nickfromwi wrote:
I've climbed a lot of these trees in WI, ME, and NJ. The point has been made several times- but I'd like to re-reiterate...if ever there was a tree where a cambium saver should be used, this is it!

As others have mentioned, pitch is a huge issue with these trees, so much so that I almost never enter one without installing a cambium saver first. But almost inevitably I will still get pitch on my rope and split tail. I always clean it off right away with denatured alcohol or acetone, and have done this hundreds of times with no apparent effect on the rope other than to quickly render it clean and usable.

I wish the rope manufacturers would come right out and say isopropanol, ethanol, and acetone are harmless to nylon and polyester. If you buy a can of one of these at the hardware store, it will contain a small amount of other compounds, mostly small related molecules, and it is at least conceivable that one of those could be damaging to your rope. That is probably the only real risk of using one of these to clean the pitch from your rope. But if you don't clean it off, you are assuming that none of the many components of pitch are damaging to your rope...