Joining Two Ropes For Abseil

Rethreaded figure eight there is more than one way of joining two ropes using a figure eight knot.

Joining two ropes for abseil.

I know of two climbers one british and one french who actually came to blows at the top of an ice climb once neither trusting the others tried and trusted techniques of joining two ropes. Instead of joining your ropes with a double fisherman s you could also use a bigger knot such as the re threaded figure 8 just make sure the knot is big enough so that it can t be pulled through the chain or carabiner at your main anchor point. Times when you might need to abseil past a knot. This like the belay chapter is a long one due the many different approaches that can be adopted.

The problem is we all know what happens if you get this wrong and abseiling is terrifying enough and if you aren. How many times have you had arguments with your mate when it comes to abseil knots. In this test on rock and ice all three knots tested were weaker with different diameter ropes. For normal abseiling if the ropes are dry then i use a well tied neat single overhand knot with ample tails.

A surprisingly high number of climbers die abseiling. When descending a single strand fixed rope where a knot has been tied to isolate a damaged section passing a knot joining two ropes during an emergency retreat as always first try to utilize the terrain to make passing the knot easier. There s many reasons why you d want to join two ropes together but perhaps the most obvious one is to allow for a full rope length retrievable abseil. It is often said that a double fisherman s knot is the best for joining two ropes of different diameters.

You can also abseil in the same way using two ropes. The figure eight overhand double fishersman s are just three methods.