Happy Hitch

[rmihalek]

No, I'm not talking about a great wedding. This is my first try at the happy hitch as described in Dirk Lingens' book called "Tree Climber's Knotbook" (ISBN 3-9810417-1-2).

The knot was tied with an Ice brand eye-to-eye on Yale Yellow Jacket. I had excellent control of my rate of descent with just very light pressure on the top of the knot. Seems like a good one.

I'll be trying some others in the book and letting you all know how they worked with my gear.

I'm about 175lbs fully geared up for those concerned about the number of wraps. I managed to get one more wrap in the knot to see what happened and I could barely move the thing!

 

[oldirty]

helluva knot you got there pal.

 

[rmihalek]

Thanks oldirty. In the 5 minutes I tried it out, the Happy Hitch seemed to work pretty well.

These pictures are showing up HUGE on my screen. I resized them on photobucket to make them smaller, but it had no effect on the images here. If anyone knows how to make them smaller, I'd like to know.

 

[OTG BOSTON]

looks like a distal hitch to me..........

 

[jemclimber]

Hitch

The "8" on your biner should be converted to something that cinches it. It's too easy to side load the biner with such a big open loop type of knot. The hitch looks good and probably self tends nicely with that pulley. Good luck finding a hitch you feel "Happy" with.

 

[OTG BOSTON]

hey Bob

A couple of things about that hitchclimber set-up. First, it was designed to be used with a line with an eyesplice, get one. Second, the bridge of your distal hitch should face AWAY from the hitchclimber.

 

[rmihalek]

Thanks for the tips. I'll incorporate your suggestions: they seem logical from a safety stand point as well as improving function.

There are probably another half-dozen hitches in Dirk's book. I'll try them out and get some more pictures posted.