Six Climbing Friction Hitches and Their Pros and Cons

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In some ways, this is a companion video. I had (fairly) recently done a video about new soft good materials that I have added to my climbing rack. In that video, I talk about adding new materials that have different properties, and therefore different strengths and weaknesses. Some of those strengths and weaknesses are so pronounced that that actually preclude using some materials in certain ways. For example, the Sterling HallowBlock 2, which doesn’t have a core, it’s basically all woven sheath, shouldn’t be used as fall protection - that lack of core makes it comparatively weak when taking a shock load. But, that same lack of core means that using it as a friction hitch increases the friction when compared to other materials; the woven sheath and lack of core means it can flatten around the rope when pulled tight.

The point of the blog post that accompanies that other video is that there is kind of a macro-risk tradeoff when using these newer materials. On the one hand, if we only had soft goods made of the all the same materials, we would only need to know the strengths, weaknesses, and appropriate uses for just one item. That’s a lot less to remember and therefore a lot less opportunity to misapply a material to a use. On the other hand, though, these new materials do perform certain tasks better (the ones each material is designed for), reducing risk in the application of it, itself. But, then, of course, we need to know the pros and cons of a lot of different stuff.

This video on different friction hitches if very analogous.

Each friction hitch I discuss in the video (there are six), addresses some of the weaknesses of other friction hitches. In certain applications, each hitch does perform better than the other options. But, now I need to know which hitch to apply in each situation. That demands that I evaluate each situation well in order to make the right choice of hitch. That’s a lot more to remember.

So, is ignorance bliss? Would only using one or two hitches reduce risk by reducing the opportunity to misapply a hitch? It could be. But, obviously for me (or I wouldn’t make this video), I like to bet on myself. I like to have both the control and the responsibility to know my stuff and apply the right stuff to the right situation. Basically, I’m trading off having slightly reduced risk in each situation where I apply the right hitch to the right situation over the risk of misevaluating and then misapplying a hitch.

It’s not a clear-cut choice, but I’d rather put more burden on myself and trust in my knowledge and abilities.

Hence, this video.

If you are interested, the material you are seeing in most of the field clips is the Sterling HallowBlock 2. You can learn more about the strengths and limitations of this material by watching this short. And you can find the HallowBlock 2 for purchase, here (19 in). For the demonstration clips in the video, I am using a spliced (rather than bar tacked) Dyneema loop that you can find, here.