Free solo

I am currently watching this documentary about a guy who free climbed El Capitan. 

 

I just cannot understand why anyone would want to do such a thing. Every move risks death. There is no rest no pause no stopping. Only up or death. 

 

Why?! 

the Alex Honnold documentary? Amazing guy. There’s a really good long form podcast interview of him by Tim Ferriss. He basically lives in a van and travels around America climbing stuff 

Scylla, I totally get your horror at this! We always get tickets to the Banff mountain film festival and I think last year or the year before it had a guy attempting a climb unaided(!!!) in the USA. Mental. Incredible to watch but not my bag AT ALL.

Adrenaline is triggered by perception of threat.  Not really fear or excitement, although those are the emotions that can be associated with the feeling of adrenaline rush.

Errrr.  Ok, I'll try to explain:

  • You do it largely to push yourself.  The trouble is that once you've got a taste for it, you go and do more and more extreme things.  The highest solo climb I ever did was 300ft, which was no El Capitan, but certainly enough to kill you if you fall.  Basically the thrill is being able to yourself "I did that".  I stopped free climbing, by the way, because I realised I was starting to push my luck.  Many people don't, and they die in the fullness (or shortness) of time.
  • He had Asperger's syndrome.  Which means that he is totally focussed to the exclusion of other considerations.  That is a big factor in trying what he did. Many at the top end of extreme/dangerous sports are similarly set. 
  • He was superbly in condition and tried out the route he was going whilst roped up to take several times before he attempted it solo.  you can't fault his preparation, and he wanted to make sure he could do all those tricky moves (the thumb/hand switch and karate kick on the Boulder Problem section, at about 1,700 feet up, was the most difficult bit, given that the fingerhold he had to rely on was about an eighth of an inch across).  So he didn't just do it on a whim - he practiced like mad.
  • He could still have failed.  That extended crack climb by Freerider may look easy, but it's brutal, punishing stuff.  It's a testament to his skill and conditioning that he didn't fall.
  • There's a high personal cost to this. Before he met the lady who was prepared to put up with his obsession, he was living in a van and really had nobody close to him.  Obsession does that to you.

Scylla 06 Apr 19 19:27

I just cannot understand why anyone would want to do such a thing. 

And people still wonder why it's guys that wind up running the world

Though less consideration is given to why it is mostly men die young doing stupid things

Not necessarily, Flashy.  Quite a lot of very experienced men in their forties and fifties die doing stupid things, mostly because they've got away with it before and either get slack (make assumptions and cut corners), have become unconsciously incompetent, or don't factor in age, or just plain die of a freak event.  I know four or five divers who've died of the latter.

I'll stick to climbing clubs with a harness, thx.  I was watching my nippers do a climbing wall the other day and the pros were practicing on the other side. some of the stuff the pros were doing was epic - leaps and finger grabs etc (admittedly roped up).

free solo tho, that was fasvinating but bonkers

 

Its Maaaaaaadness, end of

I understand the analysis n all that, lack of fear bla bla but as I don't have that mentalism will never "get it"

*shrug*

*Goes back to trying to understand British politics*

When I was in my late twenties, I was within three grades of the standard of Alex Honnold (the Free Solo guy).  He clims at E1 (the top level of difficulty) whilst I was doing E3s (whilst harnessed, but leading - i.e. placing all your gear whilst leading).  Which, in a climbing wall equates to doing the mental 8 graded climbs with overhangs, jumps, tiny pinch holds and all that shit. 

Has to give it up when Badboy was born, though, as I couldn't be out three nights a week to keep in condition.

Lad I know odds one of the best climbers in the UK. Inspiring but has no stable personal life, just goes from one girl he met climbing to another continually talking about binning them. His life fits in three cardboard boxes. 

Exactly like Alex Honnold before he met his current girlfriend and actually bought a place to live.  At the beginning of the film he ate all his food off the spatula he'd used to cook it, like a fooking animal. 

It's like that for a lot of the guys I know who work at the fringes of human ability. They all have some manner of social issues and don't really fit well in normal society. 

There's something quite liberating about having very few personal belongings. My apartment is now full of beautiful furniture and pictures of nice things all over the walls. I even have a fvcking Eames chair. But aged 30 i was sleeping with a mattress on the floor of my pad in westminster. had a 911 parked outside and a massive telly. i literally did not need anything else. until my flatmate reminded me that no girl was ever going to marry me until i bought at least a bed and a sofa