Yosemite Bowline

As a lover of knots and knotting, to learn a new twist to an old favorite is most exciting!  A friend who had just completed some firefighting training just showed me the Yosemite finish on a bowline.  I learned to tie a bowline when I was five years old (a requirement per my father before I could take the boat out, since that was the only knot [bump] he would permit us to use to tie it up).  Learning this finish to that knot many decades later is just as exciting as learning to tie it in the first place.

Yosemite Bowlinehttp://www.netknots.com/rope_knots/yosemite-bowline/A Yosemite bowline is a very secure loop knot and is a version of the Bowline with the free end wrapped around one leg of the loop and tucked back through the knot, commonly known as a "Yosemite finish."
In addition to being more secure than a standard bowline, the Yosemite variant is also easier to untie after a load. Climbers often make use of the advantages it offers over other knots in using the knot as an alternative tie-in to the Figure Eight, and to secure heavy loads such as haul bags.
The only downside to the Yosemite Bowline is that it is more difficult to visually inspect than the Figure Eight. It was a Yosemite Bowline that failed on Lynn Hill in France, causing her to careen 70 feet to the base of the climb. Be sure to practice the Bowline many times before trusting it with your life.

1. Lay the rope across your left hand with the free end hanging down. Form a small loop in the line in your hand.

2. Bring the free end up to and pass through the eye from the under side (the rabbit comes out of the hole) and wrap line around standing line (around the tree).

3. Feed line back down through the loop (the rabbit goes back down the hole).

4. Wrap tag end around it’s leg of the loop from back to front and then feed up and out of knot following next to path standing line takes coming into knot.

5. Pull on loop, standing line and tag end to tighten down the knot. Make sure there are two parallel wraps around one leg of loop and the tag end and standing line exit the knot together.