Knots!

Knots

A few of the knots and hitches we practiced were: bowline, figure 8 on a bight, butterfly, double fishermans, fleming, munter hitch, clove hitch and the girth hitch. We also practiced how to do a kiwi coil. 

When planning an expedition of this kind, it is important to understand the different mediums of travel that will be involved. In our case, we will be traveling over snow and ice, hauling sleds, and skiing up and down mountains. This means that we will need to know how to build snow anchors and haul systems in case of a crevasse rescue and how to tie ourselves into a rope to ski together. Since this is a self-supported trip, we will need to rely on our combined set of skills to problem solve and traverse difficult terrain safely. While each of us has a unique skill set, we need to be on the same page when it comes to basic travel and rescue techniques and systems. 

Resources like Mountaineering: The Freedom of the Hills have been helpful in refreshing these skills and learning more about systems, knots and hitches. 

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Three ways of splitting these skills up are into: knots, hitches and rope management.

Knots have a large variety of uses including tying yourself onto a rope, tying two ropes together, building haul systems. Hitches are useful because they are adjustable and can be used to belay climbers in haul systems. Friction hitches such as prusiks are used for ascending and descending ropes. The kiwi coil is used to manage the excess rope at the tail end of a roped up team. Learning what knot or hitch to use in each situation is key, but also knowing what can be used as a substitute is important in case of a situation where the ideal resources are not available. 

Double Fishermans

Girth Hitch

Figure 8 on a bight

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