Id be curious to see a pull test on a figure 8 with the tail end not fed through the last loop. Essentially seeing if the not is still redundant after becoming partially untied.
39:25 The VT prusik is also called baldostano, it was taught to me by a firefighter who said it was used to go down an elevator cable under tension even with grease
Love that you often have complete opposite opinions on how to do/approach stuff (that’s regarding your intro discussion). It makes the content of these videos much more valuable and can encourage others to think more creatively and don’t assume that there is only one right way.
at 11:15 isn't that scots locked bowline? I thought he said smith which I have never heard of before. Not nit-picking to be an asshole, just thought comments are useful for the blog post. Also any opinion on the EBSB as a secure bowline?
quoting Mark Gommers just for the record@@jeremiahletourneau9951 "A simple lock devised by Scott Safier (USA) from the IGKT forum website. A marvelous creation! There are in fact several variations of this knot. Scott has conducted personal field testing of this knot (climbing) and so has this author. It is inherently secure."
These are just bookmarks for future reference. Please watch the whole video so much great information. 5:41 overhand 6:59 water knot 7:34 figure 8 10:13 bowline 14:39 double overhand 16:49 alpine butterfly 21:52 clove hitch 22:37 clove hitch 23:06 munter hitch 26:02 girth hitch 28:35 sliding x 32:06 munter mule overhand 33:37 barber pole 36:33 friction hitches 39:24 vt prusik
Two notes on Munter hitches that don't get mentioned very often: 1) the rope-on-rope friction is hard on the sheath and can accelerate wear. It will *not* cut through the rope like a sling or cord demo does, but it can accelerate worn sheath points into core shots; 2) the action for the braking is *the reverse* of almost any mechanical rappel device used in climbing. To slow or stop the descent, the brake hand must bring the free (slack) strand towards the loaded strand to slow and parallel to the loaded strand to stop. So, if the loaded strand leads UP out of the pear 'biner, LIFT UP (this would be rappelling, or for belaying a climber/lowering a load above the 'biner). If the loaded strand lead DOWN out of the pear 'biner, LOWER DOWN (this would be for belaying a climber/lowering a load below the 'biner). The munter hitch should be practiced along with the mechanical belay device until going back and forth between them no longer confuses the user and the correct braking action is automatic with no surprises.
The hand position doesnt matter alot in terms of braking power. It mainly affects the amount of twists the hitch generates. If the braking hand is parallel to the loading strand theres the least amount of twists, but its also the least ergonomic position. The rope also twists alot more under load so it makes sense to lower with hands up, even if you belay hands down.
@@dunklezwiebel Hmmm... My experience with the Munter hitch is as I stated. Yes, an additional wrap will add friction, but it seems to me that varying the brake-hand position is what varies the braking power from fast to slow to stop for however many wraps one has around the 'biner.
10:08 Knot dressing enforcement here. We will comment whether it's dressed or not, for the algorithm. Cheers and have a great day, thanks for all that you do.
Hey there! we were told in sailing school, that there is a bowline and a wrong bowline. And the wrong one is considered not safe and has the end of the rope pointing inside as you showed it. the "correct" version has the end pointing outwards, out of the loop... Is ther a differece in strength and safety between both? Very curious
A clove hitch, followed periodically with half hitches, is the prescribed method for sending a pipe up on a rope, at least among the riggers I know, so I'd say it's quite bomber. There's even an old school arborist out in Santa Cruz that rigs down big wood on a clove hitch backed up with a half hitch. For an easily untied knot that cinches like that double fisherman loop, or the clove, try the running bowline; what is considered current best practice in arboriculture.
Seriously the most insightful video about knots I've watched for years. Not just showing how to tie the knots but so much tip & tricks + some mecanics about how they react once loaded. Awesome video guys ! Thanks soooo much
For the EDK I always tie two overhand knots up against each other. This has two advantages, first it won't roll, secondly your tail ends can be shorter giving you longer abseils if that's needed. Great videos as always.
Nitpick on the Barber Pole Release: It was finished with a Reef Knot. The alternative is the Granny Knot. "Square Knot" is somewhat ambiguous, it *can* refer to the reef knot but it also can refer to several other knots which are actually square shaped.
Question about the scott's locked bowline do u guys think it can also be used to tie into your harness instead of tracing the figure 8. I can imagine that with enought wiggeling from the climber the knot could become undone.
The bowline on a bite can also be done as a follow through and is a great knot to tie in with as well if you expect to take a good few falls. If would argue that is actually internally redundant because if one loop comes completely undone, it will still be a regular bowline with a really long tail which is super good enough as a back up. I wouldn't clip the two loops independently though, idk if that would hold if one failed. There is also a really cool way to tie in a person to the middle of a rope with a bowline on a bite by having the person step through the whole loop, however this has the limitation that it cannot be undone if a person is tethered into a wall without undoing the tether.
Hmmm... I know of no practical way to tie a harness directly into a bowline on a bight if I am already wearing the harness. I could clip to it using 'biners, but that adds an additional point of confusion/potential failure.
@@perplexedon9834 Ah. I and others use the term 'tie in' exclusively to refer to connecting the rope directly to a climbing harness, fixed protection (e.g. bolted ring), etc. and not for creating a loop to be clipped into the harness or whatever using carabiners or screw links that add complexity and addition points for failure or error potential. In an all-rock climbing scenario, I see no major advantages to clipping into a loop at the end of rope when tying in directly (with no 'biner) can done easily. YMMV
@@kayzinti4452 When I said clip the loops independently, that was just with reference to whether you could weight each loop independently. Everything else in my comment was about tying in as you described. When I use bowline on a bite to tie in myself or tie the rope to an anchor I do not use any carabiners. In that link it describes with pictures how to tie in to the middle of the rope with bowline on a bite with no carabiners required
@@perplexedon9834 Now that I re-read the link more closely (+ didn't get down to pix before), I better understand what you are saying. While I have not seen these illustrated before (very clear pictures!), for my own taste and preferences I would put these in the 'not-practical (not every climb)' category due to the need for extra rope to tie-in, and the challenges of doing this in an unsecure stance (clipped-in or not). Both are valid secure knots once tied, certainly, but balancing the potential risks of getting it tied in a precarious stance against the risk of cross-loading a couple reversed 'biners clipped to a alpine butterfly loop, I myself am going to clip-in rather than tie in. The potential for confusion and mistakes leading grim accidents (like the fall noted in your link) always influences my thinking. In the scenario where I am hard-put to use 2 'biners for clipping in, I probably would use the girth hitch with an alpine butterfly knot instead of a figure-8. Thanks for the link and your thoughts.
Cut away from your hand, safety 3rd... So us leaders of my Scout troop are a bowling team. We are the Knot Bowlers. I chose the Munter Hitch for my team shirt.
Great video. If you like the Valdotain Tresse, maybe you'd also like the Michoacan or the Knut hitch. A bunch of arborists have transitioned to newer knots like these. There is an arborist channel called "Educated Climber" that recently discussed those two. The video is called "Climbing Hitches: Knut and the Michoacan". Not linking it because I'm not sure if that's frowned upon. Would love to hear your opinion on those and other arborist knots.
The incorrect version demonstrated in the video is most often called a granny knot. A Theives knot, without looking at the tail ends looks exactly like a square knot. the difference is that instead of both tails leaving the "front" of the knot, one leaves the back of the knot while the other leaves the front of the knot. A story that is often told along with it is that sailors would tie their bags shut with a thieves knot, and if someone looked through their bag they could tell because the thief wouldn't be clever enough to re-tie the bag with a thieves knot.
Awsome video... AND: (/rant on) The carrick bend. I get why it has fallen out of the discussion in most North American climbing, but, particularly here, it might get some. The edk is only suitable for matched ropes at low load (twins, halves or simi static of the same diameter). The carrick tied properly, that is with ends exiting on opposite sides and dressed by pulling both ends against the working ropes and then the working ropes against each other, will form an asymmetric knot that will do anything an edk will with the added bonus of a strong knot that won't jam, capsize or damage the rope between any two life support lines. Also, the bowline on the bight with the double loop being clipped as one loop is its own backup. It's a left hand bowline tied on top of a right hand bowline and will ring load all day... as long as the 2 loops are treated as one. Tied in a sling (even dyneema) or cordalet with the double loop clipped to a primary anchor and the single clipped to a backup point, it is slept on as a 2 bolt belay. I think Mammut did some great test with this. (... /rant off)
13:00 proves backup knots are a waste of time: just point a camera at the knot and keep talking about how unsafe it is. You can make an overhand hold better than a sewn eye by doing that. Something I'd like to see tested on the drop tower, and possibly on some higher but easily accessible overhang, would be to test free slipping speed of various rappel/belay methods. Obviously rope size and sheath will be the biggest factor, so you'd have to standardize that, and preferably use rope that's not brand new, but not significantly worn yet. Then you'd ideally want to be able to check speed at several points during the descent, (continuous would be ideal, but you'd have to make sure it doesn't add drag to the system, so closest would probably be a series of those cheap baseball pitch radars) so you can see if/when it maxes out. Then maybe some ER docs and/or safety pros could weigh in on what impact speed (assuming landing on your feet) would result in a few different levels of injury: highly unlikely, (yeah, I've tweaked my ankle stepping off a curb, so anything is possible) mild injury, (annoyance, walk it off) moderate injury, (limp back to the car because you're done for the day, but will be fine with some ice and rest) need medical treatment, need medical treatment and weeks to months of PT, need ICU, need funeral, or need power washer and lots of bleach. Just curious to see how far the theoretical standard weight climber could take the max speed ride after completely losing grip on the brake strand and still just have a "no shit, there I was" story instead of full body cast by various rappel methods. Of course, there are a lot of factors, down to the cross section of the biner used in an ATC style device, (FWIW, those cheap Favofit lockers on Amazon keep an ATC pretty darn slow on my "big tree in the yard practice" static rope.) which could be seen as a plus: there's tons of variables to do lots of testing for huge spreadsheets and long videos.
Fun fact, the HMS carabiner is actually named after the Munter Hitch, which is called Halbmastwurfsicherung, in short HMS in German, so, yes, if you use that knot it makes sense to use the carabiner that was specifically designed for the knot 😉
Interesting. The Munter Hitch in Germany is called a half clove hitch :-D (Halbmastwurf vs Mastwurf) The Munter Hitch is a great backup solution to belay from the top. Just never let go of it.
Thnx guys for these video's. really helpfull and well shown. I do have a question. Why use an extra/different knot (stopper knot) to at the end of a rope to stop you from falling off when you ran out of rope if you can use a figure 8 aswell. Imo less is more so if you as little different knots as sdafely possible. Do I miss any brenefits from the stopperknot instead of a figure 8 knot?
Sure it's really a great video. It's covers several situations and solutions. I'll and one more knot in your list. An easy realise knot that can be used in very diferente proposals. The very simple easy and safe, when you got a back up. The marine knot.
I know folks do it every day but I have trouble trusting a carabiner with my life. I build stuff for a living and a lot of the time I'm doing it at height so I use biners fairly often and I've seen enough break to have reservations (personally and irrationally). Lol
When I first learned the bowline when I started welding it was taught to me was you make a loop then the rabbit comes out of the hole runs around the tree then go,s back in his hole😁👍🏼
Great video but remember some of these knots have different names outside of the ole USA... ie a water knot is a tape knot, a square knot is a reef knot (and the opposite is a granny knot)...
You’re tracer eight to attach two ropes together both ropes need to be the same diameter there is another knot to use if they are of two different diameter ropes
As arborist its almost unwatchable as my knots are remembered in muscle memory tieing in and onto things daily. I find it so difficult to watch people tie knots in diffrent ways. I start worrying im going to forget or confuse myself on something ive done everyday for 10 years.lol😂
The way ive been trained. I find myself going back to the same knots that get used more frequently than others.. i will tie in with perfection loop. (Basicly a bowline with an extra loop for the tail).. always with stopper knot on the end. Will quite often use figure 8 as stopper knot aswell. All my prusiks are joined with fishermans knot. And alpine butterfly would be my go to for midline knot to engineer and 3- 1 pullys.. i obviosly sometimes get strange looks un the climbing gym. With my choices of knots for things. But so use to it and ways of doing things..😂
Can anyone tell me about the whole "irregular knot" thing mentioned at 6:43? Is it some sort of mathematical definition or something? I couldn't find anything on it on google, probably because irregular knot is used a lot in cancer research papers.
I don't think it's a good idea to tie a broken rope with a double butterfly, guys. It slips out so easily, and it's much easier to tie a double fisherman anyway.
Fun Fact : The Double Fishermans aka Blood knot, Is the only knot certified to be used while tying spectra line together during production. so if a strand (strand being anything from a tiny 10 threads or so to a huge bundle of twisted strands) breaks or runs out in the middle of a run while twisting or braiding you use that knot to tie in the next package of line and hopefully it's not on the outside of the rope when its done on a run. we used quad twist knots to ensure enough friction and a 1 inch tail so it wouldn't come untied.
@@maciejtomczak3785 I have no idea. That's for HowNOT2 to answer. The Scott's Locked Bowline is not Agent Smith's construct either nor is it a "backup knot". It is a inherently secure eye knot, not a knot with another knot.. But, you already know this. ;-)
Not that I climb so I have no idea, but why do people tie their stopper knot so close to the end of the rope? Wouldn't having 4 or 5 ft below it be handy if you every got to the knot? Or do you need those 5 ft to get to the next bolt?
Some people tie a loop at the end to clip to or put a foot in. A few feet of straight line beyond the stopper knot could lead to confusion in some sketchy scenarios with successive drops.
And yes, I have needed those last few feet a handful of times (out of 1000 rappels or so?), not many, but if you do and you've tied the stopper knot too short, it's not a good situation. Remediable, but not good.
Great video, thank you! At 26:35, you say “the girth hitch is not safe”, but at 26:45 you say “I’m gonna do a girth hitch with a sling”. Do I understand correctly that I should not hang something heavy to that sling? At 27:50, I understand that you suggest anchoring yourself to the master point, which is an HMS carabiner. However, I’ve seen that when HMS carabiners are loaded they may not come to a setting that is as strong as what you’d get with a D-shaped carabiner (which automatically put the load along the spine). So, I wonder if this is good practice to anchor yourself to an HMS master point? Instead, what do you think of anchoring yourself to a quad anchor?
Re: VT I find this serves as a good self belay prusik, when you clip the biner around the loaded line as well as through the loops of the VT. This let's you pull up on the lazy end and effectively lift your feet when prusiking up a rope as well
you mentioned that even with a long tail, you wouldn't fix a line for your partner using an overhand on a bight. When my wife and I are developing routes, we at times use an overhand. If were not TR-soloing the new route and simply hanging/jugging to scrub/trundle, should we stop using an overhand and use a fig8? is it unsafe? i know it COULD roll but under an incredible amount of force.
As a climber, I can safely say the bowline is my go-to for building anchors. The great thing about the bowline is that after being weighted, it's easy to untie. A fig8 can sometimes be a little more difficult. However, there are two more reasons I like the bowline: 1) it's easy to adjust, meaning if you need to adjust the length of the loop for changing angles, it's easy to do, a fig8 requires running the line a few additional times; 2) I'm not sure this qualifies as a legit argument for the bowline, but I like the variety that it allows - what I mean by that is you have a regular bowline, rethreaded bowline, bowline on a bight, bowline with a bight, double bowline. With a fig8, you have a fig8, fig8 follow-through, and bunny ears (double fig8), fig 8 on bight and directional fig8 (quasi-alpine butterfly alternative). I suppose you could add a triple fig8 into that (but is more complicated to tie). With all of those variations of the fig8, I just feel the bowline provides more flexibility and efficiency of time and materials in some cases. But like all things in climbing, the tool that I choose is completely situational. Having all of these tools in my toolbelt allows me to make the best decisions for the situation that I'm in, the situation I might face with the next pitch, and even what my follower can provide my follower with options.
all the amazing content about big wall.. this big wall bible is probably going to be one of the best... about the VT knotyou said you never saw a big wall climber use it... i learned this knot, and of course, other big wall techniques and rope solo climbing, in some of my favorite big wall books by Andy Kirkpatrick, he uses a lot and advises this type of knot... for me he is one of the best big wall climbers, with many technical and wonderful books. .. but as you said, sometimes it's kind of scary to use this knot in some cases, it slides very fast and easy if you don't know how to control it.... one more time, congrats for all the contents... just amazing...
I have a 1.5m length of rope in my bed. When my day is done, I watch Netflix and I tied knots over and over. I tie them until they become mindless to tie.
To the topic of bowlines. If you want to tie in with a bowline to your harness than you have to use a double bowline because of ringloading. If I back it up is a single bowline enough or still not safe? My experience is that not many climbers I've met can tell me all of that. They just say: I learned it that way and do it that way. So I would very glad to hear something about that topic.
Was that the third rope? I ascended that rope a few weeks ago and found out I was hanging on by a few core strands when I got to the top. Yikes. Ended up replacing it with a section of our lead line on the way down. I packed out and threw away the old rope, how did you get a piece? Also thanks for the video, I had not seen the snap bowline before.
20:23 I have been tying this for years, but I do this around my hand 3 times first method. I have never seen this method. I have just learnt something. Just goes to show, you can't know it all and there is always room to learn.
id love for you guys to test out break strength of knots. im from the sailing community and we use bowlines all the time. i was wondering how strong it is compared to the figure 8.
How about a frost knot figure out how tie one correctly yet in case you have to make an aider that might be important if your on a big wall and ya drop one.
I would give a shout out to the triple bowline, which is excellent for tying something around an object (tree, for example) using the middle of the rope.
What scenario(s) would you use this in? The only one I can think of would be rigging a short drop with two parallel lines for rappelling/ascending practice with a single rope long enough to rig both.
@@kayzinti4452 it's also a fairly good knot for tying in with the middle of the rope to lead if you don't have double ropes and are about to take on a pitch with traversing in various directions. Last time I used it was in a party of three when we were two people on a ledge with some trees and I wanted to go down a slightly different line to do something while the third guy was on the way up, so I used the backside of the rope used in the belay. None of this was very big wall though, I realize!
I used to use water knots but saw this video ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-mXe-8GmS08k.html demonstrating a way they can come untied and have led to many deaths. What is your opinion here? I started using a simple overhand recently like an EDK.
People have been doing water knots on webbing for many many decades. It has the flaw that Walter shows but if it is rock hard I doubt that can come undone. I don't like how bulky it is but it has it's place for some things.
No, a pile hitch has both strands exit from the same side of the knot, where in this shot you can see one strand exiting the back and one exiting the front. It is a clove.
Awesome video! Would you be able to come up with a "package" of solutions for stationary and self-climber tree stand hunting? Issues to consider: There are harnesses and all, but what if something really happens? How long does someone really have before the blood circulation knocks one out? Any practical solutions to climb down safely in case of a fall? And are there any injury hazards due to improper strapping? Cheers! :)
Maybe in other places, but I have read many books and seen many tutorials that use the easy to understand single, double, triple fisherman’s knot/bend nomenclature. To the American english speaking world, they are the most common names. As the basics of the knot really doesn’t change, just the number of round turns; why give the different permutations of the same knots different names? You even climb outside your area?
one of the most used instruction book on climbing in North America "Freedom of the Hills" by the Seattle Mountaineers, calls it the double fisherman knot. the Seattle Mountaineers is older than the Boy Scouts. Many knots use different names, likely because of regional usages, or perhaps industry terminology where it is used.
