Introducing the Longhorn Agile Friction Hitch 

I walked away from this initially thinking it was too complicated. In a moment of frustration with my current hitches, I revisited it. I'm super impressed with the upgrade to my climbing system so far. Great characteristics of hold and self tending is a game changer to say the least. Thank you for you exhaustive efforts to push the advancement of climbing systems forward. If you had a subscriber for every mad rock, gri gri, F4, ect. that was sold, this channel would be gigantic. A little working knowledge goes a lot further than the typical "spend more to do more" way of getting people into the trees.

This looks like a fantastic solution for single rope no mechanical device climbing. Thank you and stay safe.

I think this is the best one so far. This one will be hard to beat. I like that it's self tending and captures the weight when loaded and very easy to break. The other thing I like is that you can carry it with you or in your pouch as a hitch, then build it on the fly. Nice work, John. It's definitely my favorite 🎯

I think this looks extremely easy. I can’t wait to give it a go! I have a feeling this is going to be my favorite hitch. Thank you John for another great video

Great John ….. You are always breaking new ground , appreciate your passion and work ethic. Don’t let a few sour grapes over at S . Hunter deter you, its easy to criticize . I know many people have benefited from your work and the generous way you present it.

They should teach all these knots and hitches in school

Wow! I'm not sure how you will top this one. Thank you for all your innovations. Keep up the great work.

Well I have been playing with this hitch tonight. I have a 30 foot extension ladder that I have been trimming some limbs in the yard off of . I have an 11 mm rope that I run over a limb and use a friction hitch on around both sides as insurance. I figured that I would need more rope for this hitch because hey 2 11mm ropes I am going around. So I started out with a 8 foot piece. Used 16Inches to start and tied the longhorn agile hitch as described. I found out right off the get go that you really have to set that longhorn knot to keep your tails from getting shorter(at least with the rope I am using) . Next thing I found out was I didn't need 5/2 on the double rope. Ended up with 3/1, 20 inch tails to start, 13 inch tails finished. Works great! Thanks! Friction cord I am using is 7mm braided poly. It does set pretty hard if I do drop my weight on it, much easier to slide if I don't(or readjust after) To be expected I reckon due to the compression of the double rope. The tending without a pulley is slick.

John, many thanks again. I used the RADS SRT with a JRB ascender on top, Longhorn Agile Hitch to my bridge, and I topped it off by making a separate foot loop connected to the JRB to give me some leverage. Used the Munter exactly as you show in the video coming down, so it all worked great. I have an extra Longhorn Agile Hitch packed in my saddle bag. I think it is a great innovation. Thanks, Kevin

Thank you.

Hey John, thanks again for another knot that I can use in the field. I'll be practicing this one today. I've been watching your videos for a while now and I believe this is the first time I've commented. You did the load test at the end, and said something about the 800-900 pound range of load, and knowing no way that you would ever exceed that in the field. On that, I agree, I'm sure as hell not going upward with anything more than me and my absolutely needed gear. Anything else can wait below with a tether. However, what I wanted to mention was the difference between applied load (the come-along) and instant force (the dreaded fall). I've been trained by the two of the largest scale companies in the world (Mettler-Toledo and Fairbanks) to work on industrial scales, where as I'm sure you can imagine some of the repairs I've had to encounter. I found it hard to believe, but remember both companies, at some point in some of their classes, going over the difference in the load types. I recall a story once, that is very fitting, where an instructor mentioned that a forklift driver driver saying that there was no way he had damaged a scale, since he was only weighing a pallet of 55 gallon drums (1800+/- lbs loaded) on a 10K lbs scale. The issue the instructor pointed out was that, at 3', a 1 pound weigh generated over 800 lbs of force when dropped. Now, I found this hard to believe, and still find it hard to understand, but after having seen it demonstrated, have no choice but to accept it. We set up a scale that could measure peak forces, even if just for a millisecond, kind of the way a multimeter can measure the high-lows of voltage or amperage, and sure enough, I saw first hand. I guess you could say I was "schooled", literally, on the difference. If I recall correctly, it was actually about 880 lbs that had been generated of "shock" force that the certified 1 lb weight had applied when dropped from the top of a yard stick. If the system we used didn't record "peaks", I don't think there would have been anyway for me to see the number, as I watched the display intently during the demonstration, and I never once saw the real-time numbers at that range, though I do remember seeing triple digits flicker. Once we reviewed the recorded peaks though, that was the story to be told. I know this was a long story for such a small "after thought", but I have always had the tendancy to explain things of this nature with more detail than probably needed, and I only pull from personal experiences whenever make mention of "facts". Otherwise it's kind of just hear-say. Whether this helps you in the future, or maybe gets you to look into it more for yourself, I figured I would just pass along a little something I've learned along the way. You have taught me so much that the least I could do was to share a little of my knowledge with you. Thank you again for all the time and effort you put forward in explaining knots. You have been a tremendous help to me.

John, I love your stuff. I have taught for 31 years and now am retired. Your teaching is very concise and understandable. I may be alone in this thought but I would love if you could take one minute at the beginning of your videos to inform the viewer of what type/thickness of rope you are climbing on and what type/thickness of rope you are using for your tending hitches. Keep up the great work. You are appreciated.

This is amazing

Very cool. A few biners and some cord to tie these will be way cheaper and quieter than a hand ascender and safeguard. Though I'll keep those on the amazon wishlist anways

The ultimate professional. Thank you for sharing.

Looks like a great hitch👍🏻

Yup. I need to get some cord and make one of those.

SRT with this will be great, for simpler bypasses. Now I need to learn about basal anchors. was interesting to see the pull test at the end. I would love to see an exhaustive JRB school of climbing get tested over at HowNot2 RU-vid channel. That would be so cool. It would get a lot of exposure to the climbing world (outside of saddle hunters) for your works.

I just tried it at home. And man it singes down hard after putting body weight on it. 6mm accessory cord and a 9.5mm rope. I had to completely unload it and deconstruct it backwards to get it off. It looks so smooth for you though

Definitely looks easier to tie than the 5 32. I can't wait to try it.

You may have to invent an antigravity hitch to beat this one...

WELL exactly the remedy of my complaint of the agile hitch, it is difficult to move sometimes,

John I have a question if I use 6 mm accessory cord on a 8m m climbing line do you think for this hitch 6-foot would be enough to start with or would that be too long

I tried this with Bluewater 6.5mm Dynamic Prusik cord on 8mm Oplux and it slipped, with 6 wraps it held okay but not sure how it will do if the Oplux is wet. Will try with 6mm accessory cord.

I’ve tried this out several times at fairly low heights and feel comfortable with it now. I’m new to saddle hunting and using ropes though so I have what may be a dumb question. Is it a bad idea to leave the hitch tied to the rope for any reason? Part of me thinks it could be a bad idea to try and tie something like this out in the dark and would rather just tie it and leave it once I know it’s right.

Dumb question, would this hitch possibly work with RIT 9mm on 16 braid 1/2” ?

Can we decend using only the hitch or it much safer to do a munter?

Would sterling 6mm TRC rope work as the rope to make this hitch? attaching to 8mm tether

👍👍

Looks somewhat similar to a Klemheist.