Get Outdoors - Women: Knots for Climbing and Mountaineering

How many knots do you use in your climbing? Which ones do you use most frequently, and why? Do you have a reason, or is it just the knot you learned, once upon a time, and you know it well and won't screw it up, so what the heck?

A lot has been written about knots. Some people seem to love knots of all kinds. They pick them up the first time they see them, and are able to dazzle and impress their friends by whipping them out at, say, cocktail parties. Others struggle to learn one or two knots reliably, and suffer so much humiliation at their friends' pointedly patient help, that they avoid even trying to learn any they aren't absolutely convinced they will use every time they use the rope. Most of us fall somewhere in between. We tend to limit the number of knots we use to those that seem versatile and useful for most common climbing tasks. While we may get excited when we see a new and cool knot, we don't add it to our repertoire unless we're convinced it's truly superior for a certain purpose that's important to us.

My goal here isn't to teach any knots (I can't do that without diagrams, and even they are hard for many of us to use) but rather to examine the choices we make, or should be making, in choosing one knot over another, for specific common purposes. Hopefully this will help make these choices clearer and more common sensical when they seem to be muddy, or just a matter of personal preference. The choice of the best knot for a given purpose is rarely purely arbitrary or aesthetic.

Tying In :
Re-threaded Figure 8. Everybody learned this as their very first climbing knot, right? It's simple, strong, and easy to see whether it's correct and complete or not. Is there any reason at all to use any other kind of knot for tying in to the rope?

If you've ever taken multiple whippers "working" a problem, you've learned that the bowline is a heck of a lot easier to untie when it's really welded tight and your forearms are pumped out. Most sport climbers have a favorite variation on the bowline for tying in, for this reason. So why hasn't it replaced the old standby, the Figure 8?

It's harder to learn to tie correctly and to see whether it's done right or wrong.
It tends to work its way loose if not properly backed up (unlike the figure 8 which, contrary to common practice, doesn't really NEED to be backed up if tied properly, as it does not come untied). Also, there are different ways to back it up, which adds to the confusion.

So your decision on which knot to tie in with should be governed by considerations such as: given your climbing objective today, is the knot likely to take weight often and get welded? Can you tie the bowline including an adequate back-up, tie it correctly every time, and tell quickly if it's right or not?

Joining Rappel Ropes :
If the ropes are roughly of the same diameter (the difference being up to 2 to 3 mm), a flat figure 8 or flat overhand are commonly used. There are a couple of important advantages to these knots.

They tend to present a "flat" surface to the rock, with the knot itself sticking up in the air, which allows them to sort of "skate" over edges, ledges and irregularities on the wall, making the rope retrieve more easily and reliably.
They are considerably less bulky than the grapevine, so less likely to jam in cracks etc. (These advantages are both lost if you tie a back-up knot!)
They are a LOT easier to loosen and untie after being weighted.
They are very fast and simple to tie.

There are a couple of important cautions too, however:

These knots MUST be snugged down good and tight, and they MUST have long tail ends beyond the knot: at least 16 to 18 inches is recommended.
If they are not snugged down really tight, they can roll over themselves before they eventually tighten up. This brings the ends into the knot, so if the tails are not long enough, the ropes could come un-joined! Not desirable.

In some tests I heard about which were apparently done informally by Blue Water, great loads were applied to both these knots to see how they would behave and under what conditions this rolling problem would happen, and what the result would be. Although I have never seen this information written up, and don't know the exact results, (if anyone has, please let me know!) I have heard the upshot was that the flat figure 8 rolled over itself under somewhat less load than the flat overhand, and that it rolled more times (twice I believe, as opposed to once for the overhand). Both knots eventually tightened and locked up as they rolled, and the ropes then broke at some ridiculously high load - in other words strength of both knots was not an issue. As long as there was enough tail to accommodate the rolling, both knots stayed tied even under very high loads.

Important: Do NOT tie a back up knot with either of these knots: it is unnecessary, and defeats the purpose the knots are chosen for - low bulk and ease of snag-less retrieval.

Given that these are both adequately strong knots if tied carefully, which is better? Well, the flat overhand is the least bulky, so it is best at the purpose of presenting less to snag or jam. The figure 8 provides slightly more friction, but it's hard to say if this is ever significant enough to matter. I think the choice is pretty close and slightly favors the overhand because of the bulk question, but it seems to me there's room for aesthetic preferences here, or even flipping a coin. I tend to use an overhand with ropes of less than 2mm difference in diameter between them, and the figure 8 at 2-3mm difference in diameter.

Tying into an anchor :
The two most common methods are the figure 8 on a bight, and the clove hitch. The advantage of the clove hitch is that it is fast and easy to tie, and allows for easy adjustment of the climber's distance from the anchor, without her needing to untie from the anchor. This latter advantage is pretty significant, in my view. The challenges are learning to tie it right reliably and to recognize quickly when it's wrong, and remembering always to snug it down tight.

An important note on the clove hitch: always use a locking carabiner, and always make sure it's locked! Duh, you say, as if that weren't always important. True, but even more so than ever with the clove, which could deform, conceivably in such a way as to bring a strand across the gate, if it is not snugged down carefully.

Basically, the only time I personally would NOT prefer the clove hitch over the 8 for tying myself into the anchor is if I weren't sure I could do the clove right. If I'm that rattled, an overhand on a bight will do.

Joining a Cordelette :
Most people tie up their cordelettes into a loop using a double fisherman or grapevine. Others use the flat overhand or figure 8. For the purposes of equalizing several pieces into a belay anchor, any of these three knots is fine, as the central knot tied to equalize, creates such redundancy that the strand with the joining knot in question is carrying only a fraction of the load on the anchor. Some people like to be prepared to use their cordelettes in an untied single strand however, say for hauling or rescue purposes. They prefer the flat 8 or overhand over the grapevine, because of their ease of untying for these uses.

Tying in to the rope for glacier travel purposes :
In this instance we are usually tying in somewhere along the rope other than the end, and attaching ourselves by means of a pair of locking and non-locking carabiners, reversed and opposed. Should we consider any other knot besides the figure 8 on a bight?

Some people advocate tying in directly to the harness with a bowline or re-threaded overhand or 8 on a bight, and not using a locking carabiner. If you are desperately short on locking carabiners, I can see the point. Otherwise, I'd say the greater complication in tying, of getting in and out, the bulk of the knot and the amount of rope you have to use, make this undesirable compared to the carabiners/8 on a bight combination. The pair of carabiners, if locked, reversed and opposed, is not going to break under normal conceivable glacier travel circumstances.

Some people prefer a butterfly knot for this purpose, as it's cleaner looking when pulled apart, as could happen in a crevasse fall scenario. Personally, I'm not convinced it's worth learning this rather tricky knot for this reason. Most often the rope is weighted only on one side of the knot, so the force on the knot is the same as usual. Even if there is a load pulling two directions on the knot, I don't know for sure if the butterfly is stronger than the figure 8 or by how much, but I do know that the figure 8 is strong enough! It may deform, but it's still relatively easy to untie after loading.

There is one purpose for which the butterfly is definitely much better suited than the figure 8 on the bight, or the overhand on a bight, and that is for tying "stopper" knots into the rope. This means tying a knot in the rope between climbers every few feet, to add friction as the rope cuts through the snow in the case of a crevasse fall, and make it easier to arrest and stop the victim falling any further in than necessary. This is most often done when only two people are on the rope, especially if one person significantly outweighs the other, or if either are weak at self arrest. The butterfly has strands running along the bottom of the knot against the snow, which increase its friction and braking power. The 8 and overhand are less desirable here for the same reason they are most desirable in joining rappel ropes: they present a flat aspect to the surface and skate along rather than jamming or dragging. These are just some of the knotty questions (sorry) we seem to often debate endlessly about. Such often esoteric seeming arguments can be pretty entertaining. My position though is that if you don't have a pretty clear reason to prefer one knot to another, then there's no point in arguing! And you can probably drop one of them out of your repertoire too, if you're knot challenged. If you do have a reason, and it's a good one, you win the argument!