I just found out recently from Don Blair that he actually named the Blake's Hitch for Jason. Apparently, he was talking to Jason Blake when Blake first started climbing on the hitch (which Blake had learned from someone else). He was telling Don how he was going to make a VHS tape of how to tie and climb on the hitch (which you can find online) but couldn't think of a good name.
He suggested something to Don, which was way too long, and Don said that people would forget that name in 5 minutes and he should just call it the Blake's Hitch. Jason took his advice, and the rest is history.
Dr. John Ball took a poll of tree climbers recently, and he said that the majority of tree workers (I believe he said 80 percent) still use the Blake's Hitch, which they consider an advanced way of tying a hitch! So, so much for the Blakes Hitch being old-school!?
I wonder what the "revolutionary" SRT/SRS climbers would think of that, knowing that they are a minority? I do consider myself primary an SRT climber (I hate the SRS acronym), but I did learn on the taut line, before switching to the Blakes and then the VT.
The video shows how to tie the Arbsession hitch. However, the point @Brocky is making (I believe), and based off of making a quick examination of the tying methods for each hitch myself a few moments ago, the Catalan is tied exactly the same way. Two differently named hitches, same tying method, with the Arbsession being the original (it was, I believe, first called the "tr33climb3r," and created by Casey Seldens, who changed the name to promote his arborist supply store).
The first known presentation of the Blake's hitch was made by Heinz Prohaska in an Austrian guides periodical in 1981; in 1990, he presented it in a caving journal, Nylon Highway. Hence, back then it was called the "Prohaska hitch" which was shortened to "ProhGrip."
Separately, Jason Blake discovered the knot for himself and presented it to the arborist community in a letter to Arbor Age in 1994, after which it was enthusiastically adopted by arborists. It has since become well known under the name "Blake's hitch".
Ha! Clearly you haven't seen my YouTube channel. I've created, designed, developed and tested over 85+ new friction hitches at this point. I have at least 1-2 videos discussing and demonstrating how to tie each friction that anyone can watch and learn from, and then use themselves! I've also created approximately 20+ new knots of various types.
My most recent friction hitch is called the Blizzard friction hitch! It's easily one of my best hitch creations thus far!
If you'd like to watch some videos about this friction hitch, including one where I demonstrate the Blizzard hitch's reliability and impressive performance during an actual climb, click on the link below. It will take you to my latest post on my thread where I showcase all of my hitch, knot, and climbing videos from my YouTube channel!
Here is my latest videos published to my channel for a new slipped hitch that myself and another YouTuber conceptualized and then came up with a few possible applications for it. It can be used as a loop knot, but it works better as a hitch since it gets weakened a bit by ring loading. I...
www.masterblasterhome.com
There are still so many friction hitches and knots that can be discovered, learned, used, and enjoyed by climbers of all disciplines! I am truly addicted to the thrill of adding new and original anything to the world of climbing, and I find great pleasure and satisfaction in producing educational video content for tree climbers to learn from!
Ha! Clearly you haven't seen my YouTube channel. I've created, designed, developed and tested over 85+ new friction hitches at this point. I have at least 1-2 videos discussing and demonstrating how to tie each friction that anyone can watch and learn from, and then use themselves! I've also created approximately 20+ new knots of various types.
My most recent friction hitch is called the Blizzard friction hitch! It's easily one of my best hitch creations thus far!
If you'd like to watch some videos about this friction hitch, including one where I demonstrate the Blizzard hitch's reliability and impressive performance during an actual climb, click on the link below. It will take you to my latest post on my thread where I showcase all of my hitch, knot, and climbing videos from my YouTube channel!
Here is my latest videos published to my channel for a new slipped hitch that myself and another YouTuber conceptualized and then came up with a few possible applications for it. It can be used as a loop knot, but it works better as a hitch since it gets weakened a bit by ring loading. I...
www.masterblasterhome.com
There are still so many friction hitches and knots that can be discovered, learned, used, and enjoyed by climbers of all disciplines! I am truly addicted to the thrill of adding new and original anything to the world of climbing, and I find great pleasure and satisfaction in producing educational video content for tree climbers to learn from!
You are correct, the Knut H shown is for use with the HHs, the hitch can be used alone, but I trap the right eye under the bottom section of rope, could also go under just the next section up, or both of the bottom sections.
Hey @Knotorious, I checked out you YouTube channel and just wanted to say fantastic job on knots! I love seeing new stuff like this. Surely, you must have gone through Ashely's Book Of Knots? That is the bible of knots and it's where I first got hooked learning and tying knots.
Brion Toss was another one of my knot mentors. He first told me about the "Icle Hitch," which if I'm not mistaken, is the only hitch that you can tie on a tapering sailing pin and not have it slide down and off.
Hey @Knotorious, I checked out you YouTube channel and just wanted to say fantastic job on knots! I love seeing new stuff like this. Surely, you must have gone through Ashely's Book Of Knots? That is the bible of knots and it's where I first got hooked learning and tying knots.
Brion Toss was another one of my knot mentors. He first told me about the "Icle Hitch," which if I'm not mistaken, is the only hitch that you can tie on a tapering sailing pin and not have it slide down and off.
Thank you! I'm glad that you appreciate the work that I'm doing on my YouTube channel!
I've never once read more than a few chapters of the Holy Bible, but I've read the entire Ashley Book of Knots twice and reference selections of its chapters even more frequently than that! I regularly have to sift through its pages in order to help verify whether or not many of my knots and friction hitches are actually novel, unique and original. It's also a great source of inspiration for new topological (knot) structures, although, when I create my own, new hitches and knots, I typically just discover them through experimentation; trial and error and my own testing.
Then I'll check to see if it's been referenced in the ABOK and, if it hasn't, I'll make a video about it; sharing my new concept, and my excitement over it, with the world through my channel! =-D
The first known presentation of the Blake's hitch was made by Heinz Prohaska in an Austrian guides periodical in 1981; in 1990, he presented it in a caving journal, Nylon Highway. Hence, back then it was called the "Prohaska hitch" which was shortened to "ProhGrip."
Separately, Jason Blake discovered the knot for himself and presented it to the arborist community in a letter to Arbor Age in 1994, after which it was enthusiastically adopted by arborists. It has since become well known under the name "Blake's hitch".
Thanks for verifying my claims, @Brocky, and for adding some new information! I always wondered who coined the name "ProhGrip."
Below is a copy of the actual article that Heinz Prohaska wrote in the Nylon Highway caving journal (issue No. 30). If you take a look at the knot shown in the diagram of "Fig. 1 Knot 1," you can clearly see that it is tied exactly the same way as the modern day, better-known Blake's hitch!
I do absolutely love my Rope Runner Pro, however, as far as I'm concerned, nothing performs better than a friction hitch-based climbing system, whether it be MRS or SRS. Friction hitches (particularly the ones which perform better than most, and make up the top 30%), when chosen wisely for any given application, when tied correctly/with an ideally sized hitch cord, and when dressed and set correctly, are so much easier to advance/tend on a climbing system than any mechanical I've ever used.
Typically, from my experience, a hitch-based system will respond more smoothly, lock up much more reliably, cost significantly less, is easier to replace, easier to customize the amount of friction, weigh so much less, and often have a much smaller profile.(compared to all of the mechanical devices I have ever climbed on).
Obviously, however, when used for SRS, a wrench/tether can be both costly, and sometimes have a long profile, but, overall, they are typically still lighter and less expensive than any purely mechanical multicender device (e.g. - Rope Runner Pro, Zig Zag/Zig Zag w/ Chicane, Akimbo, Unicender, Akimbo, etc.). The Hitch Hiker is a much more compact alternative to the Rope Wrench/Tether system, but it is also quite expensive.
I received a DM from @Brocky yesterday, which said the following…
"Your post #53 about Jason Blake coming up with the same hitch is contradicted by Chris’ post #39. Dan Lehman theorized that Blake hadn’t also originated the hitch and came up with the ProhGrip name."
@Brocky has pointed out the fact that @chris_girard claims Jason Blake learned about the Blake’s hitch from some other, unknown individual, and that he did not discover it independently…which is contrary to what I stated in my post based off of an online reference.
"I just found out recently from Don Blair that he actually named the Blake's Hitch for Jason. Apparently, he was talking to Jason Blake when Blake first started climbing on the hitch (which Blake had learned from someone else). He was telling Don how he was going to make a VHS tape of how to tie and climb on the hitch (which you can find online) but couldn't think of a good name."
"Separately, Jason Blake discovered the knot for himself and presented it to the arborist community in a letter to Arbor Age in 1994, after which it was enthusiastically adopted by arborists. It has since become well known under the name "Blake's hitch"."
NOTE: The reason I stated that Jason Blake “discovered the knot for himself” was because that is what was written on the Wikipedia page for the Blake’s hitch.
You can find that claim from Wikipedia by following this link below…
Because I love research, and because I STRONGLY value providing factual, and accurate, information to anyone, and everyone, at all times, always, I have done some additional research in hopes of disambiguating this apparent “contradiction.”
After much investigation using Google’s search engine, I came across a downloadable PDF for a written work called Son of a Hitch: A Geneology of Arborists’ Climbing Hitches. In this article, there is a segment all about Blake's hitch and it reads as follows…
After reading this additional resource, it seems readily apparent that Wikipedia has it wrong and that @crhis_girard’s anecdotal evidence, which suggests that Jason Blake had learned about the hitch from someone else, and did not originate it himself, is factually accurate.
It appears that Blake is credited with popularizing and spreading awareness of the hitch, as well as naming the hitch so that it mirrored his surname. However, this article contradicts the claim that he discovered the knot independently himself sometime shortly after Pohaska.
Epic New Information Regarding the History and Origination of the Blake's Hitch...
What’s way more interesting to me is that this article states that Prohaska was NOT the first to publish the Blake's hitch knot. This article claims that Clifford Ashley shows a two-coil version of this knot (1944, p. 266, ABOK #1470) in his Ashley Book of Knots, but does not name it.
This rabbit hole went deep, but I feel like I got to the bottom of it. You're welcome! =-D
For those who may be wondering what the Machard Tresse friction hitch that this author spoke of, introduced by Francois Dussenne at the ITCC competition in Halifax in 1994; that would be the "VT" aka Valdotain Tresse, which is effectively a Valdotain (a completely different friction hitch; and also one of the oldest and most primitive friction hitches) that has braids.
A properly tied Valdotain Tresse(VT) has braids that have the hitch cord legs alternating position from top to bottom depending upon the original orientation of the coil, contingent upon the chirality of the hitch; wheter it is tied either levorotary or dextrorotary.
Have you ever wanted to learn how to properly count the number of braids and wraps in a friction hitch? Here is a video that I made early on in my YouTube days, which goes into great detail about how to properly count wraps and braids. It's not as straightforward as you may think and this knowledge is invaluable to the any climber, both new and old.
(Some of you hate when I plug my content on this forum. But you must understand that I do so in order to spread useful education; I'm not clout chasing!)
You just made my day; and you just made me smile. Thanks, I really needed to be uplifted today. Been going through a lot. I appreciate your appreciation for me and my work. Much love your way, @Naturarbo!
@Knotorious the praise is real. This great group of people have shown me so much, in exchange of a bit of respect & positive energy.
After seeing your work I realize how small is my contribuition here.
Sorry everyone, I DO LOVE YOU ALL
@Knotorious the praise is real. This great group of people have shown me so much, in exchange of a bit of respect & positive energy.
After seeing your work I realize how small is my contribuition here.
Sorry everyone, I DO LOVE YOU ALL
Let me sleep on that question. I'll get back to you in the next day or so with my personal recommendations for friction hitches to try with your rope wrench! As well as links for each one's tying method, and any other relevant content worth watching about each one. Thanks again for publicly showing appreciation for myself and my contribution to the climbing world!
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