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Levy
Big Wall climber
So Cal
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Sep 29, 2011 - 06:48pm PT
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I watched Alex solo the Chouinard-Herbert from the Lodge annex parking area with some friends from the guide school. We had telescopes & binoculars & I was amazed at how casual he made it look. I did the C-H years ago & thought it too insecure for people to solo but I was wrong!
Good stuff! I got to make sure I DVR 60 minutes this Sunday!
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James
climber
My twin brother's laundry room
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Sep 29, 2011 - 07:02pm PT
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Not sure if someone mentioned it already but the 60 minutes thing is Sunday night
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gonzo chemist
climber
Crane Jackson's Fountain St. Theater
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Sep 29, 2011 - 09:40pm PT
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Largo made a great Zappa reference, "crux of the biscuit"
hahahaha, love it...
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BASE104
climber
An Oil Field
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Sep 29, 2011 - 10:11pm PT
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He isn't wearing a helmet.
Damnit, I am tired of people not wearing a helmet. Wear can I get one?
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Ben909
Trad climber
toronto
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Sep 29, 2011 - 10:12pm PT
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Josh, while you might be physically capable of climbing that 5.9r your mental state is necessary to reach that physical ability. You aren't necessarily capable of climbing that same route without the mental support afforded by the rope. Maybe you are. Most people aren't able to get past the mortal exposure of soloing all but the most pedestrian grades.
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TomCochrane
Trad climber
Santa Cruz Mountains and Monterey Bay
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Sep 30, 2011 - 12:09am PT
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But there's nothing that I'm really thinking about. I'm just doing it. - Alex Honnold
Sometimes when you are soloing, you have those moments of anxiety; when you are not totally sure what you have gotten yourself into
100% certainty that you aren't going to fall; that's what keeps you from falling.
It's hard to be completely focused and completely on your game for that long. Basically you can say that when I'm soloing I have some mental armor. You can say I'm in the zone. I have something protecting my head from thinking too much. For whatever reason, on Half Dome, I ran out of whatever armor I had.
I think doubt is the biggest danger in soloing.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Sep 30, 2011 - 02:30am PT
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My own experience with soloing over the years (definitely minimal by comparison) is that you either feel it or you don't - if you do, you just have the surreal sense you'll be fine (with the caveat here we're talking about people who are solid versus shaking their way through a solo - always horrifying...).
Beyond that, from an objective perspective, I believe it's a matter of taking bigger risks, but in a highly constrained risk context. By that I mean after enough mileage and experience you basically can 'shrink' the overall scope of risk down to a manageable [mental / emotional] context and then, by having everything hyper-dialed you can just let go and climb, yet still interject some occasional foreground oversight when necessary.
We can speculate all we want about what has happened in the past, and what the future odds are; but I'm guessing a car accident, cancer, old age, or a big wave all have about even odds with soloing a big wall once you're in that zone.
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Mike Bolte
Trad climber
Planet Earth
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Sep 30, 2011 - 02:34am PT
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My own experience with soloing over the years (definitely minimal by comparison) is that you either feel it or you don't - if you do, you just have the surreal sense you'll be fine (with the caveat here we're talking about people who are solid versus shaking their way through a solo - always horrifying...).
yup. well said.
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Sep 30, 2011 - 02:34am PT
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For what it's worth, I think it silly to try to gauge the achievements of a new generation with the limited perception of an older perspective.
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ms55401
Trad climber
minneapolis, mn
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Sep 30, 2011 - 02:37am PT
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as far as I can tell, most soloists die soloing, so I suspect this guy will too
soloing feels secure until that instant where, unexpectedly, you're off
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Sep 30, 2011 - 03:17am PT
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"Between Nothingness and Eternity"
I say go young Honnold, follow your heart. It is easy to criticize his achievements but difficult to understand his motivation. Let him go.
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ß Î Ø T Ç H
Boulder climber
bouldering
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Sep 30, 2011 - 03:26am PT
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most soloists die soloing Derek set the bar high in that category for sure, but Reardon and Dano seem to get wrongly hodge-podged into the same list somehow(?) and we will never know why Bachar fell, but if you compared fatalities in roped climbing with soloing - soloing would come out as way safer I'm sure. It's like car accidents versus plane accidents - there are fewer plane wrecks, but when it happens it's more ugly, catastrophic, and newsworthy.
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mcreel
climber
Barcelona
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Sep 30, 2011 - 03:36am PT
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Soloing on good rock at a level you feel comfortable with is probably safer than high altitude mountaineering on trade routes. We're all going to go sometime, many of us for stupid reasons like car crashes or cancer. I think you have to respect people's decisions about how they want to live their lives.
Anybody want more opinions, I have tons of others to share. :-)
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kev
climber
A pile of dirt.
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Sep 30, 2011 - 10:10am PT
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as far as I can tell, most soloists die soloing
You must not hang out in the valley too much!
Perhaps some rephrasing is in order...
I think it might be reasonable to say that many or some soloists who solo 5.13 or harder die soloing, but there is NO WAY you can back up your first statement with numbers...
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kev
climber
A pile of dirt.
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Sep 30, 2011 - 10:18am PT
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BIOTCH,
Over your lifetime a US resident (based on a 2005 study) has a 1 in 100 chance of dying in a car crash but a 1 in 20000 chance of dying in a plane crash.
kev
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Knuckles
Trad climber
Everett, Wa
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Sep 30, 2011 - 11:26am PT
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BIOTCH- It's semantics perhaps but it seems fair to lump Reardon, Osman and Bachar into the category of guys that died while pushing their envelope. I think they all knew they were playing with fire.
I also don't know how accurate your statement about fatalities in roped climbing vs. soloing is. If you stacked all the roped climbing days vs. the non-roped days you'd likely find a far higher percentage of people died soloing. That is absolutely not to say "most soloists die soloing". I think that's a false statement so on that we agree.
Maybe it was a wave that pulled Reardon off, maybe a broken hold did in Bachar. Regardless they put themselves in these situations repeatedly where there was no margin for error. I'm not complaining about them or Alex doing so or even receiving kudos for it. In fact I think it's amazing and deserves some respect, but I won't be really surprised to log on here one day and see that he died doing it.
A few people have commented as such but I don't see why people feel this intense need to convince other people to see their viewpoint. I think we can all agree that Alex is doing some very high level stuff. Some people think its the coolest thing ever, some people think it's a waste. Guess what? They're both right. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and in this case I don't think there's a "wrong" answer.
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climbski2
Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
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Sep 30, 2011 - 11:42am PT
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What is this propensity for people to think they have a right to tell people what to do with their lives?
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cleo
Social climber
Berkeley, CA
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Sep 30, 2011 - 11:58am PT
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Wow, that video on Honnold on Moonlight Buttress is simultaneously beautiful and terrifying. And he's so calm, it's amazing, even joking around.
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gonzo chemist
climber
Crane Jackson's Fountain St. Theater
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Sep 30, 2011 - 12:00pm PT
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Knuckles,
Reardon did NOT die while soloing, and Osman did NOT die while soloing. Those facts seem pertinent to the discussion.
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survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
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Sep 30, 2011 - 12:03pm PT
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I think it silly to try to gauge the achievements of a new generation with the limited perception of an older perspective.
I think you said that all wrong.
A different perspective is not a limited perspective, especially one born of experience. It is often the young who have the limited perspective.
I too try to identify with the young. But there are saggy ballz around here who try to pretend that they ARE young.
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