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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Nov 20, 2014 - 03:46pm PT
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There were reader comments for that post?
I guess I must have missed what the man said.
Comments are always so enlightening...
but there's always a gem.
a lot of prime OpEd real estate to essentially say nothing.
EC In My Butt--It must have been a "slow opinion day."
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aspendougy
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Nov 20, 2014 - 03:49pm PT
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Risk is hard to quantify; Todd Skinner and Jim Madsen died doing roped climbing; did they take a greater risk just because they were careless, just once, at exactly the wrong time? Most of us have to admit that at times, we have taken unnecessary risks and gotten away with it.
John Long wrote that classic article about missing a sequence free soloing with Bachar, and nearly peeling. He survived, then almost kills himself in the gym! Risk seems to have an unpredictable, chaotic element to it.
There is something to be said for taking less risk if you have a child who will have to grow up without a parent. I know many climbers who take much fewer risks once they are parents. Even Honnold would break his Mother's heart if he dies soloing.
Those who object to the decision can vote with their feet; buy something not made by Clif Bar.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Nov 20, 2014 - 03:53pm PT
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"Everyone needs to find his or her own limits for risk, and if Clif Bar wants to back away from the cutting edge, that’s certainly a fair decision. But we will all continue climbing..."
Touche, Alex.;)
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Roots
Mountain climber
Tustin, CA
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Nov 20, 2014 - 03:59pm PT
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But the point everyone seems to be overlooking is Alex *isn't* doing it for himself. He is doing it for the people that are filming it so that others can see him doing it.
No, the point is..umm..the fact is that Alex is mostly soloing solo. He comes back to the route later with cameras and redoes the "easier" stuff for his JOB.
At least that is what he humbly told the audience of veteran climbers at Oakdale last year. And I have no reason to doubt him....especially when he showed us slides of how it is done behind the scenes.
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Roots
Mountain climber
Tustin, CA
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Nov 20, 2014 - 04:03pm PT
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PS Cliff Bars are f'n everywhere here in SoCal; every super market, every gas station market..even the stores like CVS, Rite Aid, Longs Drugs. -I doubt they are hurting for money.
Pretty easy to squirt out a bar and package it in a foil envelope. Nothing technical about it, so I ASSUME their overhead is pretty low in relation to those huge revenue numbers posted earlier in this thread.
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Psilocyborg
climber
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Nov 20, 2014 - 04:14pm PT
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How many people have died choking on a cliff bar?
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Jon Beck
Trad climber
Oceanside
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Nov 20, 2014 - 04:24pm PT
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I'm curious... did any climbers get paid for the 60-Minutes piece?
I believe the mainstream media has a policy of not paying
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McHale's Navy
Trad climber
From Panorama City, CA
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Nov 20, 2014 - 04:24pm PT
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What about truth in advertising? What happens to all of the people, especially non-climbers, that might see Alex free-soloing in an ad or movie and it is not made known that he has rehearsed many of these climbs with ropes and gear. That's the bullshit part of this.
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Psilocyborg
climber
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Nov 20, 2014 - 04:40pm PT
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What happens to all of the people, especially non-climbers, that might see Alex free-soloing in an ad or movie and it is not made known that he has rehearsed many of these climbs with ropes and gear.
dunno, what? Im on the edge of my seat now....WHAT HAPPENS?
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Fat Dad
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Nov 20, 2014 - 04:43pm PT
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^^^^
I don't have a problem with this. I think most people watching him solo something don't necessarily have the belief that it's an on sight, even know the difference or even care. I've done lots of climbs repeated times. That does not mean that I have any business soloing them. A solo is still a solo, especially if it's just for the camera.
Also, risk is relative, as other have pointed out. I think it was in an Alpinist article (no. 35 I think) where it was noted that his dad--who was not in the best shape--died of a heartache running to catch a plane at the airport. Risk is all around us. At least he's acknowledging, and accepting, that it has a large presence in what he does.
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McHale's Navy
Trad climber
From Panorama City, CA
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Nov 20, 2014 - 04:43pm PT
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You forgot the last sentence;
That's the bullshit part of this.
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The Larry
climber
Moab, UT
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Nov 20, 2014 - 04:49pm PT
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Truth in advertising?
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WBraun
climber
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Nov 20, 2014 - 04:51pm PT
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What happens when a stunt man jumps out of a high rise building and falls into a trash can, then gets up and runs away.
Ooooohhhhh ya I can do that too from the top of the New freedom tower in New York because I saw it on TV, rolls eyes.
You people are loons.
You're scared of yer own shadows.
Buy this sh!t or buy that sh!t .... you've commercialized your free will and your life itself.
You're prisoners and slaves to your own illusioned selves all while preaching your phoney American freedoms ...
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cintune
climber
The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen
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Nov 20, 2014 - 05:14pm PT
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Clif Bar's new target demographic:
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Nov 20, 2014 - 05:18pm PT
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Clif Bar’s decision to fire the five of us may limit that freedom.
Well, you could quit whining and get a job like a normal person.
Except Alex is not a normal person. Not remotely so. Some people hear this as Alex being "better" than them, and they start in with the entitlement rap. Does anyone ask Lebron James if he has an entitlement thing because he expects to be paid millions to play ball?
While climbing is not a spectator sport, supporting people like Alex sends a charge into the atmosphere. The 60 Minutes piece generated huge numbers. Alex also gives us duffers something to rant and whine and wax about, and to feel like our thoughts and opinions keep us relevant in a game based entirely on doing. Alex Honnold is a fantastic stimulator.
It's also simplistic to claim that Alex is soloing for money, as though that were his one and only motivation.
Like most things, I think we consider free soloing in terms of our own experience and biases and our level of accepted risk. Those favoring safety and security will find little to reccomend Alex, and will trot out wods like "irresponsible" and so forth, believing that there is some objctive truth to these charges. Those intrigued by the unknown, by the luer of the mental and physical limit, will count Alex as a pathfinder.
JL
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Nov 20, 2014 - 07:14pm PT
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About risk. I think, and have often said here and elsewhere, that risk is an inherent part of trad climbing. Remove the risk and I think you have sport climbing, which I'm not knocking at all mind you. But I've come to believe that behind all the prescriptions about ground up and no preinspection and no hangdogging and all the many arcane definitions of trad climbing lies a single core concept: risk ought to be preserved, and the performance of the climber in the face of risk (this included, of course, what the climber does to mitigate risk) is what truly defines trad climbing.
That said, free soloing is not some anomalous departure from the norm, it is part of the spectrum that makes trad climbing what it is, and I think trad climbers who find fault with the chances Honnold takes are drawing highly arbitrary lines in a sand far too fine for anyone outside climbing to be able to sift through.
Although I've done quite a lot of free-soloing (admittedly at pedestrian levels mostly below 5.10), by far the riskiest moments (and there have been quite a few) in my 57 years of climbing occurred while roped up. Honnold is a master, I'm quite sure beyond my understanding, but I don't see him doing something all that different in principle from things I and most of the climbers I know done over the years. So let he who climbs without risk cast the first stone.
I read Honnold's NYT piece. He writes well and seems eminently likable. The fact is that, so-called community outrage notwithsanding, he and Potter and Wright all see Clif's evaluation of its risks, and its actions in response to that evaluation, as understandable and in the same basic spirit as they conduct themselves. It's mostly everyone else whose underwear is in a twist.
I do think the claim that the presence of sponsors has no effect on judgement and decision-making strains credulity. I've headed out for a day of soloing, something just didn't feel right, and so I did something else instead. But when you have a photo team at the ready, the route rigged with fixed ropes, people in place with cameras, not to mention correspondents in the Valley and all the trailers and cables and equipment that seems to be associated with such undertakings, do you really say, "y'know, guys, I'm just not feelin' it today." Maybe you do, but then again, maybe not. Personally, I don't think I'd be able to access that state of pure self-centered isolation in which the decision to carry on or not can be made without any exterior influences, but then again---in case no one noticed---I'm not Alex Honnold.
I also think Alex mucks up his case with some of the things he says. When he speaks of a potential loss of freedom ensuing from diminished sponsorship, I think that is going to sound a rather sour note with all the climbers who have managed over the years to pursue their passions without someone else paying the bills for it. And if he is invoking the image of artists with patrons, we should remember that, historically, the artist often did the work the patron wanted done.
I think he further undermines his position by quoting Potter about the withdrawal of sponsorhip stifling diversity and producing a "mono-crop." I don't see how you can claim sponsorhip is powerful enough to contract the spectrum of climbing pursuits while at the same time insisting that it has no power over the individual climber. You can't have it both ways.
I hope Honnold has a long, brilliant, and astonishing career, and that when the game is up, he will be be able to see clearly that it is.
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Todd Eastman
climber
Bellingham, WA
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Nov 20, 2014 - 07:29pm PT
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What would Sir Christian Bonnington have to say about sponsorship?
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Nov 20, 2014 - 07:57pm PT
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What about truth in advertising? What happens to all of the people, especially non-climbers, that might see Alex free-soloing in an ad or movie and it is not made known that he has rehearsed many of these climbs with ropes and gear. That's the bullshit part of this.
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Not sure the generaly laymen would hold Alex to task for not adnering to a staunch on-sight only ethic. So viewers feel jobbd when they watch a gymnastic routine that has been practiced for months, or a dancer doing a highly choreographed routine?
If one goes so far as to label Alex bullsh#t, then you are almost obliged to supply examples of who you might consider the real deal.
JL
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