The Bachmann hitch (sometimes misspelled 'Bachman') is a

friction hitch A friction hitch is a kind of knot used to attach one rope to another in a way that is easily adjusted. These knots are commonly used in climbing as part of single-rope technique, doubled-rope technique and as "ratchets" to capture progress on a ...

, named after the Austrian alpinist

Franz Bachmann Franz may refer to: People * Franz (given name) * Franz (surname) Places * Franz (crater), a lunar crater * Franz, Ontario, a railway junction and unorganized town in Canada * Franz Lake, in the state of Washington, United States – see Fran ...

. It is useful when the friction hitch needs to be reset quickly or often or made to be self-tending as in crevasse and self-rescue. (See

Prusik A Prusik ( ) is a friction hitch or knot used to attach a loop of cord around a rope, applied in climbing, canyoneering, mountaineering, caving, rope rescue, ziplining, and by arborists. The term Prusik is a name for both the loops of cord used ...

knot) The Bachmann hitch requires the use of a

carabiner A carabiner or karabiner () is a specialized type of shackle, a metal loop with a spring-loaded gate used to quickly and reversibly connect components, most notably in safety-critical systems. The word is a shortened form of ''Karabinerhaken'' ...

. It does not matter if the carabiner is locking or not. Most importantly, the carabiner must be of round cross section for friction. Grabbing hold of the carabiner will release the friction and allow the hitch to slide freely and thus be moved appropriately. To remove the Bachmann hitch, just unclip the top loop, hold on to the carabiner and pull the cord free. This knot is frequently tied using a sling made from 1" tubular webbing. In this case wrap the webbing 3 times around the rope (this means the carabiner gate must be opened 3 times in the tying of the knot) for normal (dry) applications. There are a limited number of applications that involve repeated shock loads to the knot and in these 4 wraps are usually sufficient. However, with a non-locking carabiner it is safer to use the knot with the carabiner gate opening facing down (opposite to what is shown in the picture). This decreases the risk of self-unclipping: at maximum, one twist goes off. Otherwise, the whole knot may fail. It is important for safety reasons to mention that the rope used for the friction hitch should be smaller in diameter than the tension rope. This allows for movement when resetting the hitch position but when a large load is applied to the friction hitch, the hitch locks on to the tension rope. If two ropes of the same diameter are used for the friction hitch and tension rope, the hitch may move freely like a slip knot (lasso or noose) and not lock into place. When encircling any cylindrical object, most ropes can only be tightened to a diameter slightly greater than the ropes own diameter(USMC Assault Climber Course).

External links

A study of common friction knots
Climbing knots {{Knot-stub

See also

External links