Lynn Hill: amazing profession climber. Mis-tied her knot (figure 8 with a follow - she forgot to finish the follow so it was useless) and fell 60 feet into trees to live and keep on climbing. Her advice at a talk a few years ago was "always tie a stopper knot". A stopper knot is an extra "useless" knot that takes seconds to tie and will secure your figure 8 if you threaded it wrong.
While climbing at the Gunks in NY about 8 years ago on a spring day, we heard this massive thunder a few hundred yards away. A small volkswagon sized boulder had broken free from the wall and fell smashing trees below. My friends were about 3 routes away from it when it fell.
There's good and bad news on the figure 8 itself. The good news is that they're visually easy to check -- any screw up will make the knot look very different. The bad news is that they invert at relatively low loads. That's mitigated with a long tail.
However, I've never seen any evidence that those single fisherman's people tie in the tail actually do anything. The key is making sure the tail is long enough that the knot is still tied if it inverts.
That's crazy about the rockfall -- lucky you guys weren't standing underneath!
Thanks for the correction -- i was completely wrong! I heard the story 2nd hand from my friend who heard her talk at Rock and Snow in New Paltz.
I oversimplified my knots explanation so i wouldn't bore anyone. Isn't the fisherman's knot supposed to jam up the knot if you missed a loop of the figure 8?
While climbing at the Gunks in NY about 8 years ago on a spring day, we heard this massive thunder a few hundred yards away. A small volkswagon sized boulder had broken free from the wall and fell smashing trees below. My friends were about 3 routes away from it when it fell.