Page 50 - The Pocket Guide to Equine Knots

Manty basket hitch, step 3: rope underneath pulled hard.

Manty basket hitch, step 4: tied off with two doubled half hitches.

If all seems good, I pull the loop on the half hitch larger and tie it into a second half hitch.
There are many other fine knots that can be used, some of them more quickly released, but
the doubled twin half hitches have held well for me and are relatively easy to untie.
Although it’s less handy, the sawbuck can also be used with the basket hitch. With the

sawbuck, use a single sling rope, not attached to the saddle, around thirty feet long. Find
the approximate center and create a clove hitch (chapter 1, see page 22) by making two
identical loops stacked one on the other. Place the clove hitch over the front sawbuck and
pull the hitch tight. Now you have two sling ropes, one running each direction for a load on

each side of the horse.
Lacking a D-ring to your right (assuming we’re working on the left side of the horse),
simply loop the free end of the sling rope around the right sawbuck from the outside-in.
Although the sling rope will have more friction around the sawbuck than through the D-ring

of the Decker, this still works relatively well. Some packers loop the vertical rope on the
backside of the pack down through a cinch ring, while some allow the load to swing freely.
I’m in the latter camp, having found that the “give” of the free-swinging load actually helps
when the pack scrapes on a tree. The load swings to the rear but usually returns to position

after a few steps.
The basket hitch can also be used on a riding saddle and works especially well on one
with holes in the cantle for the purpose. The US Army McClellan saddle had these, as do an
increasing number of modern backcountry saddles. My saddle, from Rick Erickson of Ennis,

Montana, features these holes in the cantle. I don’t feel them while riding, so they cause no