Free Solo

"For all our failings, despite our limitations and fallibilities, we humans are capable of greatness." -Carl Sagan

1st off, condolences to the family. I hope they will get through this tough time.

W/O knowing the background of the individual, it is obviously all speculation at this point, but it makes you wonder what the effect of all the media coverage in both magazines on soloing will have. How many people will it lure with the seductive simplicity? How many of those people will be lured into a false sense of secuirty after a few easy outings on pristine rock and good weather? Someone who's partner bails and they are stuck only to remember a magazine article telling him how "cool" it was to solo? Was Justin one of those people?

Then a hold breaks, a thunderstorm hits, high winds, a small tear in the rubber of a climbing shoes, or just a regular foot slip causes it all to come crashing down resulting in a rather pointless loss of life. I am sure Justin had people who love him dearly, all of his future and potential gone :(

I don't know what the answer is to the dilemma that I see. Hell maybe there is no problem at all and it is only an issue to me, but I know as I have read the "Dangerous Games" article and other pieces on soloing, I thought about how many younger people would read it and think soloing was cool for all the wrong reasons. I know magazines don't kill people, but they sure can plant a seed, a very dangerous seed that sometimes the inexperience of youth is not yet fully capable of cultivating.

I know if I worked at the mags, I would seriously be wondering if somehow I was not an accomplice to senseless death. I know Justin is the one who made the decision to set rubber to rock that day, and he paid the ultimate price for it. But why sensationalize an activity that can easily have death as the final outcome? Sure you put in a little tagline at the beginning of the article telling people, "Soloing is dangerous and you may die..", but then you move on to expound it's glories for 20 pages. Within seconds the tagline is forgotten.

Some people will claim its Natural Selection or something akin to that, but at some point the magazines need to realize that there are impressionable, or even worse, mentally unstable people who will read a piece that talks about how cool soloing is for 20 pages and not fully realize the consequences. Why would they? Something bad always happens to the other guy right? It would never happen to them.

Well, meet "some other guy". His name was Justin and now he is gone.

not tying a stopper knot myself.

Ricky Bobby: Wait, Dad. Don’t you remember the time you told me “If you ain’t first, you’re last”?
Reese Bobby: Huh? What are you talking about, Son?
Ricky Bobby: That day at school.
Reese Bobby: Oh hell, Son, I was high that day. That doesn’t make any sense at all, you can be second, third, fourth… hell you can even be fifth.
Ricky Bobby: What? I’ve lived my whole life by that!

"The changing thumbs move was pretty friggen hairy just by itself"


I can't imagine doing that with all that space below you