Edelrid Boa Pro Dry Review

The Edelrid Pro Dry 9.8 mm weighs 63 g/m and is rated for 10 falls. It is available in a wide variety of options, including a bi-pattern weave, standard or dry coated, and the new "Eco" version, which uses leftover yarns from previous productions. You can also purchase 200 meters of it, should you need that long a rope!

Performance Comparison

Testing out the Boa. This rope performed reasonably well, but didn't stand out in any one category or application.

Handling

We were impressed by the hand feel of this rope when we first opened it. It felt soft and silky, was easy to feed, and not too kinky. Then we used it a bunch, and it stopped feeling quite so smooth. Some ropes tend to stiffen up with use, and this felt like one of them. It was nowhere near as stiff as the Edelweiss Curve Unicore Supereverdry, but it wasn't as easy to clip with and feed out slack as our Top Pick for Sport Climbing, the Maxim Pinnacle.

This rope handled reasonably well - it was very supple at first but did stiffen up a bit with use.

Catch

The numbers on this rope suggest that it should have a nice and soft catch (8.9 kN impact force and 34% dynamic elongation), but it didn't feel noticeably different than many of the other ropes in this review. This rope does have the highest fall rating (10) of all the models that we tested. That means that it can withstand 10 Factor 1.77 drop tests before failure, which is impressive (all of the others range between 6 and 8). That being said, most climbers are never going to put even one fall of that magnitude on a rope, and most manufacturers recommend retiring your rope regardless if you ever do experience such a harsh fall.

Weight

This line weighs 63 g/m, which is similar to most of the other 9.8 or 9.9 lines in this review. If you want to save a few ounces and don't mind a skinnier rope, the Mammut Infinity and Petzl Arial are lighter and will weigh about half a pound less in a 60 m length.

Durability

We had to give this rope a relatively low score for durability. The sheath was showing quite a bit of fuzz after eight days of climbing, and it was particularly dirty, without us using it anywhere that we didn't use the other lines in this review.

Can you spot the middle marker? This rope got very dirty very quickly, even when used in similar conditions to other ropes. There was also quite a bit of sheath fuzz and some glazing, but no significant damage.

Best Applications

The Edelrid Pro Dry is a good line for a variety of climbing. It's not too specialized as to be suitable for only sport or only trad, and it didn't feel too spongy for top roping. Because it seemed to attract and hold dirt more than other ropes, it might not be the best choice for people who climb in notoriously dirty or sandy locations.

We liked sport climbing with this rope, but it got really dirty after a month of bolt clipping in Ten Sleep, WY.

Value

This rope retails for $209 in a 60m dry version and only $150 for a non-dry. This makes it fairly affordable when compared to some of the $260 and up models out there. We did prefer the $210 Beal Booster III, our Best Buy winner, over this model, as it showed less wear than this one.

Conclusion

The Edelrid Pro Dry is not a bad rope, but it just didn't stand out enough in any one category or for a particular application to win an award.