Vertical caving terminology and methods > Knots > Common knots
Common Recommended
A special type of adjustable friction hitch, tied on a bight, that lets you use a carabiner as a descender or belay device. Preferably a steel carabiner because it gets worn out quite quickly otherwise. Locking gates are essential. Increasing the tension on the down rope increases the friction, and slows the descent, just like a regular descender. Lifting the down rope up, so that it wraps further around the carabiner, also increases the friction. Twists the rope badly, so only used as a descender when needed/lazy. Often used as a belaying knot for a climb or ladder. The knot is bidirectional, and when pulled in the opposite direction along a rope, it will swing through the carabiner, reverse its direction, and perform the same task in the new direction. HMS carabiners are recommended because their shape and size is designed specifically for this purpose. For safety, the knot should be arranged so that the down rope is on the side of the carabiner away from the gate, if possible, since it can potentially unlock the gate by rubbing against it and catching on it. If the knot reverses because the direction of pull changes, the down rope will switch sides of the carabiner, so that in one direction, it will run against the gate, so this requires more care. When arranged so that the down rope is on the right side, exiting from the back of the carabiner (as it usually would be for a right-handed user), movement in either direction would normally cause a screw gate to tighten up no matter which side the gate is on. When arranged on the opposite side (as a left-handed user might do), or on the right side but exiting from the front of the carabiner, movement in either direction will normally cause a screw gate to unscrew. Users of this knot should carefully examine this motion to ensure that they use it in the safest manner. Made from an incomplete clove hitch or lark's foot.
There is also a "super" version of the knot, which wraps the tail of the knot back around the opposite side of the up rope in the same direction. This version is able to produce much more friction, and is therefore used for much heavier loads. This has the very significant benefit that it does not twist the rope like a standard Italian hitch while abseiling, though it introduces 2.5-3 full twists into the rope while tying it, compared with the Italian hitch's 1-1.5 twists, which can make it appear to introduce some twists when abseiling towards a rebelay. It can still change direction, but requires much more force to do so. If the second part of the knot is added to an existing Italian hitch, it switches which side of the carabiner the rope exits from, so the tail will now run against the gate when the Italian hitch would not have done. As a result, it is therefore best for the initial Italian hitch to have the carabiner clipped through it in the wrong direction for an Italian hitch, before adding the second part of the knot. However, it should still be tied in the same direction as the Italian hitch (as a right-handed user would usually do).
The knot is first thought to have been used by Phoenician sailors in around 1000 BCE (approximately modern day Lebanon), to control the launch of a ship. Much later, the knot became known as the crossing hitch, used to add a little extra grip where strings crossed when tying up a package, with the earliest known English depiction being from 1911. It was then used as part of a body abseil technique called the two leg seat, which was depicted in the 1913 edition of the mountaineering booklet Anwendung des Seiles published by the Bavarian section of the German Alpine Club, without giving any details about who invented it or when. It is not immediately recognisable in that format, but it used exactly the same principle, substituting the legs for the carabiner, and can therefore be considered the first time it was used for abseiling. The Italian hitch was then used by Russian climbers in the 1930s, presumably with a carabiner like it is normally used now. It was stated as being for belaying, but this could not be verified, since German mountaineer Pit Schubert made the statement in 1999 without providing a reference for it.
The knot was then depicted in 1944 by American sailor Clifford Warren Ashley as the crossing hitch in the Ashley Book Of Knots (#206, #1818), used to make a temporary circus fence. It had probably been used for decades for that purpose. It was then reinvented in Italy by Mario Bisaccia, Franco Garda and Pietro Gilardoni, in the late 1950s. It was intended to be used when initially securing boats to a bollard, reversing as needed to pull a boat closer, or to let it pull away. It was called "mezzo barcaiolo" ("half the clove hitch") in Italian, as it was an incomplete clove hitch. The German military used it for abseiling as early as 1966 for mountain rescue, and German military mountaineer Hans Hintermeier depicted it in their mountaineering regulations as the "Seilkreuzbremse" ("cable cross brake"). Swiss mountaineer Franz Ruso proposed its use for belaying in 1967, the way it is used now, but was ignored. It was separately recognised and used the same way by mountaineers in Italy's Valle d'Aosta for belaying by 1969. Swiss mountain guide Werner Munter is often mistakenly credited with introducing it to mountaineering, having learned about it while training as a mountain guide. The date of that is not accurately stated, but it is likely to have been 1969. He proposed its use for belaying in 1971, with the tail of the knot being held around the shoulders, which made it impossible to use as a reversible friction hitch and caused it to catch falls much more abruptly, so it was less useful for belaying, and this approach was abandoned. In the same year and at the same meeting, the Valle d'Aosta mountaineers tried to persuade the International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation (UIAA) to use the basic Italian hitch the way they had been doing, which is the way it is still used today for belaying, but it was rejected because it was incorrectly assumed the rope rubbing would damage it too much. Their much better use of the knot had nothing to do with Werner Munter, and had developed completely independently. The Italian hitch was probably first used for caving in Ghar Parau in Iran in 1972, by Iranian mountaineers who abseiled using it during the British expedition.
In 1973, after it was proposed again at a conference by the Italian mountaineers, Pit Schubert's safety group showed that it was safe to use for belaying, and during discussions between Pit Schubert and Werner Munter, it was given the German name "Halbmastwurfsicherung" ("half the clove hitch belay"), or HMS. The use of the Italian hitch had already spread to mountaineering around the World by the mid 1970s, and its emergence soon prompted the introduction of the HMS carabiner. Some climbers then (incorrectly) renamed the Italian hitch after Werner Munter, presumably because of his enthusiasm for it, and his own repeated incorrect claims to have introduced it to climbing, including arguments over whether he or Franz Ruso used it first. It really does not matter which of them used it first, because it had already been used for mountaineering over 50 years before either of them used it. Werner Munter's name is not appropriate for it, not only because he did not invent it, did not introduce it to mountaineering, did not use it the way it ended up being used, and was not the first to propose its use for belaying, but also because it only became accepted for belaying within mountaineering due to its proposal by Italian mountaineers, and then became popular because the UIAA recommended it, not because of Werner Munter. Being loud does not make you right. Most British cavers call it the Italian hitch.
This history section only covers the Italian hitch. This article also has a detailed history of many of the other devices and techniques that are used for vertical caving.
<< Lark's foot, lark's head, girth hitch, basket hitch, lanyard hitch, cow hitch, strop hitch, bale sling hitch | Prusik knot (pronounced "PRUH-sik", even though it should be "PROO-sik"), Gérard hitch, Hedden knot, kreutzklem knot, klemheist knot, inverted Hedden knot, French Machard knot, Bachmann knot, Bachmann hitch, autoblock knot, Machard knot, French prusik knot, Schwabisch hitch, Distel hitch, Valdôtain tresse, Valdôtain tresse XT, helical knot, Penberthy hitch, steeplejack's hitch, locking hitch, Blake's hitch, Prohaska knot, rolling hitch, Magnus hitch (sometimes "knots" in USA) >>
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