HT-04Hitches
Prusik Knot
Rated Black because it is regularly used to bear body weight in climbing and rescue systems, where it has to be tied and checked correctly before it is trusted.
Black-Rated: advanced and extreme knots
The Black tier is the top of the three-tier difficulty scale used across this directory, explained in full on the About page. A knot lands here for one of two reasons: it carries a real load in a system where a mistake has consequences, such as a body weight on a fixed rope, or it locks so effectively that it is close to permanent once tied. Both of the entries below are worth the extra care that rating implies.
- 2Documented entries
- 2Categories represented
- 30/07/2026Latest revision
The two Black-rated entries
BD-03Bindings
Constrictor Knot
Rated Black for the opposite reason: not because it is fragile, but because it locks so effectively that tying it in the wrong place can be a one-way decision.
Other knots commonly placed in this tier
Two knots outside the current directory are worth naming here, since they come up constantly in the same conversation as the two above and share the same reasoning. Neither has a full entry on this site yet.
- The Munter hitch, tied around a single carabiner, is used as a simple substitute belay or rappel device: it creates enough friction to control a fall or a descent without any mechanical hardware, which makes it a genuine load-bearing knot in its own right.
- The alpine butterfly loop is tied in the middle of a rope, not at an end, to isolate a worn or damaged section, or to give a middle climber on a rope team a secure loop to clip into, and it is built to take a pull from either standing part without slipping.
Both belong to the same category of knot as the two entries above: correctly tied, they do their job under real load; incorrectly tied, the mistake usually is not obvious until weight is already on the rope. That is the actual definition of this tier, more than any single knot in it.
A note on how to use this page
Everything on this site is written as general reference, checked against standard rope work sources, not as instruction for life-safety use. Climbing, rescue and rigging with real consequences call for hands-on teaching from a qualified instructor and the specific guidance that comes with your equipment, not a written description on its own.