It's not a knot.. It's BETTER.

This is one of those things you're going to thank yourself for learning .

Let me introduce the rolling hitch known for its ease of tying and ability to fasten to another rope all while being completely adjustable .

The rolling hitch has so many different applications .

Many of which might surprise you .

For instance , if you have a knot that's tied to a really tight rope , it might be hard to undo the roll hitch can take tension off of your main line so you could undo the knot or when there's not enough tension on the line or it's sagging , you could tie this hitch to make it tough without having to mess with the existing knots .

It's also a great knot to use on draw strings on your sweatpants or shorts because it's adjustable or even cinching down on bundles as well as a number of other uses which we'll get to at the end .

But first , here's how to tie it first , take your line and cross over the object or rope that you want to connect to .

Now do one full turn here on the side that you're pulling tension from complete that turn by crossing diagonally over that first wrap come back around underneath and repeat that process one more time here .

You want to make sure that second wrap crosses above that first wrap now continue , go all the way around the top this time and feed that tag end underneath itself , pull in opposite directions and you have your rolling hitch .

So in short , it's two diagonal wraps underneath and one wrap above .

Now to check it's tied correctly , we could see two diagonal crossovers , your tag end and your working end should be facing opposite directions and the side you're applying tension on should have the two wraps .

Now , if you're not accidentally comes out like this where it kind of looks like a clove hitch , but with an extra wrap underneath , notice how there's only one crossover and not the two , then you've just tied a different variation of the rolling hitch .

It's still a rolling hitch .

It still does the exact same thing .

It's really just better suited towards pulling this way and not this way .

One more variation to note is instead of finishing it with just your tag and sliding underneath that final wrap , you can instead put a bite which is a fold in the rope just like this .

And when you tighten it down , it does the exact same thing with the added benefit of just pulling this tag end and the whole thing comes loose .

And in case you're wondering about undoing the normal hitch , just undo this top wrap and again , the whole thing comes loose .

Now , here are a few of its uses in camping , the outdoors and life in general .

First , let's say you have a knot that's jammed up and your ridge line is way too tight to be able to undo the knot .

You'll need to pull slack to be able to get that knot out .

Well , you could use the rolling hitch here to take and relieve stress off that main line .

It basically takes the tension off , giving you a bit of slack so you could undo that knot .

You know , the tension is now put on the new line giving the old one slack with a quick release there .

It's easy to undo .

Now with the opposite scenario where you have a line with too much slack in it and you want to tighten that up .

It often happens with clothes lines or ridge lines that it kind of sags overnight .

So you just wrap your rolling hitch around that ridge line and the farther you slide it , the higher tension it's going to take without having to undo any existing knots on that line .

It's also really good for repairs .

Let's say you have a backpack like this and one of the draws strings that snapped , you can bring the two lines together , tie a rolling hitch one on to the other and now you have a fully adjustable strap .

This is also the hitch that I'll use on drawstrings like on sweatpants or shorts .

When I do this version , I use that quick release at the end .

And so you could just slide to tighten or pull to loosen whatever you like .

And then it just has that quick release where if you pull the whole thing comes loose and in the same way , it could be used to attach two lines together .

I just tie two rolling hitch .

You could see one with the orange line here and then with the yellow line , I tie to the orange main line .

This makes that sort of adjustable loop that you might see on like bracelets or necklaces or something like that can use your imagination from here and just apply it to whatever you want for camping .

It makes an amazing tie out from your tarp to your ridge line on your tie out straps , tie the rolling hitch onto itself .

It creates an adjustable line which also goes by the name Mid Shipment's hitch when you do this and now tie another rolling hitch to your ridge line , which allows each side to slide horizontally along your ridge line .

And if you pull them across from each other , it tightens the tarp perfectly .

It's also the best hitch to when tying to a vertical rope or vertical tree just like this and it's still fully adjustable .

And now for my absolute favorite use of this hitch .

So let's say you want to change the angle of your tarp , maybe it's raining and you want to cover your fire pit a bit or the wind has changed , but there's no tree to anchor to , to get your ridge line to change directions .

For example , here , if we want to move that tarp back and change the angle , there's no real tree to anchor to that maintains that angle .

So with a rolling hitch set up , we loosen that tie out , move the rope to a new angle and tie a rolling hitch from an opposite tree onto that existing line .

And see now as we pull forward , it tightens and acts as a new anchor point completely .

Now , if you have any more uses of this hitch , feel free to add them in the comments below and join the community discussion .

I'm DJ with the bare essentials and thanks for stopping by .