Lophophaps wrote:If I had to give a lot of support to a person and only had a rope I'd make a triple bowline, with loops for each leg and the waist or chest. With a loop of tape I can make a swami seat, which I climbed on for many years.
Come to think of it, that time I mentioned where I belayed my wife with a 7mm cord I may have in fact tied some sort of bowline. I really don't remember, just that the only thing I brought was a 30m length of 7mm cord. The summit of the peak we were climbing was reported to be "4th class", which means not too hard but exposed. I think the Notch on the Anne Circuit is 4th class. A confident climber generally would have no problem with a short bit of 4th class rock. I wore my leather boots on that weeklong trip and only took the cord as a backup, just in case. I assumed it's only use would be to plump up my pillow.
When we got to the summit we found that the final part was significantly more difficult than advertised. Although short, it was very insecure, and a slip would result in serious injury or worse. So what to do?
I walked all the way around to the far side of the summit and managed to anchor one end of the 7mm cord by tying it into a few rocks that I'd wedged into cracks. Then I weighted the rope and tossed the other end all the way over the summit area. I tied the other end into my wife, somehow, with some sort of knot. I tied at least one foot loop as high as I could on the cord draped over the summit. Then I partly climbed, partly bat-manned up the rope to the top. Once on top I tied a loop in the middle of the rope around a summit protrusion to use as an anchor and connected that to me (somehow, with some knot). I made more foot loops in another part of the cord and lowered those down. Then I pulled up what was left of the end that my wife was tied to. There wasn't much rope left. The 30m I brought was almost exactly what we needed.
Then, with a hip belay, I tensioned the rope mightily as she used the foot loops and what holds were on the rock to climb up to me. And then we reversed the whole thing, with me basically lowering her via hip belay.
That 30m of cord weighed 0.9kg if I recall correctly. Well worth it. We found out later that a number of more talented climbers were foiled by the lies in the guidebook. In fact, we discovered that the guidebook author himself had been to the base of the summit multiple times but never to the top.
Anyway, long story, but the point is I made up some knot to tie my wife (and myself) in. Maybe I used figure eights and went through the machinations of adjusting it around each or our waists. But I kind of remember doing something else, something just sort of concocted. I'm sure it included multiple loops around my wife's waist. Given the number of bowlines that exist it seems not too improbable that I tied one by accident.