A friend asked me to show him how to tie a certain climbing knot, but I’ve never even heard of it. I was hoping someone on here could help us out.
It’s supposed to be able to slip upwards, but not downwards. Although it locks when pulled down, it can continually slide up. That?s all I know about it.
Any ideas?
–Son of Liberty
Could you not just point him in the direction of the Prusik and its many variants? Some are symmetrical in the sense that they behave the same way irrespective of the direction (up or down) from which the load is applied. But not all.
Also look at the Klemheist or Penberthy.
Then there are knots that need to be tied in climbing tape eg the Heddon.
Caveat: I am not an expert in climbing knots.
I belive you are looking for the Klemheist Knot
Thanks guys. I believe the Klemhiest is what he was looking for. I?m glad I learned it as well now?it?s a very interesting knot.
Thanks,
-Son of Liberty
The “can continually slide up” part is not really so; moving the knot
such as this is typically done by applying force to it by some external
means – one’s hand, grasping it, or a device beneath it (for arborist
use climbing the rope). Check the Valdotain Tresse for one that is
pretty good at releasing & moving. (Interesting to note that it’s
said that the Klemheist works only in one way, but going the opposite
way essentially turns it into a Hedden H., which works and with some
better grip.)
There are several hitches that can be used for climbing a rope. There is a problem about what to call the class of hitches that can be used for climbing a rope. I managed to write a book about them without giving the class a name. The obvious term is Climbing Knot. Two knot inventors entitled their description “A New Climbing Knot”. However, that term can get confused. I have two books with “Climbing Knots” in their titles that show such knots as a Bowline and Clove Hitch, any knot that might be used by a climber. There were some other English terms that were used by only one or two authors. The French use the term “noeuds autobloquants”. The most widespread and unambiguous term is “friction hitches”.
The friction hitches can’t be pulled up a rope. They must be pushed up usually with a hand, sometimes with a small pulley.
Most how-to-climb books show a few friction hitches. The klemheist seems popular, probably for its snappy name. They usually say that the carabiner in a Bachmann Knot serves as a handle, which is wrong.
The most complete description of various friction hitches that is available on the Internet is a set of three articles by Mark Adams:
http://www.treebuzz.com/pdf/climbing_hitches.pdf
http://www.treebuzz.com/pdf/0505_geneology.pdf
http://www.treebuzz.com/pdf/Apr07-cc.pdf
As I was writing this message, I looked at the Adams articles. I do not see the Bachmann Knot, RBS Knot, or Howard Hitch, though I may have just missed them. The Tree Climber’s Knot Book by Dirk Lingens is too recent to be in Adam’s lists of references.
It’s amazing isn’t it, with all the hundreds of thousands of words in English, that there are so many things for which we do not have names. Or at least, do not have good names.
You’ve written a book about knots and I haven’t so I should shut up now (but won’t!) To me, and to the rest of the great unwashed public, the phrase “Climbing Knot” means what it says - a knot that can be used for climbing. As you mention, this could include the Bowline, Clove Hitch etc. As a name for “Prusik-type knots” then, for this relative newcomer to knots (and the experts should take non-experts into account), the phrase “Climbing Knot” is no good at all. By the way, I’m not sure I’d use a Clove Hitch when climbing. Might not use a simple Bowline either. But I digress.
I personally (in my ignorance) would have called the sort of knots you’re talking about, “Prusik-type knots”. I realise that’s not very fair on anyone bar perhaps Dr Prusik. On consulting Wiki after reading your post, I find I should have been thinking and talking all along not of Prusik-type knots, but of Friction Hitches. I’ll try to do so from now on. I find it a shame though that rather than being named “Friction Hitches”, they were not given a more meaningful name - “Rope Grabbers” perhaps, or “Rope Climbers”.
Sometimes the “friction hitches” are not used primarily to climb a rope. Sometimes they are a “backup” to abseiling or to keep a load from slipping the wrong way, ie: Tyrolean crossings, pulley/rope use to haul a precious load. They do work via the application of friction (easily released and repetitively so) and so that very well maybe the apt nomenclature for them.
So “Rope Grabbers” are a subset, admittedly a large one, of “Friction Hitches”?
Then there is still an inadequacy in the terminology if we stick to “Friction Hitches”.
It’s not for me though to suggest a new term to the “climbing community”. It’s their lives dangling at the end of their ropes, it’s for them to come up with a name!
I will stick with “friction hitch”. It is widely used and understood. The term does not have any other meaning, unlike some situations where one knot has several names or the same name is applied to several knots. Even if we could get another term adopted, it would be used in addition to “friction hitch”, increasing the confusion. It is unsatisfactory in that all hitches utilize friction.
“Climbing Knot” has the problems we’ve already discussed.
Bill March and Nigel Shepherd, in their books, use “prusik knot” as a generic term. Robert Chisnall has “prusik type knots”. I do not like “-type” adjectives. I entitled my book “Prusiking”. If I were writing it now, I would use some other title. Shepherd states that an “autobloc” will grip when loaded and fall down under its own weight when unloaded.
Pit Schubert, or rather the translator of his book, uses the term “locking knot”.
Larry Penberthy used the term “ascender knot” after he re-invented the Helical Knot. He spoke of the “Penberthy Ascender Knot” and the “Prusik Ascender Knot”. He also used “Penberthy Knot” and “Ascender Knot”. Dick Mitchell gave a convention talk and wrote a newsletter article where he spoke of the “Ascender Knot”, making for confusion with mechanical ascenders. Gary Storrick uses “Ascender Knots” in his website.
In their book, Budworth and Dalton use “slide-and-grip hitch”. The also use “climbing knot” and “prusiking knot” in other places in their book.
Budworth and Dalton, as well as Budworth in some of his solo books Many show the “Munter friction hitch”. So there is some ambiguity.
Many of the hitches used for climbing a rope are old. Chapter 22 of ABOK, for instance, has many hitches with different or no names that are identical to our friction hitches. The nautical hitches were placed on a spar or cable and not moved. There was no requirement that they be easily loosened and moved.
What sets these climbing/abseiling hitches apart from other hitches is the intended purpose of sliding along the medium(rope in these cases) they are hitching. Yes, other hitches can slide, but that’s not their intended purpose. Also, it’s redundant to describe any hitch with terms such as ‘friction/gripping’ for that is what they all do. So let’s label climbing/abseiling hitches by their primary differentiating factor, i.e. SLIDING hitches.
alpineer
Ha! Hey, I want my friction h. to grip and NOT slide, when I use it! 
(Rumor of intended sliding --intended to ameliorate impact force–
is what distinguished the Tarbuck hitch , something of a dubious nature.
Similar reasoning sometimes is voiced for using Prusik hitches to secure
rescue loads, et cetera.)
The German “klem(m)” --seen e.g. in “klemheist” (nb: not ‘kleim’!) & “klemmknoten”–
translates to English “clamp”, or so I had thought, until now playing with
the Google translator and finding “terminal” coming for “klemm”, nothing
for “klem”, and only on “klemme” getting “clamp”. Now I’ll have to go
revise my thinking (so much easier not to think) … ! (And, Bob, Heinz’s
“Gesteckter Wickleknoten” --if given a space before ‘k’-- emerges as . . .
“Mated Wrap Knots” (!) ; one can speculate about the “mated” sense! :o )
[Now where was I, before reality set in? ah… ]
Yes, this [gripping] is in a sense a sort of physical action of any hitch
(though not evident in what has at times been called “the bowline hitch”
– used to denote tying the eye knot TO something), but one can discriminate
between the friction/gripping needed to stay in place vs. just needing
to stay tied (and nearly every knot needs friction in order to remain tied).
In the broader scheme of things, irrespective of nomenclature, there are
knots that provide a gripping hitching (though often material-dependent)
that might not --as has been noted above-- serve well or at all for doing
so with alternate adjusted positioning; that is, they are tied, set, and hold
at that place, only, until some effort to untie & loosen & move is made.
By some degree, this aspect affects most of the knots that are even designed
for the purpose of grip-slide-grip… ; and there can be force limits on how
much gripping will be done, too --again, much influenced by materials.
But I do think we could agree that in all cases of immediate discussion
the relevant knots are hitches !