Fiddlestix Anchors

[dustinsc]

My roommate (who has only been canyoneering once, but has a wealth of knowledge and experience with ropes and knots) and I were playing around with this today, talking about how this could be problematic in a tight area where there is some risk of the stick getting bumped. So my roommate looked at it and said, "why don't you just tie a slipknot on the other end?" So we tried it, and it worked great. We used a double slipknot to make sure the rope was big enough. I tried tugging on the stick, and it does not come through the other end. Then we tried pulling the rope, and it didn't seem to complicate the pull much, if at all. Stick came out super easy. This accomplishes a similar thing as moab mark's pin. I don't know that it would be useful in all situations, and I need to experiment some more, but it seems like something useful to consider.


[And no, the stick is not ideal, but it's what we had laying around and was good for what we were testing.]

[hank moon]

i think that red is not the best choice for fiddlestick color. what if it gets stuck and left hanging for all to see? In Utah, seems likely that it would become an attractive target for the ubiquitous gun-toting tourist. Go with black or gray (preferably battleship).

[dustinsc]

i think that red is not the best choice for fiddlestick color. what if it gets stuck and left hanging for all to see? In Utah, seems likely that it would become an attractive target for the ubiquitous gun-toting tourist. Go with black or gray (preferably battleship).

That stick was made in a pinch for one canyon, and I've just been using it to test variations on the concept. There's a lot more wrong with it than the color: it's too slippery, the rope is attached with a clove hitch and not through a hole, etc. It won't see another canyon.

[PG Rob]

I need to experiment some more

I like the ingenuity and idea.
I suspect that once the rope is hanging more than 4 feet off the ground, the weight of the rope will pull right out of the slipknot. Try experimenting with some weight on the pull side that would be comparable to the hanging rope... maybe 1-2 pounds to represent 25 feet of hanging rope, 2-3 pounds for 50 feet and 4-6 pounds for 100 feet.

[Deathcricket]

I like the ingenuity and idea.
I suspect that once the rope is hanging more than 4 feet off the ground, the weight of the rope will pull right out of the slipknot. Try experimenting with some weight on the pull side that would be comparable to the hanging rope... maybe 1-2 pounds to represent 25 feet of hanging rope, 2-3 pounds for 50 feet and 4-6 pounds for 100 feet.

Naw naw this can be made perfectly safe. All you need is another fiddlesticks for the slipknot, then another pull string for that fiddlestix. You can even add a 3rd fiddlestix until you feel safe. :)

[Candace66]