shanja
11-25-2008, 12:31 AM
Over the weekend we sat upon the heated livingroom floor the 4 of us and practiced knot tying. A length of old rope a prussik cord and a few locking crabs (biners). It keeps coming home to me just how important and yet unattended these "basic" skills are. And you know what? We had a pretty fun old time practicing, learning and teaching such essentials as:
Basic Prussik
Bachman Prussik
Autoblock Prussik
Clove Hitch
Munter Hitch
Alpine Butterfly
Double Figure 8 on a Bight
Look, if you don't know your knots, it's a matter of when not if, that'll you'll come to grief. To survive in climbing you really only need 4 or 5...especially sport climbing, but why not learn a few others just in case? Wanna tie up that some-one special with a silk scarf to your bed? The clove hitch is perfect (also the knot of choice for tying arm slings and bandages). Need to get up a fixed line with no jumar tools handy? Helllllooooo Mr Bachman and Mr Autoblock! Need to escape a burning building but lost your belay tool? No wuckers with the Munter hitch!
So anyways, jokes aside, Will, Mae-lin, Brandon and I were thinking...no it's true we were...how about sitting down with a newbie (or old hand) next time and learning a knot. Better yet, a few camcorders and am editing program and we make a few instructional videos to show how various knots are tied and used. Till then look at this link:
http://www.animatedknots.com/
Basic Prussik
Bachman Prussik
Autoblock Prussik
Clove Hitch
Munter Hitch
Alpine Butterfly
Double Figure 8 on a Bight
Look, if you don't know your knots, it's a matter of when not if, that'll you'll come to grief. To survive in climbing you really only need 4 or 5...especially sport climbing, but why not learn a few others just in case? Wanna tie up that some-one special with a silk scarf to your bed? The clove hitch is perfect (also the knot of choice for tying arm slings and bandages). Need to get up a fixed line with no jumar tools handy? Helllllooooo Mr Bachman and Mr Autoblock! Need to escape a burning building but lost your belay tool? No wuckers with the Munter hitch!
So anyways, jokes aside, Will, Mae-lin, Brandon and I were thinking...no it's true we were...how about sitting down with a newbie (or old hand) next time and learning a knot. Better yet, a few camcorders and am editing program and we make a few instructional videos to show how various knots are tied and used. Till then look at this link:
http://www.animatedknots.com/