Prussik As A Friction Hitch

is that the cheese hitch?
grin.gif
 
No still thinking of a name...may have one...waiting to release the hitch with the name. It has been working really well though...doesn't hockle the rope either on long descents.
 
Frax,
I had the same ?? but someone told me you cannot descend on a prussik like that, that it would be too difficult & dangerous to control your speed. Don't know, haven't tried it.
But I am very much liking the VT over the Blake's.
 
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Frax,
I had the same ?? but someone told me you cannot descend on a prussik like that, that it would be too difficult & dangerous to control your speed. Don't know, haven't tried it.
But I am very much liking the VT over the Blake's.

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I know you can't put your hand above the Prussik on the competition secured footlock for good reason, to prevent accidental release.
I ask this Q because we have an old-school climber at our company who only uses this. I don't work with him much but now I'm curious how he uses it on descent. He's been climbing for ages so he's quite used to his own techniques.
 
The guy who I've done the most climbing with uses a 4 coil prusik with an i2i tail and a cmi pulley. He likes keeping his rig really simple and bare bones, and the 4 coil prusik does the job for him.

XT for me, though. Too cool of a hitch to not use.

Also, I may be wrong here, but I think descent on a prusik hitch (or any hitch) is only an issue in a single line scenario, i.e. secured footlocking on a doubled rope or SRT without a RopeWrench or Robot or whatever. We're all taught we have to use a f8 or munter in order to come down on your footlocking prusik, right? Descent on a prusik in DdRT should work just fine, and probably behaves similarly to a distel or swabisch, I would think (but I don't know cause I don't use the hitch).
 
It will descend just fine, sometimes it will bind a bit and need some loosening after being loaded.

The problem is more in it's inefficiency at ascent. One hip thrust at a time holding the rope under the hitch and sliding it up each time.

No arm over arm above the hitch then taking up the slack pulling the tail behind a micro pulley.

It was all i knew my first couple of years climbing. Saw Dan Kraus on a VT out here for the first comp in 1997. Went home & figured it out that night and never went back.

We call it the "English Prussik" here, normally made from a loop tied with dbl fishermans rather than an e2e version.

It used to be really mainstream here, pretty well all any climber used. Blakes & Tautlines weren't really used here much that i know of. It went from the English to the VT then on to all the other modern hitch variants.

There are still plenty of less progressive climbers here using it.
 
If you mean the style of prusik tied with a tail and a stopper knot on the end, rather than a loop. Yes it can be a problem depending on the rope. My first rope was arborplex and the prusik tended to loosen and needed regular re tightening by pulling on the tail. Now if you're climbing with 3 strand or 16 strand the prusik performs better because those ropes have less memory than arborplex. In fact some climbers at the time used 3 strand polyester and tied the prusik 2 under and one over, rather than 2 over, because the 3 strand gripped itself and held together well when tied in a friction hitch. An englishman got me using prusik loops made from spliced 3 strand. And I do like arbor plex, but more for rigging these days.
 
I used to climb on that back in the day. It was a type of English prusik. Three strand Dacron rope spliced into a loop or single line then a loop on the end. It works alright and I preferred it over taught line and blakes but not over the VT and others.
 
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I used to climb on that back in the day. It was a type of English prusik. Three strand Dacron rope spliced into a loop or single line then a loop on the end.

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Ditto, back in the day.
I would suggest trying a 3 over 1 hitch instead of 2 over 2.
What cordage are you using for climbing line and hitch cord?
 
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