How to Make a Rope Climbing Saddle

Rope climbing is an exhilarating outdoor activity where participants scale rock faces which can be completely vertical. Whenever climbing, it is important to have proper safety equipment, including a climbing saddle, which allows you to hook onto the safety line and stop your fall if you slip. If you do not have a saddle and need to climb up or down a face, you can make your own using a piece of rope.

Things You'll Need

  • Rope
  • Carabiner
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Instructions

    • 1

      Hold the midpoint of the rope against your hip. Then pull one loose end around to your front directly, and pull the other end around your waist to meet up with the first end at the front of your waist. One end of rope will thus be longer than the other.

    • 2

      Cross the longer end over the shorter end twice. The ends will have switched sides, meaning the end which wrapped around from your left will hang on the right, and vice versa.

    • 3

      Pull each loose end through your legs, along the underside of your buttocks and up to the hip on the side the end began at. Pass the ends under the rope wrapped around your hip.

    • 4

      Cross each loose end back under the section of the end just before it crossed under the waist rope, creating a loop in the rope. Then pass the end through the loop. This forms a hitch with each end to secure the saddle. The loose ends of rope will hang down pointing toward your front.

    • 5

      Wrap the loose ends around your waist so they meet just in front of the hip where you began.

    • 6

      Cross the end coming from the hip you began at under the other end, then over it and pull the ends apart.

    • 7

      Pass the same end over then under a second time and pull to secure a square knot. One loose end will be facing forward and the other facing back.

    • 8

      Secure each loose end to the rope in the direction it is facing with a half hitch, wrapping the rope around the waist section and through the loop formed.

    • 9

      Clip in a carabiner over both times the rope crosses your front, the twisted section from the first pass and the single rope from the second pass, making for a total of three sections of rope in the clip.