference. I would have never thought a lack of stretch would feel so good. Climbing was noticeably easier too. No kidding. With every stroke it felt like every scrap of my energy moved me upward. And even more remarkable, when the stroke was done there was no waiting for the “afterbounce” before I made another stroke. It is hard to explain or describe but climbing seemed almost effortless.

I moved up through the tree from there climbing DRT. I used an 8mm eye to eye B-line split tail. It grabbed the rope and released very well. I left my other tail on the ground so I used third rope technique to lanyard in and then I advanced the working end of the rope.

I also must comment on the knotability of the rope. It held an anchor hitch with a bulldog grip, which is contrary to my experience with other statics. I don’t quite think it is supple enough for traditional systems but then again I didn’t try that.

My exit was on a mini dual hyper bar rack. I used a very short B-line I2I to put a Valdotain backup below the rack. This has been working very well for me. On the way down I let it rip a couple of times and once I was moving good I let go of the V. It was like hitting a brick wall. The rope has such a low stretch that it was quite jarring to come to a quick stop.

I climbed on it about a week later and the second climb further convinced me that there is indeed something special about this rope. If you are a split tail climber and don’t have any desire to climb on a traditional system I would HIGHLY recommend this stuff. It felt noticably more "solid" in every situation I placed it in.

Let me put it this way, I am weight conscious when it comes to rope but I would gladly carry this stuff over something that weighed 2 pounds less because the lack of stretch made climbing way easier. I must mention that I weight a couple hundred pounds and that means rope stretch will be more noticeable for me than a lighter climber. I would have never guessed how good an ultra low stretch rope would feel till I sat on it though.

Can you comment on how it compares to KMIII or PMI EZ Bend? I am still in the market for an ascent line and those are the 3 that I am considering. I am looking for 10mm, just like you tried. I like how stiff PMI is for ascending, but I like how KMIII knots. I have never tried HTP. Weight is not much of an issue for me. I really want a line that will be stiff, yet hold knots well..... is that rope HTP?

It a little weird, Once the HTP has been tensioned it gets that "stand on its own" stiffness that I think you are refering too. But once tension is removed and the rope is flexed it is right back to being very supple. IT hands down beats EZBend for knotablility.

At height I tied an anchor hitch in it and the knot set so well that I had complete confidence in it. I can't say that for EZbend.

EZ bend weights a bit less than HTP, but since you say that is not a factor I highly recommend that you give the HTP a try. I bet you will agree that it is a noticably better performing rope.

I can't speak much on KMIII I did climb on it one time but I can't remember anything remarkable.

Worth mentioning is that KMIII and EZBend are Nylon ropes and HTP is High Tenacity Polyester.

I was darn near giddy after climbing on the HTP.

I second/confirm everything Hunabku stated and reiterate that it's hard to describe the HTP's performance in words, but it's pretty amazing stuff.

As far as comparing it to EzBend and KMIII, they're just not in the same class. I don't mean that in a bad way about KMIII or EzBend at all, I like both, but they stretch and HTP doesn't. Of course HTP does stretch a bit, but the difference is night and day.

I'm with Hunabku - I don't quite know how to describe what you feel on HTP, but it's like you forget about the rope and focus more on the climb and tree. HTP is very knotable - not like arborist rope, but still very knot friendly.

Before anyone rushes out and buys some, be aware that the last time Hunabku climbed on it, we noticed some lumps forming under the cover. I've climbed on it since then and they seem to come and go and I did not notice them climbing or rappelling. But you might want to wait a while and see how my HTP 'develops'. As it is now, I love it.

I watched Hunabku climb YoYo on the HTP - I noticed he climbed faster than ususal and mentioned it to him. He said he felt it too. Then I got to watch him on Chamelon last Sunday and the difference in bounce was just incredible. I climbed on PMI 10mm EzBend and the difference was incredible.

Right now, I, like Hunabku stated, am willing to carry the extra weight of the HTP to get the enhanced climbing performance. Anyone will notice a remarkable difference when they climb on HTP. But, keep this in mind - once you're in the tree doing 15 - 20 foot pitches, esp. DdRT pitches, stretch on any rope will be very minimal and almost irrelevant. But on a long SRT ascend or rappel it really performs.

Since weight came up somewhere, HTP may seem on the heavy side, but it's not. E.g. 10mm EzBend weighs 4.4 lbs per 100 ft and HTP weighs 5.8 lbs per 100 feet which is a pretty significant difference. But, most arborist ropes, even 11 mm arborist rope, weigh more per 100 feet than HTP. So the all polyester 10mm HTP appears heavy compared to all nylon 10mm, but light compared to arborist rope.

As far as EzBend or KMIII vs HTP, the HTP is far more knot friendly than the ExBend and I think better than KMIII. EzBend and KMIII don't even come close to the low stretch of the HTP.

This verifies everything I've heard about Sterling HTP 10mm (Sherrill sells it as "Snakebite"). Interesting looking at the HTP specs:
Sterling HTP static

The 10mm has lower stretch than the 11mm HTP. The 9mm is interesting to consider, has a bit more stretch, I guess that's inevitable when the diameter is that small.

I climbed on what I think was a 9 or 9.5mm static at Tanglewood, it was Happy Camper's, was like a rubber band I was happy to be on the trunk for that climb. It would be interesting to see how the 9mm HTP performs.
-moss

I think so too! I did debate with myself whether to get the 9mm or 10mm. I pretty quickly settled on the 10mm because it was available in black and the 9mm wasn't.

The 9mm has significantly more stretch and is going to be less durable so you made the best choice (IMHO). The question is, does the 9mm HTP compete (less stretch) with the 10mm EZ-Bend or KMIII?
-moss

According to my Sterling rope brochure, 9mm HTP has 1.3% elongation at 300 lbs. Curiously, that's better than HTP 11mm at 1.7% at 300 lbs. Anyway, the PMI catalog lists 10mmPMI EzBend with an elongation of 1.8% at 300 lbs, but the HTP is far more 'knotable' than 10mm PMI and I hope it is less prone to form 'lumps' under the cover.

NE specs KMIII 3/8" (10mm) with an elongation of 3.6% at 300 lbs. That seems awfully high to me, but that's what they list. Even the 11mm KMIII is spec'd at 2.9%. KMIII seems a bit better with knots than PMI but not as good as HTP. The KMIII is a bit heavier than PMI too. Neither KMIII or PMI will do traditional Blake's.

Here's the HTP spec:



Ya can't tie a Blakes on the Sterling HTP, which is no surprise, the required suppleness is not something to expect in any static. A split tail would work fine. If a static performs well for SRT I'm happy with it. I trail 60 ft. of Chameleon (doesn't weigh very much) to climb DRT once I get into the tree, probably could get a way with 30- 40 for most conifers.
-moss

Spec's are such wonderous things - I asked Sherrill Tree how they got the 0.63% stretch for 10mm HTP AT 540 lbs - not at 300 lbs like Sterling's specs and they said they measured it. So I asked Sterling how Sherrill measured 0.63% at 540 lbs when they (Sterling) measured 1.0% at 300 lbs. They said they didn't know. I tend to think it's a bit better than 1% at 300 lbs.

The whole stretch measurement is puzzling - how does one measure stretch? Is 'take-up' accounted for? Is the rope preloaded with 50 lbs to remove take-up etc.? If so, is the stretch measured from preload to the 300 lbs? In this case that'd only account for the stretch due to 250 lbs.

Then there's the weight per 100 feet. Sterling and Sherrill list the weight at 5.3 lbs/100 ft; my beam balance scale indicates more like 5.8 lbs per 100 feet. Of course my beam balance could be off, but I'll be at school Monday so I'll weigh it on our digital scales.

I'd guess that the rope is tensioned and detensioned until they find "neutral"(no slack, no load), measure the length then tension to 300 lbs from there and measure for the elongation value. Unless Sherrill and Sterling are using the exact same method and measuring/loading device the results are going to be different.
-moss

I've been climbing a lot on the 11mm Sterling HTP. The specs say it's supposed to be a bit stretchier, but you wouldn't know it by my experience. It's like climbing on a cable once it's tensioned; there is no detectable bounce whatsoever. It is also quite supple for knotting, and hasn't yet shown any sign of milking or other core/cover instability. Two weirdnesses: 1) when it's been tensioned by a climb, it stays stiff until it's been bent, then it's supple again, and 2) it tends to go oval in cross section after a rappel. Neither of these makes it at all unpleasant to climb on, it's just not like anything I've been on before. The combination of this stuff and a Mitchell rig is starting to make me spoiled; long ascents are getting so easy I don't feel like I'm getting enough exercising from climbing anymore - the main exercise is the hike to the tree...

Exactly what I've found with 10mm. As you mentioned, the 'stiff until bent' is weird. I have also notice the slight oval shape and again as you say, it's not a problem at all.

As far as stretchiness, that's my impression too; it seems like it doesn't stretch nearly as much as the Sterling specs indicate. We had at least 225 lbs on 140' of 10mm HTP - 1% would mean the rope should have stretched about 1.4 feet - there's no way on earth that it stretched that much.

Oh BTW, I weighed my rope on a precision digital scale at school. 157 feet (don't ask, I don't know why it's 157', I ordered 150') weighed 8.7 lbs - that's about 5.55 lbs / 100'.

I agree, but 0.63% at 540 lbs vs 1% at 300 lbs has to be more than different methods. That sounds like specs for two different ropes. E.g. if Sterling is correct, AND stretch is linear with load, which it isn't, the HTP (10mm) should stretch 1.8% at 540 lbs not 0.63% Sherrill measured. That's off by nearly a factor of 3. That'd be like me measuring a weight at 100 lbs and another guy measuring the same weight and getting 300 lbs.

The only way to get to the bottom of it is find out exactly how each of them is measuring. Who's got the time? It's probably sufficient to say that HTP is lower stretch per diameter than any other statics out there. What Mark said sums it up: Once you load the rope it's like steel cable.
-moss