Page 48 - Nate Fitch, Ron Funderburke "Climbing Knots"

CHAPTER 4

Tying the Rope to
Other Things

ying the rope to a climber is a familiar and
T predictable task. No matter how big or small a
climber may be, the amount of rope needed for tying
in is consistent. But when the rope is tied around
some other object, the amount of rope needed can
vary, there is not always a rope end to work with,
and there is often a need to create redundancy in the
attachment.
Consider the task of tying the rope around trees.
Some trees are gigantic, requiring an expansive cir-
cumference of rope. Some trees have sharp and abra-
sive bark, so running two strands of material around
the tree seems more durable. Sometimes climbers are
setting up multiple anchors with the same rope, so the
rope ends are not available. It is important, therefore,
to learn to work with sections of the middle of a rope,
or a bight.
We might imagine similar circumstances for all
objects, everything from trees to boulders to flagpoles
and fence posts. In each case, the bowline, the bowline
with a bight, and the use of slings and cordellette give
enough options to connect a rope to almost anything.

Bowline

When a rope end is available, the bowline is the most
obvious choice for attaching the rope to an object.

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