Pros and cons of the Garda Hitch

Do you need to haul a small load? Did you forget your Petzl Traxion or Tibloc? Might be time to break out the old-school Garda hitch, aka “alpine clutch”.

The Garda hitch is a one-directional, self-locking hitch that lets you haul, but lets you relax your grip when you need a break, capturing your hauling progress.

To haul, simultaneously pull UP on the load side of the haul rope and DOWN on the brake side of the rope. Don’t just pull down on the brake side, because the garda hitch adds a LOT of friction. An informal test I did with a spring scale and a 10 pound barbell weight showed it took about 60 pounds of pulling force to lift a 10 pound weight through a Garda hitch; just 17% efficient. That is terrible!

The Garda hitch can work (reasonably) well when you create slack from doing something else, and then pull the slack rope through the hitch. If the rope has any kind of load on it, it's going to be very difficult to pull through. So, be sure you lift UP on the load side, and not just pull DOWN on the brake side.

Locking the knot is simple: just let go.

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A few notes:

• Ideally, use identical snapgate carabiners. Some people think it works better with oval carabiners, but personally I don't think they make much of a difference. You can hang two quickdraws together and use the bottom two carabiners.

• Avoid locking carabiners with a sleeve, as the sleeves can prevent the rope from locking down properly.

• Adding the girth hitch from the anchor sling is optional. But, in my experience having the top of the carabiners held together makes the hitch better behaved. Try it with and without and go with what works for you.

• While some sources suggest this can be used in a crevasse rescue operation as the progress capture, many folks think this is not such a great idea because the hitch can be a little squirrely if the carabiners are not properly oriented, it's hard to release under load, and depending on how it's configured, it can add a LOT of friction to your hauling system. The few times I've used it, it's been for non-critical situations such as hauling up a backpack. (Having said that, I recently went to a crevasse rescue clinic taught by a pro guide, and he used a Garda as a progress capture in a 6:1, creating slack and then capturing it with the Garda.)

• It's important to monitor the Garda hitch carefully. If you get a loop of slack rope above the carabiners, weirdiosities can happen and the entire thing can unclip itself! Yikes! (Another reason why I am not a fan of this for rescue purposes. )

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Downsides to the Garda hitch:

• Lots of friction. Yes I mentioned that, but it's worth mentioning again.

• Very difficult to release under load.

• A bit tricky to remember which is the load strand and which is the haul strand.

• Depending on the carabiners used, it can be a little wonky and unreliable. Adding a girth hitch to squeeze the tops of the carabiners together, as shown in the previous photo, can help with this.

• This hitch works best if the carabiners are hanging free instead of lying against the rock. When you start hauling, the rope will run along the spine of the carabiner, see photo below. If the carabiners are resting against the rock, it could have the rope rubbing against the rock, creating extra friction, or even do something weird to the carabiners or so they don't “lock” together as you expect them to.

• It usually flips after it’s loaded and looks completely different than how you originally tied it, which is a little unnerving! There is no other climbing knot that does this. See photo below.

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Having said that, it can be used for crevasse rescue; in this case, to ascend a rope. Here's a great video on crevasse rescue techniques from some top German guides. Watch the video below, starting at around 3:15, to see the demonstration..

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Here's how to tie it.

Start with two identical carabiners (non-lockers preferred) clipped to the anchor, gates facing down and out. Clip the rope through both carabiners.

In the photo below, the hauling rope is on the left (purple carabiner) and the loaded rope is on the right (blue carabiner).

in the haul strand of the rope on the left, make a loop as shown.

Clip this loop into the right side carabiner.

Done. If you've tried it correctly, the haul strand should be coming down between the two carabiners. Pull on this, and the load will come up. If you stop pulling, the load tensions the carabiners together, pinching the rope.

Keep your water from freezing in a snow camp

When you're in a frozen environment like a Denali high camp, liquid water is precious. After you melt snow, preserve that water by burying your pots of water.

You need a pot of water, a stuff sack or large plastic bag that goes over the pot (this is essential to avoid frozen ice against the pot the next morning), four wands, and a shovel. Bury your pot about 10 inches below the snow’s surface and cover it with snow (if powder is not available, use the shovel to pulverize snow as much as possible). It is key not to leave any air pockets. Use the wands to locate it the next morning. Even if it’s 60 below, your water will not be frozen! This works with water bottles as well, but you might have to bury those a bit deeper.

More tips:

• If your water is in bottles, store those upside down so any ice, if it starts to form, will do so on the bottom, not the lid.

• To keep the cap from freezing to the bottle you can coat the threads of your bottle with vaseline or lip balm.

• If you have a platypus-type bottle, you can wrap the tube in foam insulation, and be sure to blow water back into the bladder after you take a sip so it won’t freeze in the tube. (Better yet, don't take a water bladder in the first place, they are prone to all kinds of problems when alpine climbing.)

• If the water bladder water line freezes, just put the line under your jacket next to your skin (not as bad as it sounds, really!)  Your body heat will melt the ice in a few minutes.

Get water on the go - 3 tips

Here are some tips for “water harvesting” on the move.

1 - If climbing or hiking across a snowfield, keep your water bottle easily accessible. Frequently add handfuls of snow to your water, without stopping. On a warm, sunny day, this snow will melt or form a drinkable slush — bring a straw and some Gatorade powder for a poor-man’s Slurpee.  (One more reason not to use a water bladder - you can't easily refill like this.)

When you grab or cut snow chunks to add to your water bottle, collect from the bottom edge of a snowfield or serac. This snow is heavily saturated with percolation and will add more water than the same snow volume gathered from lighter, fluffier snow. 

2) Water running down a rock face face in a broad, yet shallow, curtain can be hard to collect. Here’s 2 tricks.

A -  Carry a small length of aquarium tubing type hose; buy it any a decent hardware store or aquarium shop. Use it as a flexible straw to suck up water that you can't reach. (This is especially handy in desert areas, where water may be just a tiny trickle.)

B - Remove your jacket and long-sleeved shirt, and then spread and flatten your hand across the rock, giving the wet slab a chest-level “high-five.” The water will collect on your fingers and run down to your elbow in a stream; fill your bottle from this drippage point. (This last tip and image are from Climbing magazine.)

Face your tent door into the breeze to avoid bugs

When it’s breezy, mosquitoes will congregate on the lee side of objects to avoid being blown away. So pitch your tent door into the breeze. You’ll be able to enter without bringing the swarm in with you.

Ridgelines often have more wind than hollows or valleys. If it's really buggy, try to camp on a ridgeline if you can.

Face the door of your tent toward an oncoming breeze to help avoid mosquitoes.

The three types of mechanical advantage

This article has some diagrams made with the very cool rope rigging software, vRigger.

Use discount code “ALPINESAVVY” to get 10% off vRigger software.

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Short version : sort of like a blind date, the mechanical advantage you’re hoping for is never as good as what was promised. =^)

Mechanical advantage (MA) systems are typically described with a nice, tidy number, like 2:1, 3:1, or 6:1. In theory, this means with a 3:1 system, one unit of input force (that’s you pulling on the rope) results in three units of output force that gets applied to the load.

So in theory, with a 3:1, you can move a 100 kg load by pulling with only 33 kg of force. Wouldn't that be nice!

While this is a convenient number to generally describe an MA system, unfortunately you’ll never achieve that in real life. Why?

There actually three different flavors of MA that need to be considered:

1. Ideal

2. Theoretical

3. Actual

Let’s have a look at each one. 

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Ideal MA

With a 3:1 system, you need to pull 3 meters of rope through the system to move the load 1 meter. With a 6:1 system, you need to pull 6 meters of rope to move the load 1 meter. Pretty simple idea, right?

Unfortunately this would only be true in an imaginary universe with no friction. While the ideal MA is useful for generally describing a system, it doesn’t tell you much about the pulling force that’s actually applied to the load. So for now, we’ll step away from it.

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Theoretical MA

In the real world, every time the rope changes direction, friction enters the system. Your pulling energy, instead of being 100% transmitted along the rope, is converted to heat from the friction, and this heat is lost to the atmosphere. With a good quality pulley this friction will be minimal. With a carabiner this friction is substantial.

The term used to describe friction in rigging systems is efficiency.

A good quality pulley is around 90% efficient. That means that 90% of your pulling force gets moved through the system and you only lose 10% to friction. That's good! On the other hand, using a carabiner, which is about 50% efficient, means that you lose 50% of that input force to friction, and only half of it comes out the other side of the carabiner. That's not so good!

By using a technique called the “T method”, it’s fairly easy to calculate the friction involved in your system to get a more realistic view of the “pull” needed to move your load.

Here’s a link to an article on figuring calculated MA and some good video links to learn the T method.

Here’s a quick example of the T method on a 2:1 system, one with a pulley and one with a carabiner. (This diagram was made with a very cool software, vRigger.

Use discount code “AlpineSavvy” to get 10% off vRigger software.

When you start looking at Theoretical MA, things get interesting!

• On the left, using a high-efficiency pulley on the load, you need to pull with less force, but you also have a higher load on the anchor.

• On the right, with a low efficiency carabiner on the load, you need to pull with more force, but that puts a lower load onto the anchor.

images made with vRigger

Have another look at “El Puerco” at the top of the page. Both set ups are for a theoretical 3:1.

• The one on the left is set up with good quality pulleys at every change of direction. With that, you get about the best possible MA of 2.7 to 1.

• However, the system on the right, which is one often improvised by climbers with minimal gear, introduces a lot more friction into the system from the Grigri and carabiner. This gives a rather pathetic calculated MA of 1.65 to 1. Big difference!

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Side note: Do mechanical advantage systems magnify load on the anchor?

An MA system, in theory, does not magnify the load on the anchor. At the theoretical level, with a simple system like a 2:1 or 3:1, you're never going to apply more load on the anchor then the weight of your load.

• At rest, the anchor sees the weight of your load.

• When you're pulling, you are supporting some of the load with your hand, so that gets subtracted from the load on the anchor.

• However, when you start adding in real world factors, such as friction of the rope running over an edge, forces can start to become higher than the load. But, at a theoretical level, it's important to know that the MA system itself does not magically increase anchor force.

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Actual (aka real world) MA

Finally, there’s the third flavor of mechanical advantage, actual.

Actual MA is the actual result of all the messy and hard-to-quantify variables encountered when actually trying to pull something. For example:

• the rope running over a ledge or through climbing protection (LOTS of friction can come from this; ledges are bad)

• rope strands that cross, are twisted or rub (try to minimize this)

• whether your rope is dynamic or static (static is better)

• Whether your rope sheath is old and crusty or new and slippery (slippery is better)

• the diameter of the rope (smaller is better)

• the diameter of your pulley wheel (larger is better)

• the angle of your pulling hands relative to the anchor (try to pull in line with the other rope strands)

So, squirrely things like that! You might have calculated your MA with the T method perfectly, but when you start introducing some of these other factors into your system, your real world MA decreases even further. About the only way we can measure this is using scales and load cells with a real load.

So, the takeaway: theoretical MA will always be greater than calculated MA, and calculated MA will always be greater than real world MA.

The 3:1 Spanish Burton haul system

When learning mechanical advantage for rope rescue, I think it’s important to start with the basics: a 2:1 “C” and a 3:1 “Z”. 

Once you have those dialed, one can be added on top of another one to create what’s called a compound 6:1 if you need extra pulling power.

In just about every rope rescue scenario, some combination of a 2:1, 3:1 or 6:1 should cover all of your needs.

However, if you like playing around with ropes (and I know you do, otherwise you wouldn't be reading this) here’s an interesting one to learn: the 3:1 Spanish Burton.

(No, I have absolutely no idea why it’s called the “Spanish Burton”. Guessing it had to do with a guy named Burton who found himself on a Spanish sailboat about 400 years ago . . . )

Why might the Spanish Burton be applicable in rope rescue?

1. In a vertical lift, you can pull DOWN with your body weight to lift the load. (In a more typical 3:1 Z drag, you need to pull UP.) For a vertical lift, it's helpful to have the anchor point as high up as possible so you can use your body weight most effectively.

2. It lets you set up a 3:1 with basically zero extra rope. Such as, you're only carrying a meter or two of extra rope, your partner falls in a crevasse, and you need to set up a 3:1. (Yes I know, not super-practical, but could be helpful.)

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Spanish Burton rigging notes . . .

• The purple sling is tied to the green rope with a Klemheist hitch. You could also use another rope grab here, like a Tibloc. (I used a sling here; any bit of cord or sling will work.)

• The 120 cm purple sling means you need to reset the system often. If you have more room to work, you could replace this with an untied cordelette, which would give you a much longer pull.

• The always handy Petzl Micro Traxion is the progress capture pulley on the anchor.

• We have two “traveling” rope grabs moving toward each other. This means you need to reset your system more often, which can be a hassle if you have a small workspace, or no big deal if you have a large area to work in, like on a snowfield.

• Note that the Spanish Burton increases the load on the anchor. For example, if you pull with 1 “unit” of force, this puts a load of about 4 “units” on the anchor. Compare this with a traditional 3:1 Z drag. With a Z drag, if you pull with 1 unit of force, you have 2 units of force on the anchor. If your anchor is unquestionably strong, no worries. If it's not, this may be something to consider.

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Using the “T method” to determine the mechanical advantage

There's a technique called the “T method”, or the tension method, which can determine the mechanical advantage of many rigging systems.

• We start with an input force of 1, that's your hand pulling on the purple sling.

• At the blue pulley, the input force is doubled to 2. That gets transmitted to the prusik hitch, and to the green rope.

• The 2 on the green rope goes into the Traxion. That is doubled for a total force of 4 on the anchor.

• The input force of 2 comes out of the Traxion on the other side as 2.

• This force of 2 travels down the green rope on the load side. There, it meets the force of 1 on the left side of the purple sling.

• You add those together for total mechanical advantage of 3:1.

If you want to learn more about this, here’s an excellent tutorial video on how to count tensions using the T method.