Knot Your Typical Blog Post
When I came to camp, I knew that I was getting into an entirely new experience, and that I would get the chance to learn some cool new skills. One of the skills that I've learned through working our high ropes course are different types of knots, and I've kind of fallen in love with them. Yes, I only know a few, but it's enough to impress my kids when I need to tie knots in front of them. My favorite part of high ropes days have become those times when I get to put up and take down the ropes, because it just becomes a surprisingly relaxing time to let my hands work. I even use my practice rope when I'm just sitting around because it gives me something therapeutic for my hands to do.
The reason I'm literally devoting an entire blog post to rope knots is because my love of them came as a huge surprise. I am the first to admit that I am pretty seriously afraid of heights, something that meant that I dreaded high ropes training from the moment I saw it on our training schedule. I was worried that my fear meant that I wouldn't be able to competently do this part of my job, that I would be too paralyzed to even be certified to work the course. The very first thing that we learned was how to set up the course, and I got to meet my knots. Here they are, for your enjoyment;
Figure Eight on a Bight - This is basically our headlining knot, the one that pretty much everyone sees us use, because it's the one that we use to clip in our climbers to the climbing rope. It's a strong knot, it looks super cool, and it sounds super technical when you say "figure eight on a bight" out loud.
Barrel Knot - Another great knot, one which serves to keep leftover rope out of the way/shorten the remaining rope that you have. This one is especially cool looking (in my humble knot opinion), and it can be used all over the place. One of the other staff members uses it on the strings of her hoodie so that they don't get lost in the hoodie abyss, which is great and is totally a dead giveaway that she's a high ropes nerd.
Killick Hitch - I saved the best for last. This is my favorite knot, which is potentially the most camp-nerdy thing I've ever typed in my life. I will defend the awesomeness of Killick hitches to the grave. I will also defend calling them Killick hitches, even though they are technically clove hitches (and when you Google them, they're totally different things). I call them Killick hitches because that's how I was taught, so that's what I am going to call them, even though I know that it's wrong (it's my blog and I'll use technically incorrect knot terminology if I want to). It is used to attach different widths of rope together, and we use them in our high ropes to attach our climbing ropes to our haul lines (this knot makes it possible for us to pull our climbing ropes into the air). The reason this is my favorite is that it's the first knot where I realized that I was actually decently good at knot tying.
After those first Killick hitches, I found myself looking forward to the rest of the training. If I could tie these knots and do everything on the ground well, then maybe I could handle the stuff in the air. I've been up in the air on high ropes eight times now, and every time I'm still scared, but that fear is met with excitement. Excitement that I'm conquering something, excitement in learning new things, excitement in unlocking a part of myself that I don't usually get to put out there for people to see. Even though I'm scared, I can still contribute to my team and do good work. Now, when I work high ropes for groups who visit, there's usually a few who are scared too. I get to be that person that says, "I'm just like you, and you're going to be great and achieve something you never thought you could because that's what happened to me." All thanks to four totally insignificant and ordinary Killick hitches that turned out to be pretty significant and extraordinary to me.
The reason I'm literally devoting an entire blog post to rope knots is because my love of them came as a huge surprise. I am the first to admit that I am pretty seriously afraid of heights, something that meant that I dreaded high ropes training from the moment I saw it on our training schedule. I was worried that my fear meant that I wouldn't be able to competently do this part of my job, that I would be too paralyzed to even be certified to work the course. The very first thing that we learned was how to set up the course, and I got to meet my knots. Here they are, for your enjoyment;
Figure Eight on a Bight - This is basically our headlining knot, the one that pretty much everyone sees us use, because it's the one that we use to clip in our climbers to the climbing rope. It's a strong knot, it looks super cool, and it sounds super technical when you say "figure eight on a bight" out loud.
Barrel knot on a figure eight on a bight
Stand-alone barrel knot
Killick Hitch - I saved the best for last. This is my favorite knot, which is potentially the most camp-nerdy thing I've ever typed in my life. I will defend the awesomeness of Killick hitches to the grave. I will also defend calling them Killick hitches, even though they are technically clove hitches (and when you Google them, they're totally different things). I call them Killick hitches because that's how I was taught, so that's what I am going to call them, even though I know that it's wrong (it's my blog and I'll use technically incorrect knot terminology if I want to). It is used to attach different widths of rope together, and we use them in our high ropes to attach our climbing ropes to our haul lines (this knot makes it possible for us to pull our climbing ropes into the air). The reason this is my favorite is that it's the first knot where I realized that I was actually decently good at knot tying.
Four Killick hitches like we use in ropes set-up
Killick hitch close-up
After those first Killick hitches, I found myself looking forward to the rest of the training. If I could tie these knots and do everything on the ground well, then maybe I could handle the stuff in the air. I've been up in the air on high ropes eight times now, and every time I'm still scared, but that fear is met with excitement. Excitement that I'm conquering something, excitement in learning new things, excitement in unlocking a part of myself that I don't usually get to put out there for people to see. Even though I'm scared, I can still contribute to my team and do good work. Now, when I work high ropes for groups who visit, there's usually a few who are scared too. I get to be that person that says, "I'm just like you, and you're going to be great and achieve something you never thought you could because that's what happened to me." All thanks to four totally insignificant and ordinary Killick hitches that turned out to be pretty significant and extraordinary to me.
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