Last April, at an Access Fund Board meeting, I climbed for the first time with a new friend and board member, Andy Carson. We were in the Red Rocks, on Crimson Chrysalis, and preparing to rappel. Andy had the ropes threaded through a three bolt rap/belay station. I, of course, was watching over his shoulder.

Now, Andy and I are both in the second half of life (i.e. over 50) and have collectively climbed around 50 years. While I've never been more than a punter, Andy's the real thing. He easily has 30 first ascent/new routes to his name in the Tetons, has climbed all over, guided for something like 25 years, and is the former owner of Jackson Hole Mountain Guides. My guess--he knows a thing or two. But that's not why I'm paying attention. It's a rappel. When I started climbing, the world's best climbers died rappelling, and many others of lesser skill have since. Rappelling always demands my attention.

So, watching Andy join the ropes together I had an out of body experience. As he was reaching down for his rap device I heard myself saying, a bit reluctantly, but with great emotion, "Hey Andy, what the fÉ are you doing! Are you going to rap off that?" Now, I must interject here, I really like and greatly respect Andy. He's one of these quiet, measured guys who does just what he means to. I guess with all of his years of guiding he's used to hysterics, because he calmly looked at me and asked what was wrong. "That knot," I sputtered. He quickly replied, "Oh yeah, don't worry, I'm going to back it up."

While I had expected him to have tied a grapevine, instead, he tied a simple double overhand. Yup, took both ends of each rope, abutted them so the ropes ran together, and a second later had tied an overhand knot with themÉsimple as that. Andy proceeded to tell me about his experience in the Tetons with Alex Lowe, and how this was a repeat of the scene which took place with Alex when they climbed together and Alex used a double overhand to connect the rappel ropes. Alex swore that the knot would hold, and better yet, because a double overhand is flat on the bottom, it would snag much less than the grapevine when retrieving the ropes. Andy, being a conservative guy, put a long tail in the overhand and then tied a second overhand as a backup (which I now think adds at least some additional snag potential). Andy swore by it and so I offered to use his body to test the rappel and sent him down first. While I've still not gotten over my paranoia, I remind myself whenever I tie one, that Andy does more raps in a year than an average climber does in a decade.

Since that day, I've tried to find this knot advocated in print and have not, but maybe I'm just cloistered. Nonetheless, it works really well, and I now use it all the time without ever hanging up. You might want to try it.