Yosemite Bowline
Bowline with the tail captured in a Yosemite tuck. Dress the collar first or the eye inverts.
Intermediate · Polyester / Nylon rope / Polypropylene / Natural fibre
Connection card
Yosemite Bowline
For fixed eye in the end.
This card does not say how strong the knot is. A retention figure comes from a bench, in one material, at one diameter, tied by somebody who ties it all day — and the line in your hand is none of those. What it does tell you is whether the thing you have just tied is the thing the record describes.
What this plate is telling you
Bowline with the tail captured in a Yosemite tuck. Dress the collar first or the eye inverts.
Save this as a picture and it works with a dead signal and a nearly dead battery, which is when a joint is most often tied badly. The rest of this page — the steps, the seating sequence, the failure modes and the bench — is for the evening before.
Before you start
- ·Leave a longer tail than for a plain bowline. It needs enough length for a wrap around the eye and a tuck back through the knot.
- ·The finish only adds a wrap and a tuck to a finished bowline, so tie the bowline with its collar around the standing part first.
- ·Swift Silent Deadly advises against using it for life support and suggests a figure-eight loop for that job.
- ·Where a failed loop would be serious, Wikipedia suggests a standard or double bowline with a stopper knot on the tail as less error-prone.
Step 1 of 4. Tie a bowline and leave a longer tail than usual. Make a small loop in the standing part, bring the working end up through it, around behind the standing part and back down through the small loop.
No drawing of this exact knot yet. The written steps are the reference.
swipe to step
01
Tie a bowline and leave a longer tail than usual. Make a small loop in the standing part, bring the working end up through it, around behind the standing part and back down through the small loop.
A bowline with a collar of the tail hugging the standing part, the tail lying inside the eye, and plenty of tail left over for another wrap and tuck.
Coming up through the small loop from the top, or skipping the trip behind the standing part. There is then no collar around the standing part, and what you have is not a bowline.
Fix: Pull the tail back out of the small loop and redo it: up through the loop from underneath, behind the standing part, then back down beside the part that came up.
Why: The Yosemite finish only adds a wrap and a tuck to a finished bowline, so the collar around the standing part has to be there before the finish starts.
- Collar never seated — Finish cannot save an open-collar bowline. An unfinished bowline cannot take a Yosemite finish.
arrow keys work
Tying procedure — Yosemite Bowline
- Diagram in reviewA drawing of the Yosemite Bowline itself is being made. Until then, follow the written steps.
Step 01 / 4
Tie a bowline and leave a longer tail than usual. Make a small loop in the standing part, bring the working end up through it, around behind the standing part and back down through the small loop.
You should now see: A bowline with a collar of the tail hugging the standing part, the tail lying inside the eye, and plenty of tail left over for another wrap and tuck.
If it goes wrong: Coming up through the small loop from the top, or skipping the trip behind the standing part. There is then no collar around the standing part, and what you have is not a bowline.
Fix: Pull the tail back out of the small loop and redo it: up through the loop from underneath, behind the standing part, then back down beside the part that came up.
Why: The Yosemite finish only adds a wrap and a tuck to a finished bowline, so the collar around the standing part has to be there before the finish starts.
If wrong: Collar never seated — Finish cannot save an open-collar bowline.
- Diagram in reviewA drawing of the Yosemite Bowline itself is being made. Until then, follow the written steps.
Step 02 / 4
Wrap the tail around the front of the eye leg on its own side, then tuck it back up through the knot along the path of the standing part so it comes out beside the standing part.
You should now see: The tail leaves the top of the knot lying against the standing part and pointing the same way. Seen from the front, the tail's path traces a figure eight.
If it goes wrong: Stopping after the wrap, or tucking the tail down instead of up. The tail then hangs below the knot or sticks out sideways instead of lying along the standing part.
Fix: Take the tail back out to the wrap and tuck it again, upward through the knot beside the standing part, until it exits at the top next to the standing part.
Why: With the finish in place, the tail is trapped inside the knot alongside the standing part rather than lying loose in the eye, and that is easy to check by eye before loading.
If wrong: Tail not captured in the nipping loop — This is just a bowline with a wandering tail.
- Diagram in reviewA drawing of the Yosemite Bowline itself is being made. Until then, follow the written steps.
Step 03 / 4
Hold the eye and pull the standing part against it to set the bowline first. Only after that, pull the tail to snug down the wrap and tuck.
You should now see: The collar sits tight around the standing part with the small loop closed on it, and the wrap then beds down without changing the shape of the bowline.
If it goes wrong: Pulling the tail first. The bowline underneath is lost and the rope forms a different, insecure knot that can slip or collapse into a noose, with the collar no longer around the standing part.
Fix: Untie it completely, tie the bowline again from step 1, and set it with the standing part before you touch the tail.
Why: Wikipedia warns that drawing the tail up before the nipping loop is set can displace the loop and compromise the knot, which is why the order of the two pulls matters.
If wrong: Yosemite tuck dressed before the collar — Eye inverts or the collar walks after the finish.
- Diagram in reviewA drawing of the Yosemite Bowline itself is being made. Until then, follow the written steps.
Step 04 / 4
Before loading it, look the knot over and pull each part once more: the standing part against the eye, then the tail.
You should now see: The tail leaves the knot beside the standing part with good length to spare, the collar is tight, and nothing moves when you pull the eye against the standing part.
If it goes wrong: A short tail, or a collar that has worked loose while you tied the finish. Wikipedia warns that a Yosemite bowline that is not dressed correctly can collapse into a noose.
Fix: Retie it with more tail. Where a failed loop would be serious, Wikipedia suggests a standard or double bowline with a stopper knot on the tail instead.
Why: Swift Silent Deadly advises against using the Yosemite bowline for life support and suggests a figure-eight loop for that job.
Watch the tie
Don't Kill Yourself Climbing: The Bowline With Yosemite Finish (Yosemite Bowline)WhyKnot · Opens on YouTubeExternal video from a creator we follow — not produced by us. Nothing on this page loads from YouTube until you follow the link.
Seating sequence — where failures are born
The step list compresses the finish. Run these phases in order, one at a time.
01 Form
Build the structure loose enough to see every turn.
None. Shape first.
02 Dress
Nest every turn. Crossed parts will walk or jam.
Light — hold the shape.
03 Set
Load the standing part so the intended turns take the strain.
Working load, not a snatch.
04 Check
Confirm the lock still breaks or inspects as the job requires.
None extra.
05 Commit
Only load it after the structure reads correct. Wrong means remake.
Working load, not a snatch.
Finished structure — what correct looks like
No drawing of this exact knot yet. The written steps are the reference.
- ·Dressed bowline, then tail back along the standing part and down through the nipping loop, parallel inside it
- ·Collar first, then the tuck. Reverse that and the eye can invert
- ·Tail parallel inside the nipping loop — short tail or a tail left out is unfinished
- ·Single nipping loop with the tail captured inside it
Verify before you load it
Every line is pass or fail. One fail means retie — do not load a knot you argued with.
- 01Dressed bowline, then tail back along the standing part and down through the nipping loop, parallel inside it
- 02Collar first, then the tuck. Reverse that and the eye can invert
- 03Tail parallel inside the nipping loop — short tail or a tail left out is unfinished
- 04Single nipping loop with the tail captured inside it
- 05Tuck dressed before the collar inverts the bowline
- 06Collar tight, tail parallel inside the nipping loop. Not stronger than a bowline
Field notes — dark, cold, gloves
- ·Dress is the lock. A pretty knot that is not dressed is not finished.
- ·HMPE usually wants a splice, not a hitch you learned in polyester.
- ·If you cannot break or inspect it under the load you expect, it is the wrong job.
When this family fails, it fails as these. The recovered end still outranks the name.
Fixed eye whose lock is a collar seated on the standing part.
- !Open collar — the eye capsizes under cyclic load
- !Cowboy / wrong-direction loop
- !Tail too short to backup, or a Yosemite finish on an unfinished bowline
- !The tail was pulled before the bowline was set, so the bowline is lost and the knot can slip or collapse into a noose
- !The collar works loose while the finish is tied. Wikipedia warns a Yosemite bowline that is not dressed correctly can collapse into a noose.
- !The base knot has no collar around the standing part, so the finish is added to a knot that is not a bowline
Yosemite tuck dressed before the collar
Eye inverts or the collar walks after the finish
Dress the collar first — the tuck is a backup, not the lock · step 03
Tail not captured in the nipping loop
This is just a bowline with a wandering tail
The Yosemite path returns the tail down through the nipping loop · step 02
Collar never seated
Finish cannot save an open-collar bowline
An unfinished bowline cannot take a Yosemite finish · step 01
Eye distorts or the collar walks after the finish
Check
- ?Collar seated first
- ?Tail parallel inside the nipping loop
- ?Eye still a bowline
Then
- →Untie and dress collar then tuck
- →Use a figure-8 loop if the finish keeps inverting
Yosemite tuck dressed before the collar
Check
- ?Eye inverts or the collar walks after the finish
- ?Inspect step 03
Then
- →Retie. Do not dress a defective structure and call it seated.
Tail not captured in the nipping loop
Check
- ?This is just a bowline with a wandering tail
- ?Inspect step 02
Then
- →Retie. Do not dress a defective structure and call it seated.
Collar never seated
Check
- ?Finish cannot save an open-collar bowline
- ?Inspect step 01
Then
- →Retie. Do not dress a defective structure and call it seated.
Same failure class, different geometry. Open the plates — Diagnose still starts from the symptom.
Get it right with everything in your favour0/5 clean
Good light, dry hands, a table. Until the sequence is automatic here there is nothing for the harder rungs to test — you would only be learning that difficult conditions are difficult, which you already knew.
How · Tie it, check it against the list, log it. Five clean and the ladder opens.
Nothing marked. Log it clean, or mark what happened first.
Not ideal for
- ×A thirty-second dock eye (plain bowline is enough)
- ×Wrong dress order — that inverts the bowline
- ×HMPE
Strength, and where the number comes from
Not established
No test separates the Yosemite finish from a plain bowline, so the bowline's own 41.8–70.7% band cannot honestly be transferred to it.
Percentages come from published tests on their own line, their own knot-tyer and their own pull rate. Yours is a different system. Treat a figure as a reason to test, not as a result you already have.
- NetKnots — Yosemite Bowline
- WhyKnot — Don't Kill Yourself Climbing: The Bowline With Yosemite Finish (Yosemite Bowline)
Cited tying video already attached to this record.
Record reviewed 2026-08-14
Vetted references
Check the finished knot against what correct looks like before you load it.