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WBraun
climber
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Aug 20, 2003 - 02:17pm PT
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Demented
Yes, they were on-sight....Werner
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Melissa
Big Wall climber
oakland, ca
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Aug 20, 2003 - 02:26pm PT
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Dingus...It seems like to you took my post in the right vein, but in that bit that you quoted I meant to say that I thought that Croft was NOT in it soley for the accolades.
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Matt
Trad climber
SF Bay Area
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Aug 20, 2003 - 02:27pm PT
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Hey Brick-
So you know, I personally really enjoy climbing w/out a rope. I thought your earlier posts were tending toward glamorizing the act, and my rebuttal was posted primarily to counter that aspect and create some balance, rather than just call you out or somehow offend you (you never know who will read all of this stuff or what they will be thinking or how much of their own logic they will be able to filter your comments w/).
This is not a campfire in the Valley, and you are not just talking to people who live and breathe climbing. I don't think it's all that responsible to be telling people that if they ever want to get anywhere in climbing they will be surely be soloing sooner or later- the possible misinterpretation of which would be that you may as well get after it now, as you will be doing it soon enough anyway...
I have lots of friends that climb, and some of the most bad ass guys I know would never go out & solo anything (they are just not into it or they have kids or whatever), while others have done some ridiculous stuff, and perhaps their experiences may tend to reflect your own.
I personally try to limit myself in terms of the difficulty of climbs I solo, simply because I like it a little too much and I don't want to start to make deals w/ myself.
As far as anyones "need" to do any soloing goes, route finding skills, route selection, quality of gear available, quality/detail of available beta (ST, et. al.), the willingness to bail & even leave gear behind all seem to me to potentially counter the argument that a climber will necessarily be in some position like what you describe, but regardless, a cool headed leader is not necessarily only a leader who has soloed a bunch. That is just my opinion, take it for what it's worth.
Hey Jody-
I don't think anything I wrote here (or in any other thread) was a personal attack on you. The fact is that you have posted a wide range of stuff on ST, wider than most, to be sure. I am NOT flat out calling you a freakin idiot (or worse), I am just reminiscing a bit about stuff that you posted in the past, I think that's fair game. It seems like you are the one who is being defensive, & if anyone is looking just a tiny bit insecure, just maybe it could be you... granted that you catch lots of flack here (and elsewhere?), but sometimes you set yourself up for it.
I could care less what your TR anchors look like, and I would check before I climbed on them anyway.
[Edit]
And you do post some really sweet pictures (the ones not of guns & ammo), so clearly you are a nature lover and that goes a long way in my book.
Peace & Love
-Matt
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Jody
Mountain climber
San Luis Obispo County, CA
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Aug 20, 2003 - 02:51pm PT
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Matt, I was directing my comments toward Brickhead. Sorry if I didn't make myself clear. Absolutely I set myself up for attack...especially on the political type stuff I post. However, when some idiot posts an absolute lie about me being a careless/unsafe climber and then another idiot repeats the slander on this forum, I got a little pissed. I have NEVER claimed to be a hotshot climber and I NEVER give people advice on something I know nothing about.
Thanks for the kudos on the photos. I don't make any money off my photography so I get a lot of satisfaction out of sharing them and receiving compliments.
BTW, back on subject...Peter Croft told me once that he doesn't like getting more than 15 ft. off the ground when bouldering. I asked him how that could be given his free-solo exploits. He said, "Bouldering you fall, free-soloing you don't". Classic quote. He is indeed one of the friendliest, most down-to-earth people I have ever met...he didn't talk about himself unless specifically asked about something. If I were him, I would have the world's biggest ego. I don't think he knows the meaning of the word ego.
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Matt
Trad climber
SF Bay Area
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Aug 20, 2003 - 03:13pm PT
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Matt, I was directing my comments toward Brickhead. Sorry if I didn't make myself clear.
Hmmm...
"And you(brickhead and Matt) will continue to get your jollies by attempting to make me look bad and by personal attacks. You both have some self-esteem problems I think."
But that's ok dood-
No blood, no foul...
(no need to be a name dropper either =)
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10b4me
Trad climber
Bishop(hopefully)
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Aug 20, 2003 - 03:15pm PT
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Dingus...It seems like to you took my post in the right vein, but in that bit that you quoted I meant to say that I thought that Croft was NOT in it soley for the accolades.
Melissa,
glad you corrected that. I've met Croft, and he seems to have very little ego.
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Jody
Mountain climber
San Luis Obispo County, CA
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Aug 20, 2003 - 03:32pm PT
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Sorry Matt...I posted that after you made this comment..."he has you there jody, just cause you carry a gun is no excuse to blur the lines between the two... ", implying, the way I understand it, that I am on some power trip and can get away with not telling the truth, etc. I understand now the sarcasm, and sorry for including you with that moron brickhead. He is the master of personal attacks.
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yo
Sport climber
Fresno, CA
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Aug 20, 2003 - 03:33pm PT
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I'm interested in what you're getting at, Dingus. Somewhere between being in a total vacuum and having previously climbed a route is where the definition of onsight lies. Nobody ever claims to be devoid of all knowledge in an onsight. Theoretically you couldn't have climbed any route, EVER, for an ascent to be so purely onsight. Does knowing the name of a route hurt? Who knows. I'm not even so sure beta always helps. Watching someone climb a route would help, but picking up random sorts of verbal beta could theoretically make a climb harder than it could have been.
I grew up in Boulder when Derek Hersey was in his heyday. You could always see that guy cruising all around Eldo, soloing like a fiend. Soloed the Naked Edge a bunch of times. If you've been up there, you know it's the real deal, sustained, slick at places, burly to finish. And he would hit several routes a day on the Diamond at times. Up a long 11, like Yellow Wall, down the 10a Casual Route, up something else. Special guy.
The Casual Route, by the way, was originally named something else. Charlie Fowler soloed it, probably not the first, and when somebody asked how it was he said, "Casual."
At Devil's Tower one time I flailed miserably on Hollywood & Vine, 10c I think. Stout. I lowered off and some grizzled local told me about when he had watched through binoculars as Henry Barber onsight soloed it (I think it was onsight, Dingus). Said he was at the crux for a LONG time. The local finally had to quit watching.
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looking sketchy there...
Social climber
Latitute 33
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Aug 20, 2003 - 04:34pm PT
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Yo wisely points out:
"I'm interested in what you're getting at, Dingus. Somewhere between being in a total vacuum and having previously climbed a route is where the definition of onsight lies."
I've always thought that (in general) an "onsight" is not having been on the route before, no beta, no pre-inspection, but certainly knowing the name, grade and location of the route and relying on what you can suss out from the ground.
And yes, there have been many on-sight free solos of routes, but also, yes, they tend to be a small minority of free solos. I would even venture a guess that most people who have free soloed a lot have also on-sight free soloed at some point.
And as for the "noobs" (and the not so noobs), shouldn't climbing be about looking out for yourself and self responsibility. Warnings about the dangers of something so obviously dangerous is something lawyers think up. If free soloists talked honestly about free soloing, it would seem much more enticing than it is portrayed in the press. And actually, such honest reporting would be much preferable to the watered down stuff (safe for the masses stuff) that we see in print.
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Matt
Trad climber
SF Bay Area
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Aug 20, 2003 - 05:43pm PT
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If free soloists talked honestly about free soloing, it would seem much more enticing than it is portrayed in the press. And actually, such honest reporting would be much preferable to the watered down stuff (safe for the masses stuff) that we see in print.
I will take the watered down stuff if it comes w/ a relative lack of accidents and deaths, as opposed to the "Big Wednesday" style of portrayal (a surf flick w/ a bunch of humorously flawed friends who found meaning in their lives through surfing big waves- an all time classic movie, FWIW) if in fact that were to lead even one more wide eyed kid to get after his samurai sword before he was capable.
People will talk about stuff they climb, but there is a difference between talking about something w/ friends & peers & drunks, or posting about it online. As Mike alludes to above, ST likely gets lots of traffic from climbers who ought to be encouraged to be very very safe, as opposed to the opposite. That will give all the YOSAR guys more free time to get some climbing done or help someone hobble down the Mist Trail...
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Melissa
Big Wall climber
oakland, ca
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Aug 20, 2003 - 06:01pm PT
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Check this out for reality...
I actually always came away from any free soloing article that I ever read with the impression that people very rarely get hurt doing it because some survival instinct always keeps people careful enough and far enough within their bounds that accidents are rare. On another forum a poster made the assertion that more accidents were attributable to free soloing than any other cause. This seemed like it must be untrue to me. Others called bullshit as well. He cited ANAM. So I actually looked it up.
http://www.bml.umn.edu/~peter/climbing/ANAM/ANAM.html
The primary cause of accidents, of course, can never be that one was unroped.
However, from 1951-1996 the number one contributing factor to accidents reported was climbing unroped.
I think that this fact is grossly down played...not that it's going to stop James from futilely trying to piss as far as Dean....I just thought that this tidbit was interesting in light of what Matt and Mike were saying.
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Demented
climber
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Aug 20, 2003 - 06:06pm PT
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Melissa,
What’s the old saying? You can make statistics say anything you want?
In the case of the graph you linked to, I wonder what % of those deaths is attributed to hikers and scramblers with no prior rock-climbing experience? My guess would be the majority.
Think about the various unroped accidents you hear of? Are not most of them hikers and tourists and other unfortunates?
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looking sketchy there...
Social climber
Latitute 33
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Aug 20, 2003 - 06:22pm PT
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Please do not make meaningless references to AAC Accidents reports to prove free soloing is so dangerous. The data provided in the charts is so vague as to allow one to conclude that chalk is the single most important safety device ever employed in climbing. Don't believe me, lets look at the stats.
By far the single largest primary factor in climbing accidents is a "slip or fall." And, the vast majority of these accidents occur in the hot (and slippery) summer months. We can all attest to chalk's ability to dry our hands and prevent us from slipping off holds. So....
And add to that: there has never been a documented case of a dead climber being found at the base of a crag with chalk on his/her hands.
Melissa, what total hocum.
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Melissa
Big Wall climber
oakland, ca
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Aug 20, 2003 - 06:27pm PT
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I'm not trying to make much out of the statistics...just to say that I thought those kind of accidents were exceptionally rare but that I also found it curious that the only free soloing fatalities that I'd hear of were a couple of stories of famous people dying on mind-bogglingly bold routes.
Does ANAM include scrambling tourists and hikers? I honestly thought that they did not, but I don't know. I would think that including such data wouldn't be really useful for the AAC's purpose of using this data to educate other climbers on safety issues. My guess was that the incredibly high number of "unroped" attributions reflects "4th class" alpine/mountaineering situations at least as much as 5th class technical rock though. Werner? Link?
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Jody
Mountain climber
San Luis Obispo County, CA
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Aug 20, 2003 - 06:37pm PT
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I also wonder how many of those "unroped" accidents were alpinists that slipped and couldn't self-arrest as opposed to rock free-soloing.
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David
Trad climber
San Rafael, CA
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Aug 20, 2003 - 06:40pm PT
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or untied while on a belay ledge or even while descending over 4th class terrain.
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Matt
Trad climber
SF Bay Area
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Aug 20, 2003 - 06:41pm PT
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Maybe you guys are a little harsh on Mel, but those statistics do include a wide variety of "accidents" including climbers "slipping on rock" while unroped on approaces and descents.
For all of your collective abilities to disect these ANAM stats, you are CLEARLY missing the most obvios lessons to be learned from these graphs! (so please, allow me to enlighten you all).
CLEARLY Americans are far more prone to accidents than our northern neighbors...
...despite the fact that they CLEARLY are more prone than Americans to slip on the snow & ice all the time, they set off more avalanches, and apparently they have lots of chossy rock up there!
duh...
=)
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looking sketchy there...
Social climber
Latitute 33
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Aug 20, 2003 - 06:41pm PT
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I've heard of several accidents where, near the top of a route, the climber unties (for various reasons) and then oops... Primary cause: Slip or fall; secondary cause: No rope. Was this person free soloing, not in any sense we are talking about.
You would have to actually read all the individual accident reports to get a better picture. Then, you need to understand that the majority (vast majority) of climbing accidents don't get reported to or picked up by ANAM. These reported accidents may not be representative either.
Also, if you consult the records of some National Parks/ National Forests, etc. and are able to correlate these reports with reports of a person actually familiar with the accidents, you quickly discover that in fact non-climbers scrambling on rocks are termed "climbers" in these stats.
And in one sense aren't people who are scrambling on steep terrain "climbing" even if they are not "Climbers."
Melissa: my sense is that free soloing has about the same mortality rate as your anecdotal, gut feelings lead you to believe. Very low.
Oh, those Canadians! (They are hardier folk too, with a much lower chance of dying from exposure, and are good at placing passive pro, but lousy at piton craft?.)
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maculated
Trad climber
Danville, CA
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Aug 20, 2003 - 07:08pm PT
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Woah now Jody, I just read this thread and that person you refer to about TRing with is me.
I have NEVER told you that you are the safest person I have ever been climbing with. That would be saying very little about me considering I *did* TR with you, and that's the only thing I've ever seen you set up.
I'm not saying more, but don't tell people I said that.
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Jody
Mountain climber
San Luis Obispo County, CA
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Aug 20, 2003 - 07:45pm PT
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"Woah now Jody, I just read this thread and that person you refer to about TRing with is me.
I have NEVER told you that you are the safest person I have ever been climbing with. That would be saying very little about me considering I *did* TR with you, and that's the only thing I've ever seen you set up.
I'm not saying more, but don't tell people I said that. "
Nope Kristen, I never said it was you. It was someone else...you kinda jumped the gun on that one.
Your point is?
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