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Essential Climbing Knots

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Re: Essential Climbing Knots

#91

Post by throwaway787544 »

Girth Hitch is also known as a Cow Hitch or Lark's Head. This combined with a simple half-hitch to lock it in place is the most useful knot in the world imho.

Don't use a double fisherman or water knot unless you're okay with cutting the rope afterwards to untie it (if you've jammed it or gotten it wet).

Tying a back-up knot into your trace-eight isn't necessary, but people have died from not having one (when they screwed up the eight), and it doesn't take long to do.

Alpine butterfly is a very useful knot for tying into the middle of a line. You'll use it more in life than in climbing.

A Hasty Harness or Swiss Seat is an easy way of tying someone into a rope or webbing if a harness breaks or is missing and you need to rappel or haul a person.

Re: Essential Climbing Knots

#92

Post by Cd00d »

When I was a Boy Scout we would compete on knot tying speed. My favorite was two people take opposite ends of a rope and tie a bowline around your waist. The first one done would then run, and try to capture their opponent's wrist in the loop mid-tie.

Re: Essential Climbing Knots

#93

Post by idealmedtech »

kyledrake wrote: post #26

Random comment: Securing the trace eight with a second knot is really not necessary, as it is a self tightening knot. Most climbers don't do it, my climbing safety book doesn't show it and all gyms I've been too, sans one in Vancouver WA for some reason, don't require it. Rough rule is two fists length for the tail and you're good. Another comment mentioned this too, it's much easier to untie if tied in a specific wa…

If you clean a figure 8 really well, it's just as easy to untie after a whip as a bowline (okay, maybe not just as easy, but very close), and much much more universal for your partner to inspect.

The process I follow to ensure a clean knot every time:

1. Tie your figure 8, with the tail the same size every time (use your body as a ruler, testing a few lengths to get the perfect size)

2. Pass the tail up through your hard points so the knot is only a few inches from the bottom hard point.

3. Orient your knot so the tail is coming out of the bottom right side

4. This is the most important step! Instead of passing the tail through the inside of the knot when starting the followthrough, pass it in between the tail strand and the bottom right of the knot.

5. Follow through as normal. It should come out almost clean (eg no need to flip strands over each other)

6. For all 4 combos of top and bottom strand, yank them to make the knot very tight. The tighter and cleaner it is, the easier to untie after a whip.

7. If you do this all, the load strand will be on top, so no difficult flipped strands after a whip!

This is just my process, what's most important is doing something that works for you and that you can get right every time.

Re: Essential Climbing Knots

#94

Post by rtkwe »

codeduck wrote: post #38
kyledrake wrote: post #26

Random comment: Securing the trace eight with a second knot is really not necessary, as it is a self tightening knot. Most climbers don't do it, my climbing safety book doesn't show it and all gyms I've been too, sans one in Vancouver WA for some reason, don't require it. Rough rule is two fists length for the tail and you're good. Another comment mentioned this too, it's much easier to untie if tied in a specific wa…

stupid question from a sailor: how does a trace eight differ from a standard figure of eight?

You can tie a trace 8 directly into an existing loop like your climbing harness where an 8 on a bight needs a carabiner. Most people would just use a carabiner anyways though.

Re: Essential Climbing Knots

#95

Post by rtkwe »

matsemann wrote: post #48
codeduck wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

stupid question from a sailor: how does a trace eight differ from a standard figure of eight?

The trace eight goes "back" into itself, leaving a loop at the end. When making the knot, you make it so that the loop goes through your climbing harness, like this: https://wildsummits.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/knot-cover... While the eight you use for sailing is mostly a stop knot at the end of the rope. So two very different uses.

The only real difference is the trace version you can tie into an existing loop where with the bight version you need a carabiner to connect in. Every time I've done climbing or repelling we've just used carabiners instead of tying directly into the rope.

Re: Essential Climbing Knots

#96

Post by ARandumGuy »

geewee wrote: post #40
kyledrake wrote: post #26

Random comment: Securing the trace eight with a second knot is really not necessary, as it is a self tightening knot. Most climbers don't do it, my climbing safety book doesn't show it and all gyms I've been too, sans one in Vancouver WA for some reason, don't require it. Rough rule is two fists length for the tail and you're good. Another comment mentioned this too, it's much easier to untie if tied in a specific wa…

I recall being taught it just so the rope doesn't hang around, get caught on things and bother you.

This is exactly right. It can be especially useful when lead climbing, as it eliminates the risk of accidentally grabbing the tail. Grabbing the tail is unlikely to result in safety risks (unless you have an obscene amount of it), but the less time you have to spend fumbling with your rope while lead climbing, the better.

Re: Essential Climbing Knots

#97

Post by hoppla »

steve_gh wrote: post #2

Hmm. A few thoughts. There are alternatives to the Prussik such as the Klemheist which don't jam as badly. I wouldn't use a ring bend - the double fisherman's is superior for tying rope or cord ends together to create a sling. And I definitely wouldn't use either a ring bend or a double fisherman's to link ropes for abseil. An overhand tied in both ropes (with a 50cm tail) -aka the EDK or European Death Knot is way s…

Used the klemheist when I did rapelling to lock the break if I took my hands of the break. Preferred it over the Prussik as it bite better to the rope when under load because it twisted around it, and did release easily when the load was removed. It also was easy to slide along the rope.

Re: Essential Climbing Knots

#98

Post by dsauerbrun »

marcyb5st wrote: post #12
sandgiant wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was also surprised not seeing the EDK for abseiling. Perhaps it's a cultural thing?

From the time of your reply I assume you're also in Europe or at least not in the Americas. You are spot on in your guess. Colleagues and friends over the pond don't use the EDK for abseiling or rappelling as they say. Also, not sure how the name was picked-up, but that's just plain bad marketing putting Death in the name :)

Everyone I've run into here(Colorado) with more than ~2 years of climbing experience uses the EDK for tying two ropes together for rappelling. Maybe it doesn't come up in conversation as commonly since we typically use single ropes(as opposed to half ropes that you see a lot in the UK).

Re: Essential Climbing Knots

#99

Post by Balgair »

PostOnce wrote: post #74

The Ashley Book of Knots became public domain a few years ago (70 years after Ashley died) and you should absolutely read it or at least skim it here: https://archive.org/details/TheAshleyBookOfKnots This would have been sooner had Disney not robbed us of our own culture by purchasing whatever legislation they feel benefits them, regardless of the cost to the rest of us. Sorry, I'm bitter, but it really is a fantasti…

If there is one knot the average HNer should know out of all of Ashley's, it's Ashley's Stopper Knot:

https://www.animatedknots.com/ashley-stopper-knot

Perfect to make sure your Facebook ... err.. Meta approved hoodie's pull strings don't unpull.

Re: Essential Climbing Knots

#100

Post by imurray »

panzerklein wrote: post #13

Figure 8 knot is not that hard to untie after a fall, you just have to tie it in a particular way [1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAr-uHd8h8o

This is a great video. A summary for those who don't want to wade through it:

The main message is that if the knot is slightly loose, or messy, the strands pinch unevenly in a fall, and it can be really hard to untie (depending on the rope). Most of the video is experiments to show that. The knot only had to be slightly loose to cause problems.

The part that surprised me is that there are two different ways to tie the knot that basically look the same. They only differ in which of the two outgoing strands is the one that's loaded. They're both perfectly safe, but one can be a lot harder to untie than the other after a fall. I actually find it hard to end up with the "wrong" version of the knot, but I might just be lucky with what my muscle memory has latched on to. I certainly wasn't taught to watch out for the difference.

The difference between the two knots is shown at 13m 24s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAr-uHd8h8o#t=13m24s

His demo of one way to get the knot the right way around is at 7m 41s of another long video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJkCaUUhqgs#t=7m41s

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