@LoadedLimbs asked me the details of my current Garda hitch footloop in a different thread but I'm going to reply here just for anyone else following the developments on my method. I promise I will film another video as soon as possible. If I can get a camera operator, this weekend.
Ok. Nothing motivates me more than somebody who needs some information. I just walked in the door and snapped these pictures for you. In the original Footloop Utube video, I built a shorter foot Loop but later integrated my redundancy into the Garda hitch and so I need it longer. We need it long enough such that if we were to fall onto it with the integrated best friend, that we can still step up on it. In the original video, i went a little bit overboard by tying a figure 8 knot AND an overhand knot. But I wanted to error on the side of safety. Since that time, I have been testing out 2 designs. The first one uses a length of webbing which is twice your height, or approximately 12 feet for me. The second one is 2 feet longer or 14 feet for me. In both, I formed the bull hitch variant exactly as on the video starting about 6 in from the center. In the shorter variant, I closed it with just a single overhand knot capturing for strands in creating two identical loops, one in the other. In the longer variant, I create two overhand knots in series. Obviously, two is more secure than one, but even with one, it has never budged even a little bit. Be aware, that I do not consider the foot Loop to be a life-sustaining part of the system. It is used in transition only and so the foot Loops don't need to hold two thousand pounds. They just need to hold our body weight reliably. If it ever were to slip, it really doesn't affect us because we are always tied in. Nevertheless, we want it to be stable. The finished product with my foot in the loop is such that the top of the beaner is exactly the height of my belly button. In the photos, the one with the lighter color webbing and one overhand knot is polyester. The darker one with two overhand knots is nylon. Nylon is thinner, makes a more compact knot, and I believe it's less reflective to a deer's sensitive eyes, and is my slight preference, but it's really close. Ok now, the "best friend" is simply a piece of 8 mm cord. It has a clove hitch on the Garda beaners. 48 inches is probably a good length to cut. I shortened mine down to 40 in after fine-tuning. That clips into my redundant Bridge like I demonstrate on my climbing videos. I will explain this better when I do the next video, but the entire point of the best friend system is that if one or both of our friction hitches were to slide down, that we would be hanging safely from the best friend loop on the Garda. Ok, but then what? We would be stuck there if we didn't have a way out. Self rescue and self repair is no problem. This is when we would tie a new friction hitch, using which ever strand of cord survived or whatever extra cordage we brought with us for an emergency. The easiest way down is to Simply tie a klemheist around both strands of rope. But in order to load it, we'll need to make sure our foot Loop is long enough to step up onto it. And so when you build your foot Loop and you tie your best friend, it's a good idea to break your friction hitches until you are completely hanging on the best friend. And then simply try to see if you can recover. Step into the foot Loop and push your friction hitches back up. If you can't do that, you might need a little longer foot Loop or shorter best friend loop.
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