How To Knot Climbing Rope

If you go climbing without knowing how to knot climbing rope, you could find yourself taking a potentially deadly fall. Knowing how to tie on to your climbing harness is one of the primary skills of rock climbing, rappelling and caving. Though the directions below give you a basic run-down of the method, there is no substitute for instruction from a qualified teacher. Get training and supervised practice before betting your life that you know how to do this.

1. Take one loose end of the climbing rope. Fold it over itself at a point about three feet from the end. Climbers call this fold in the rope a "bight".
2. Twist the bight 360 degrees. Pass the loose end of the rope through the bight. Looking at the knot in the palm of your hand, it should resemble a figure eight. If it looks like a pretzel, you only twisted it 180 degrees. Untwist and try again.
3. Keeping the figure eight knot loose, pass the loose end of the rope through the handle in the front of your climbing harness.
   
4. Feed the loose end of the rope through the figure eight, tracing the path of the rope back through.
   
5. Tighten down the figure eight knot by pulling on both ends of the rope. Further tighten by pulling hard on each of the four lengths of rope one at a time.
6. Tie off the loose end of rope that sticks out of the figure eight, using a square knot to attach it to the other length of rope.