Each has a different advantages and disadvantages. Other useful hitches in the friction hitch category include the klemheist, the Bachmann hitch, and the autoblock or French prusik (see below). The more turns you make in the Prusik hitch, the more holding power it will have. The diameter of the rope being used as the Prusik sling should be at least a couple millimeters smaller than that of the main line. The basis of the Prusik hitch is a girth hitch the Prusik is made by tying a girth hitch around the strand you wish to haul on, then continuing in a series of three or more turns. as a “ratchet” to secure a load that is being hauled on a pulley.as a “tractor” to haul a load on a rope that is already weighted – such as by a fallen climber.Climbers use this hitch in a wide variety of situations for example: Friction hitches in general are used to make a rope or sling “grab” another rope mid-strand, without having to un-weight the latter. The best overall performer in a broad category called friction hitches, the Prusik hitch is the one all climbers should learn. Today, there are many variations of the bowline that are still the best at what they do, including the bowline on a bight the French bowline the double bowline and the bowline with “Yosemite finish”, which is very popular with sport climbers as a tie-in knot because it's easy to untie after having held a fall. In the old days, the bowline-on-a-coil was the traditional tie-in for a mountaineer the bowline was tied in such a way as to capture the coils of the rope in an improvised “swami belt” around the climber’s waist. See animation here.Įvery climber should know how to tie a bowline, not so much because it’s indispensable, but because it’s the traditional knot for securing a rope end or setting an anchor line of any kind, and it forms the basis of many other useful knots. Butterfly knots are perfect for this job because, unlike overhand loops, they present no “flat” side to the snow surface they protrude from the rope on all sides. To prevent this, stopper knots can be tied into the rope to catch in the snow at the lip of the crevasse, causing friction and slowing the fall. An optimally sized rope team for glacier travel is three or four with a rope of two, there is a greater danger that in a crevasse fall, the second climber will be unable to self-arrest and will be pulled into the crevasse. It is a very neat, compact knot, and it uses less rope than a figure eight or overhand on a bight.Īn ideal application for this knot is as stopper knots used to increase snow friction in parties of two. In glacier mountaineering, the butterfly is the traditional knot used by climbers to tie into the middle of the rope in parties of three or more. Here at AAI, we use it most often to tie prusik slings and rescue loops. Its most frequent use is for tying a sling or loop of rope that is intended to be left tied indefinitely. The double fisherman’s bend is an excellent knot for joining two rope ends of similar diameter in cases in which you do not want the knot to be easy to untie after it has held weight. There are other good knots for this purpose, but the figure eight is favored because of its clean lines and visual symmetry, making it much easier for climbing partners to cross-check than some of the alternatives. It has become the standard knot climbers use to “tie in” – that is, to tie the climbing rope to the climber’s harness. This is the first knot many climbers learn. If the context makes it unclear what you mean, you can use the term hard knot to distinguish a true knot from a hitch or bend.įigure Eight on a Bight – Follow-Through Method In practice, we often use "knot" as an umbrella term to cover all these types, but the distinction is useful to know. A bend is a knot used to join two rope ends. A hitch, by contrast, must be tied around something to hold together remove the thing it's tied to, and a hitch falls apart. Technically, a true knot does not need to be tied around anything it can hold its form on its own without another object such as a post, eye-bolt, or another rope to give it structure. Introductory Terminology: Knots, Hitches, and Bends
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