Today, I’ll be giving a small presentation to a group of Cub Scouts on rope and knots. A good friend and college professor of mine had asked for this favor as we had reconnected at a recent tree climbing competition, and so I thought it would be a good opportunity to spark some inspiration and offer something up to the community.

As I brainstorm for this small project, I was inclined to pick up Bruce Smith and Allen Padgett’s absolute classic On Rope. And as I’ve written in the past, this book is a wonderful reference for rope work and rigging, not to mention filled with great history of rope as a modern tool for access and high angle tasks.

Simpler yet, on the front dust jacket cover of the hardcover edition of the book is a classic photo of a caver on rope, illuminated as a silhouette from the daylight above, dangling over the adventurous unknown on a brave static line. And offset on the right hand column of that front cover of the book is this list of occupations that the book is intended for:

Caving, Search and Rescue, Firefighting, Rope Rescue, Mountaineering, Window Cleaning, River Runners, Rock Climbing, Arborists, Event Riggers, Military Operations, Challenge Courses, Nautical Applications, Rappellers.

I’d say that’s a good list of adventurous careers.

Rope is adventurous, and I think that if your occupation finds itself on the front cover of this book, then you yourself are some type of adventuror as well; whether you’re saving people from fires or the the danger of high mountain peaks, or defending your country, or simply seeking out the depths of the unknown, it seems as though the bold and the daring find rope as their main tool choice. Rope work and those individuals that employ it are not really just thrill seekers, but creative thinkers and artists that elevate themselves to new heights (or new depths) just by the basic concepts of ropes and rigging.

It is possible to do incredible things with the very basic knowledge of knots, hitches, bends bights and loops. These small aspects of rope work reminds me of a recent quote I heard from an artist by the name of Mel Ketel in a Vans promotional video where she says, “Creative people take small opportunities and do more with those.”

In some ways, I think that perspective owes itself to rope work and clean rigging, taking small opportunities to be creative with our knots and rigging. Whether it be a special finish to a fisherman’s bend or bowline, a custom variation of a friction hitch or utilizing a knot for an uncommon application-small opportunities to be creative exist everywhere in rope work.

Just thinking about rope in this sense connects me to when I was young, dreaming of being an adventururer of some sort, a life filled with daring missions and tactical operations. Maybe as an arborist I’m not quite the daring adventurer that I had plans of being, but I think the old saying holds true in this case, “shoot for the moon, and if you miss, at least you’ll land amongst the stars.”

Thinking about something as simple as rope also reminds me that there is a great comfort in knowing you’re attached to something, even if it’s the rising memory of dreaming big.