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How to Climb a Tree (with prussiks!)

Step 3Tie Prussiks

Tie Prussiks
These are the cool part! Make a rope step ladder out of only rope!

These knots called prussiks (shown below) self-tighten and grip onto a rope when you step into the loop, but can easily be loosened to slide around.

You tie the prussik by slipping a loop of rope through itself a few times.

If you know what a lark's head knot is, tie that, but slip the rope through the loop more than once to get this.

For this, three turns were enough. Four was disastrously frictionful, too much to be useful for climbing this tree.
I started with four and reduced it to three.

You can read more about prussiks here.
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3 comments
Jul 11, 2008. 1:45 AMxavtek says:
I like the "machard" better, i have to try the prussiks again, i climb a lot of trees this way. A rope and harness is a blessing when the first branches of a tree are to high to be caught
Jul 12, 2008. 2:35 AMshrimps says:
In the UK thats called a French prussik ;)
Jul 11, 2008. 8:09 AMosh-kosh says:
Blake's Hitch is better for ascending trees than Dr. Prusik's knot. It moves up the rope with out you having to touch it, so you can concentrate on keeping your hands where they should be, on the tree!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blake's_hitch

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Hi! I'm Star Simpson! I'm a real me! See more at [http://stars.mit.edu stars.mit.edu]. photo by [http://bea.st/ Jeff Lieberman] (http://bea.st) stasterisk - my name is Star, and when I wa...
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