Hello all. First post. I am not a working arborist, but have an interest in climbing gear and techniques. I used to be the "groundie" when a friend and I had a firewood business.

Does anyone tie a Blakes Hitch with a loop of rope like the one pictured here? It seems to advance and release very well.

Hi Surveyor, welcome to the message board. Interesting set up. It looks a little like a combination of a Schwabisch and a 4/2 Blake's. I've used a 4/2 "Blake's-On-A-Bight" that was the brainchild of Swamp Fox as a mid-line climbing hitch, but never anything quite like this -- gotta go out to the practice tree and try it out. What kind/diameter of rope did you use for the split tail?

The hitch cord is 3/8" I am not even sure what kind of rope it is, just some I had laying around. It works on the rather fuzzy nylon rope shown, but does not grip on my polyester Yale XTC Fire that I tried it on today.

Hey Surveyor -- finally made it to my practice tree today and had about the same results as you. I used 3/8-inch Beeline for the hitch cord and tried the knot on Safety Blue, Bandit and my last good coil of 12-strand Sportline. It worked fairly well on the Sportliine but creeped badly on the Safety Blue. It didn't seem to grip at all on the Bandit. Keep trying.