For tarp and tent, I do one end bowline and one end double half hitch, that way everything is adjustable/can be tightened. For food hang I'm less specific I just use a long rope and wrap it around the barrel several times then finish off with a couple overhand knots, and like Dave I just wrap around the tree trunk several times and it holds itself (I'll tuck in the excess rope to one of the loops just to keep it clean/out of the way)

EddyTurn wrote:

For tarp ridge line I use a truckers hitch at one end  for tightening the line and prusiks for tarp attachment points (combined with S-biners). Taut-line hitches for tightening guy lines and side ropes. Slip knot is perfect for keeping a rope safely attached to whatever it's attached to under a pull (like both ends of a painter rope). Double Fisherman's knot for joining 2 lines. That covers 90% of my needs.
Oh, also Monkey Braid for keeping ends of rack straps from flapping in the wind.

 
Ok good.  This confirms what I was thinking of moving to.

Truckers hitch for ridgeline with prusiks to tighten tarp.  Likely add a small carabiner to the end of each prusik to easily clip to the tarp. I never knew how easy the prusik knot was until recently.
I was thinking taut line hitches for guy lines too.

Cool

Thx everybody.

Most of the above mentioned knots sum up my knowledge of knots except I haven’t seen a mention of the Buntline Hitch. It’s my favourite for securing one end of a rope, for attaching to tarps or painters on the canoe.

I’d also like to add that more often then not a couple of half hitches does the job well enough. Until several years ago I really didn’t know any other knots but over the last few winters I pass the time sitting on the couch with a meter long 8 mm rope and watch animatedknots.com. The rope is stored in my 2 year old daughter’s toy box and occasionally she pulls it out and wants to wear it as a belt. So I teach her how to tie two half hitches.

Last edited by solos (11/18/2019 1:11 am)

MartinG wrote:

Here's my favorite, I call it the Arrghh, f****n, son of a &^$%, Mother ^&*$#!!!! Use it every trip!


 

Lol.
Funny Martin that is only 1 of a few knots I really have down.
 

If you can't tie a knot, tie allot!

Martin - I use your knot with my food bag, but only at night, in the rain, when I'm ankle deep in moose leavings.

Lofty's note interested me - the Sheet Bend is a super-helpful knot to know.  For those who don't know, that's to join to ropes together of different diameters.  Square knot does the same for two ends that are of the same diameter. 

The use of a Figure Eight can be handy to prevent an end from slipping through a pulley for example, but if it is on the end of a piece of rope in general to prevent fraying, I find it a pain in the dupa because it interferes with untying knots.  Still, depending on what you are using, you gotta do what you gotta do to prevent fraying.  It did put me in mind of another rope skill - splicing, which you can do if you have a three-stranded rope (or more strands if you have a lot of dexterity).

Splicing is both fun and useful, it just takes more time than tying a knot, and I think most of the time we aren't using stranded rope (although we've all seen stranded rope when somebody loses a foodbag line....I'm hilarious).  Stranded ropes tend to be thicker and heavier than what we would typically want to give packing space to or add portage weight for, but hey it is worth a mention, because splicing really is fun.  At least I think so...  

End splice (or back splice), is a way to finish the end of your rope to it will never fray.  

Long splice joins two ropes together and retains more of the rope's strength than if you used a knot.  

Eye splice forms a loop at the end of the rope, which is super-handy.  I tend to tie loops in the ends ropes because it is faster and/or I don't have stranded rope, but the knot frequently gets in the way.  An eye splice is a really clean way to accomplish the same thing.

There are lots and lots of splices, but I think you'd find the above three the most common and most useful.

So, to me, splicing would be a fun skill to learn, a fun in-camp skill to learn as well, and could be a fun in-camp skill to teach someone else.  There has never been a person who made a splice who didn't want to show it off to somebody after they did it.  The chief downside is you do a splice, then you wish you had more rope to splice and even if you do have more rope to splice you can't justify the utility of doing it just for the sake of doing it.   

I don't know many, but the ones I do know have been adequate for my needs. Bowline, trucker's hitch (with a slippery half), taught-line, and prusik. I set up my tarp with a bowline/carabiner at one end, trucker's hitch at the other. It has 2, permanently-attached prusik loops each made from short pieces of cord tied into a loop using a fisherman's bend. These loops slide on the tarp rope and I spike my tarp to them using the tarp's loops and short sticks I find on site. I then slide the prusiks to position and tighten the tarp.

Ok my upstairs banister right now. My wife thinks I’ve lost it.

G.E and Truckers Hitch seems to work well for ridgeline.

Last edited by ShawnD (11/23/2019 1:30 pm)