Vertical caving terminology and methods > General hardware
A very small tether, made from a thin cord, used to tie equipment to each other or yourself, to avoid dropping them down pitches. This is used for poorly designed pieces of equipment which have to be removed from a much more secure carabiner in order to connect them to other equipment. This is particularly common with pulleys and belay devices, which need to be removed from a carabiner in order to connect them to a rope, but some ascenders need the same treatment. Unlike a normal tether, a keeper cord is not designed to intentionally dangle the equipment from, and exists only to try to catch the equipment if it is accidentally dropped. Keeper cords are small, fiddly, break easily in abrasive environments like caves, and are very hard to repair when they break in a cave. They often interfere with the normal operation of the device, snagging on the rope, or tangling around other parts of the equipment. They often cannot be intentionally removed from the device without a lot of difficulty (or a knife), and are normally intended to be left on the device permanently. However, in spite of their problems, they are sometimes needed. Some devices and carabiners have dedicated holes to tie keeper cords to, and may rely on having to tie bulky knots that are too big to fit back through the hole, rather than using loop knots. The term is almost never used by British cavers, who generally dislike having to rely on such tiny pieces of cord, but is used by manufacturers to advertise the inadequacies of their designs, and their reliance on keeper cords. (It should be noted that in the climbing world, fiddly keeper cords are somewhat less frustrating, because cold hands, gloves and abrasion are far less of an issue. Since climbers routinely clip and unclip untethered equipment from their gear loops and risk dropping it, keeper cords are a good thing. However, many climbers refuse to use them because of the risk of tangling them in equipment. Keeper cords are often used for personal belongings such as car keys, by both climbers and cavers.)
<< Tether ("lanyard" in rope access) | Tackle >>
This page is not intended to be viewed this way, please load the entire article. This version exists only to make it easier for search engines to understand the contents.