Twice now I have been out winter hiking with a guide and another person and I'm trying to work out what knot they used to tie the middle person onto the rope.
Let's say the guide is in front, my companion is at the back tied in with standard double figure 8, and I'm in the middle, tied in with a bight. I'll list the things I know and hopefully someone can work out what the knot was:
- The knot started with an double overhand knot on a large bight, so that if the end climber fell I would have 2-3 feet of my own slack. Basically an EDK between end climber and the guide.
- I was then tied in the the bight coming from the EDK, directly through my harness (no biners)
- The knot seemed very bulky and complicated to me
- it definitely wasn't a figure 8 or any variation of
- it wasn't any kind of loop knot like alpine butterfly: as I said there was no biner
- after the knot was tied, the loop/excess formed by the end of the original bight was clipped to my harness. Not sure if this was for security or just to tidy away the end.
- The guide said it was kind of an unusual knot and told me not to worry about it too much. I assumed I could just google it later but in hindsight I should have asked him about it!
In case it helps the first guide was Italian from the Dolomites/Alps, the second was Scottish. Pretty sure it was the same knot.
Final question would be why not just a re-threaded figure 8 on the bight as you would use at the end of a rope, except it would have 4 strands instead of 2?