Page 24 - Nate Fitch, Ron Funderburke "Climbing Knots"

Guide’s Insight

Having taught climbing knots and hitches for
a handful of climbing schools, climbing gyms,
experiential education programs, and instructor
training programs, it has always been intriguing
to me that so many climbers learn to tie knots
and hitches without the use of any sort of plain
language. I have seen climbing instructors give
elaborate explanations of how to tie a given
knot, using all manner of circumspect analogies,
acronyms, and counting games. The irony is that
while so many climbers learned to tie knots this
way, we never really learned to talk about ropes.
In my own instruction, I first explain the
construction of a knot or hitch using plain and
simple language, such as, “A figure 8 knot is
tied by circumnavigating a tail of rope around a
loop one time, before passing the tail through the
loop.” When this description is accompanied by
a visual demonstration to orient the loop and the
direction of the tail’s travel, most of my students
learn to tie the figure 8 knot without my having
to resort to invocations of John Travolta, strangled
pop singers, or eye-gouged aliens. You’d be
amazed at how effective a simple demonstration
and some plain language can be.—RF

Knot. All knots require a tail or bight of rope to
pass through a loop. If a tail or bight passes through a
loop at any point, a knot will be the result.
Hitch. Hitches involve contortions of the rope
that require a secondary object, like a carabiner, to

The Rope 11