2021 venture vermont: Learn to tie 3 new knots

 if you didn't just wander in here, a few minutes ago, you know that  i am very much about the knots.

i have biners and doohickeys that help you not have to tie knots, but if you know how to tie knots, you won't loose a mattress on the interstate, and if your fancy clips break, you'll still be able to tie things down.

but i'm a hammock sleeper. i camp in hammocks and i sleep at home in hammocks and last year for my birthday my mom bought me a sweet custom built hammock, and once you're looking at a hammock custom built for you, you start to think about how well you like it's suspension and assorted accoutrements.

my lovely custom hammock comes with a cinch buckle i don't love as much as the buckles on another hammock i have, but those buckles are proprietary, so i bought a set of buckles and made myself some continuous loops, which are basically just rope circles, which means i had to learn to SPLICE.

a neat splice is not technically a knot, but then bends aren't technically knots either.

anyway, i did a whole bunch of hammock related rope stuff.

here's a dogbone daisy chain. it's a spliced daisy chain with a locked brummel splice at each end. it's super handy and you can girth hitch it to anything and have a little daisy chain to hang things from. i use it for hangign my taarp from my free-standing hammock rack.

this is a continuous loop. it's just a spliced circle, and it's handy for anytime you need a ring.

this is a marlinspike hitch, which is handy for tent pegs or rope ladders or if you just need a handle somewhere on a rope. the stake or whatever that goes through the center is what holds the hitch together.

here are two views of a j-bend. the continuous loop is in the place of the stick in the marlinspike, which is the base of the j-bend. basically it gives you a strong and flexible and hardware-free way to hang your hammock. usually i like the adjustability and ease of my hammock buckles, but each buckle weighs something and if i were seriously backpacking, i'd want the weight savings.

the good thing about the j-bend is that it will hold the body weight of a whole adult person and still come undone when you pull out the slipped bit.