How to tie your own harness

Tying your own personal harness can be very important for many things in the sport of kayaking and in many other ways as well. Tying your own harness can be important for rappelling, taking photo/video, or even for scouting a drop where you want to lean over a cliff edge safely. Tying your own harness is very simple and safe when done right.

The first step of tying a harness is to make an overhand knot in your piece of webbing.

Next take the rope and make an overhand knot on a bite. The key to do this is to make it big enough to slide on your leg but not too large that it is loose.

Tie another overhand knot on a bite the same size as the first one about a fist length away.

Now slide the harness onto your legs and do the rest standing up to prevent the harness from being too tight.

Take the long end of the webbing and wrap it around your waist once. make sure it wrapped above your hips because otherwise the harness will fall off.

Next wrap the end through the piece of webbing connecting the two leg loops and around your waist again.

Repeat at least three or four times. The key to this is making them relatively tight so you are secure.

Take the two ends of rope and connect them together using a water knot. Again it is important to make them tight but not uncomfortable. If need be you can always get someone else to help you.

Now you have a fully functional harness. When attaching to the harness make sure to clip through both loops to ensure safety.

The Alpine Butterfly By Jack Carroll

          Hey readers it's Jack Carroll here with another blog post from Keenerville. After reading my tittle you must be wondering what an Alpine Butterfly is and why am I writing about it? The full name of the Alpine Butterfly is the Alpine Butterfly Knot. I am blogging about this knot because today was Thursday, and every Thursday night at Keeners ropes and knots night. On this night we learn about various knots, types of rope as well as situations to use these in kayaking. For example a two to one haul system that can be used to pull a boat out of a deep gorge. The Alpine Butterfly Knot is one of the knots keeners are introduced to on ropes and knots night.

          The Alpine Butterfly Knot is a knot created on a bite of rope that when finished will have two tail ends and a loop in the middle. In order to tie this knot you must first find a sizable piece of rope. Next fold the rope in half and lay it on the table. After that make a single twist in the rope by grabbing the corner of the folded piece of rope and simply twisting it. Once you have completed this make a second twist the same way making sure there is plenty space between each twist creating three separate spaces. Next take the corner of the folded piece of rope and pull it down through the third space and up through the second space. Finally pull it tight by the tail ends and the loop. Now you have successfully tied an Alpine Butterfly Knot. This knot is very versatile as it can be pulled or loaded many different ways. The major drawback to this knot is it can not be inspected from a far distance to see if it is incorrect. Knowing the uses of ropes and knots can be very use full when creeking rappelling around waterfalls or even anchoring your self to take the perfect picture. For these reasons I have found it important to share one of my new found pieces of information. Hope this can be useful to you readers in the future.

          Enjoy the water, until next time,
                                                           Jack Carroll