8 ms·

The thing that I fundamentally don't understand about free soloing is that it's only skill based to a point. You will eventually, as in the article, hit a loos

by throwaway22032 3y ago

The thing that I fundamentally don't understand about free soloing is that it's only skill based to a point. You will eventually, as in the article, hit a loose hold and fall. When that happens you probably die and it wasn't due to anything you could have prevented.

kdmccormick 3y ago
It takes extreme skill to maneuver yourself right and hold yourself on the walls he was climbing, even if every hold is sturdy (which they typically are). It also takes skill to look at rock and have an understanding of how likely it is to be safe to put your weight on. And it takes skill to repeatedly do climbs with a rope to get to the point where you're comfortable doing them unprptected. Finally, it takes skill to hold yourself on the wall with 1-3 of your other limbs in the event that one of the holds gives away or your hand slips (the latter of which does happen plenty often). If it weren't skill-based, you'd see random daredevil freaks freesoloing all the time. It just wouldn't be interesting. It'd be like, "Man climbs tall unsteady ladders regularly!" No, what these guys are doing is both insane but also insanely impressive.
- throwaway22032 3y ago
  I edited my post to clarify that I don't mean that there's zero skill involved, of course I didn't mean that. Just that when it goes wrong, you're just screwed.
  - kdmccormick 3y ago
    Yeah, I'm with you there, there's a big luck aspect it seems. I think those things soloists they do in order to lower the probability of freak events (choosing climbs smartly, not soloing when they're no in the right headspace, practicing, being good at recovering from mistakes, choosing good holds, etc) makes it very skill-based, but they can never lower that all the way to 0%.
hutzlibu 3y ago
Not necessarily. With experience you can tell what weight rocks will hold. And if you climb safe, you don't risk a jump towards a hold that might break (those guys did risk it). But accidents and misstakes happen. But they totally can happen when you use a rope as well! A rope can even give you a false sense of security (if you don't know what you are doing). When you climb free solo - you know everything is on you. One big misstake and it is over. It is a very intense experience, I used to do it in easy territory and I loved it. But now with kids, there is just too much risk. Because yes, it is way more dangerous. But it is only a certain path to death, if you push your luck.
- kingkongjaffa 3y ago
  > With experience you can tell what weight rocks will hold. As a climber, this is total hubris.
  - hutzlibu 3y ago
    You don't recognize the different kinds of rock? Those that are sturdy and those that are brittle? Those that will likely hold and those that will maybe hold? But in case I was not clear, there is surely no 100% certainty. Just like you cannot rule out a rock falling on your head. But you can minimize the risk with experience. There is a difference between climbing in sandstone vs. granite. And the type of sandstone, how much iron it contains(color). How wet it is, etc. Do you debate that?
    - dpc050505 3y ago
      Footholds that look like absolutely bomber granite can exfoliate under a fraction of your bodyweight because geological time is now. One of the sturdiest cliffs in Canada, the Stawamus chief, has seen several historical rockfall events in the past couple years. The vast majority of the rock climbers climb is at least a little bit chossy in a way, limestone and sandstone always have small breaks, granite is more solid but when it breaks it's often enormous chunks. You must not have climbed a lot if you've never witnessed freak rockfall, there's a reason why most cliffs are littered by a talus field at the bottom. And that's not to mention loose rock above you which you can't even see and that could rain down on your head. It takes a bird standing on a ledge knocking down a softball sized people for you to eat it in the noggin and fall, or wind, or just being at the wrong place at the wrong time (I've coreshot a rope when natural rockfall rained on me while climbing in a funnelling feature, shit was scary).
tomxor 3y ago
> You will eventually, as in the article, hit a loose hold and fall. It's not that simple, it's not a pure dice roll because not all routes are equal. It depends how hard the route is, what type of rock, what quality of rock, what type of holds, what style of route, whether the route allows you to climb with redundancy or not, the weather conditions, the time of year... and finally you, the subjective component, how well you fit all of those variables. Granted I don't free solo 7a like this guy did, but I've soloed physically difficult but super solid, safe feeling routes, super easy but fragile, dangerous routes, and super easy, solid but crazy exposed mind fuck routes. I've been rained on, had a bird jump out of a pocket, had base jumpers surprise me, come across friends on route (unavoidably distracting), come across broken holds etc. All curve balls but I had plenty of room to accommodate because of my choices to climb with margins and contingency. Every route requires a different approach, not all routes are a good idea to solo for me, and not all routes are a good idea to solo period. The point I'm making is that It's possible to regularly partake in this style of climbing with a high probability living to a ripe old age. I believe the majority of people free soloing are trad climbers like me who free solo well under their grade, because it can be considered a subset of trad, and it's good for the mental fitness of harder trad routes and benefits from all of the nuance of the careful and considerate mode which is part of trad climbing. Only people who are pushing the limit, and their own limit when free soloing make the headlines. This guy appeared to be pushing himself to his limit, but on the flip side maybe this was worth the trade for him, non-climbers wont get this but it can be an incredibly rewarding part of your life, there's a risk to every style not just free soloing and we all accept that risk every time we get on a route. You accept a risk every time you get in a car, but you still get in a car, they are just on different levels of risk reward, what you are willing to accept for what type of reward is entirely subjective so please don't judge others if they are happy doing what they are doing and understand the risk.
- ke88y 3y ago
  > because it can be considered a subset of trad Yeah, this 100%. Also a very natural extension of high balling. Have you done any stupid soloing? Did it happen when you were having a particularly hard time with your mental health? Because I think that's really common and we should talk about "soloing as a sort of suicidal release that hopefully doesn't end in death" issue...
iambateman 3y ago
I generally agree with you, but I do want to point out that the same could be said for deep sea diving, nascar, jumping out of a plane, flying in a plane at all, going to space, running drugs across a border, and telling your mother-in-law what you really think. Some humans seem to have a different kind of risk tolerance than you and I do. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- ke88y 3y ago
  > for deep sea diving FWIW, I have literally never heard of a rock guide or mountain guide free soloing with a paying client...
  - hutzlibu 3y ago
    It depends what you count as free solo. In the alps you definitely can book tours without a rope, that involve low grade climbing, that most not mountain people would consider as free solo. And it is the same principle there. One wrong step and you fall to death. And people do. But experienced guides can minimize the risk, by going routes, the client can manage.
    - detourdog 3y ago
      Knowing the Swiss attitude a guide would refuse to help someone get over their head. This is also called passing down techniques through oral tradition.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- jacurtis 3y ago
  I know it is semantics, but the activities you listed are all very different than free soloing. I'm not trying to pull a "no true Scotsman" here, they are genuinely much different. What you list are activities that have risk. But in all of these activities there are considerations to implement safety to preserve the participant as much as possible. Most of these activities the participants have multiple layers of safety in case something happens in order to minimize the risk. Sky diving, Nascar, Plane Flying, Space exploration, deep sea diving, all prepare for the worst and implement safeguards to minimize it. The risk is continually minimized. Of the activities you list, trad-climbing/sport-climbing would be the free-solo equivalent. This the relatively safe method of rock climbing that most people participate in. There is still risk and people still die. But you can make mistakes and the safeguards generally protect you from death. Free soloing is a level above that. In free soloing, the risk of imminent death is a feature, not a bug. It is embraced as the core of the activity. The only comparable activity equivalent I can think of to Free Soloing is wing suit base jumping, although even that is often done with backup safety systems, so it still puts it a tiny step ahead. In other words, you could think of all those activities as something people choose to do DESPITE the risks, but free soloing is done BECAUSE of the risks. That makes it very different from other adventure activities. It's also worth noting that the last two examples (drug running and coming clean to your mother-in-law) are just a matter of necessity and survival. While there's technically choice in both activities, it is only done as a last resort despite the risks, which put those into a 3rd category. They are usually involuntary activities.
ke88y 3y ago
There are varying degrees of truth to what you say, but the real point is about how risk management and mental health interact. Reasons that free soloing isn't necessarily suicidal-tendency levels of poor risk management: 1. Do Not Fall zones aren't unique to free soloing. This is also true for ALL ice climbing, but also for a lot of trad and aid climbing. And even in some cases for sport climbing and bouldering. In fact, free soloing is -- for many practitioners -- a natural extension of the run-outs found on sparsely protected lines. I've taken more risks with my life on the sharp end than out alone. I think that's probably true for most climbers. And the closest I've come to death was a stupid trundling mistake on a to-be-developed sport climb. 2. Life is dangerous. Free soloing a juggy ledge-strwen route below 5.5 definitely feels WAY, WAY less dangerous than the drive home. For example. You are more likely to die on the drive home. More to the point -- you are more likely to die on rappel or from rock fall. 3. Free soloing routes that I know up to 5.6 is no more dangerous -- for me -- than hiking on an exposed trail. And in some cases feels way safer than climbing with a rope and gear (see #1; also, climbs at that grade rarely have clean falls). I suspect that for me free soloing up to 5.9 is probably less dangerous than mountain biking or most skiing. That said, the sort of soloing Austin was doing is definitely of the riskier "fuck that" variety. Oh, and dangerous soloing is definitely correlated with mental health events. The trope of guys doing a ton of free soloing after bad breakups exists for a reason. Anyways. This is a hard topic to talk about -- especially online -- because "the first rule of free soloing club is...". So you don't have the usual "first hand experience" vs "hypothetically thinking about this" split. IMO it's time to be a bit more open about it, particularly given the mental health thing. I spent a lot of time free soloing. Some of it was dangerous, but some of it was probably no less irresponsible than driving late at night or skiing a bit to aggressively on a groomer. The dangerous stuff happened when I was in a bad place. Let's talk about that more. That's why I appreciated this piece.
- fingerlocks 3y ago
  > because "the first rule of free soloing club is..." …telling everyone that you’re a free soloist? Any busy weekend you can spot some conspicuous soloists on Cathedral in Tuolomne, Corner Crack in Squamish, or GNS at Index. Maybe the few “hard” soloists are incognito, but the vast majority are regular 5.11-ish climbers that want to show off their confidence on a slabby 5.7 jug haul in front of a bunch of new climbers.
fwlr 3y ago
It’s the same as any other extreme sport - skill reduces risk but cannot fully eliminate it. Eventually a skydiver’s parachute will fail in a way they couldn’t have prevented, etc.
- pbhjpbhj 3y ago
  Skydivers carry reserves though, free-soloists eschew safety equipment.
  - fwlr 3y ago
    Yeah, based on the other comments here I think I have quite a different view than most. To me, trad climbing vs free soloing seems like riding a bike with or without a helmet - it’s the same sport, just with different levels of safety equipment. But it seems like that is a qualitative difference to most people, which is interesting.
    - pbhjpbhj 3y ago
      Mostly, a helmet is unlikely to be the difference between life and death for a cyclist. 30mph (faster than I've ever been on a pedal-bike) is about 13m/s. That's about ~10m fall if my maths is right. Did you mean a motorbike? It feels like the comparison to cycling would be at least two orders of magnitude in difference of increased risk.
      - fwlr 3y ago
        I did mean bicycles, yeah. Really I just think I have a very different way of understanding and conceptualising things. Like to me, sky-diving is “jumping out of a plane”, that’s the activity, and whether you have zero, one, or two parachutes is just a question of safety equipment.
willbudd 3y ago
I feel like you and all the people replying to you are completely missing the obvious. To someone who has been depressed for many years, for someone who literally (according the article) contemplated jumping of the roof of a 10 story building, "probably dying at some point" is not a deal-breaker or even all that much of a downside per se. We're all going to die at some point, and while most/many of us might want to delay that inevitability as much as possible, I don't think it's warranted at all to assume that the same premise applies to every single one of us. This guy realized that the only thing in life he could truly enjoy was climbing rocks. Do we really need to fault him for deciding to then just do that thing until fate eventually catches up as it always does? Sure, it may be rough on the people whose lives they intersect with, but provided they're not a parent raising a child/children/etc, acceptance of one another for who we are is all that remains. Personally, I'd take short-lived good company over long-lived mediocre company any day.
- ke88y 3y ago
  > is not a deal-breaker or even all that much of a downside per se. Close, but I don't think you quite get it yet. It's not about "no downside"! That completely misunderstands. It's about a HUGE upside. It dials in your mental space and all the negative thoughts flood away. You're present in the moment. It's like being on a hard drug, but you feel clean and clear-headed instead of hung over afterward. You feel a lot better about life for days or even weeks at a time. You do it because NOT doing it might just kill you. Free solo today, or shoot yourself in the back of your car at the firepit tonight. And it's not about the risk, and it's not adernaline. It's the focus and calm. Does that make sense? I think it's really hard to understand if you haven't experienced suicidal thoughts for most of your life. I haven't talked to very many free soloists who haven't made the point that they're horrendously depressed/suicidal and that they do it to live, not to die. Sometimes. Normally the ones who do "quite safe soloing" -- way below their grade, on well-known routes, etc. etc. The article isn't just about Austin. It's about a lot of people. And not just climbers. Similar dark shit in skiing, mountaineering, dirt biking, and so on. > Personally, I'd take short-lived good company over long-lived mediocre company any day. I've never met an irresponsible soloist who wasn't a beautiful soul.
  - 3y ago
paulcole 3y ago
> You will eventually … die and it wasn't due to anything you could have prevented Everybody else replying to you is talking about how it’s the same in any extreme sport. The truth is it’s the same for you and me, too. Don’t you want to live doing the things that you want, knowing that no matter what you’re going to die in the end anyway?
activiation 3y ago
Many do it with a rope first and memorize everything
douglee650 3y ago
It's fatalistic by nature; then media every once in a while can publish these types of navel gazes. In return, the climber gets attention in life and in death.

kdmccormick 3y ago

It takes extreme skill to maneuver yourself right and hold yourself on the walls he was climbing, even if every hold is sturdy (which they typically are). It also takes skill to look at rock and have an understanding of how likely it is to be safe to put your weight on. And it takes skill to repeatedly do climbs with a rope to get to the point where you're comfortable doing them unprptected. Finally, it takes skill to hold yourself on the wall with 1-3 of your other limbs in the event that one of the holds gives away or your hand slips (the latter of which does happen plenty often). If it weren't skill-based, you'd see random daredevil freaks freesoloing all the time. It just wouldn't be interesting. It'd be like, "Man climbs tall unsteady ladders regularly!" No, what these guys are doing is both insane but also insanely impressive.

throwaway22032 3y ago
I edited my post to clarify that I don't mean that there's zero skill involved, of course I didn't mean that. Just that when it goes wrong, you're just screwed.
- kdmccormick 3y ago
  Yeah, I'm with you there, there's a big luck aspect it seems. I think those things soloists they do in order to lower the probability of freak events (choosing climbs smartly, not soloing when they're no in the right headspace, practicing, being good at recovering from mistakes, choosing good holds, etc) makes it very skill-based, but they can never lower that all the way to 0%.

hutzlibu 3y ago

Not necessarily. With experience you can tell what weight rocks will hold. And if you climb safe, you don't risk a jump towards a hold that might break (those guys did risk it). But accidents and misstakes happen. But they totally can happen when you use a rope as well! A rope can even give you a false sense of security (if you don't know what you are doing). When you climb free solo - you know everything is on you. One big misstake and it is over. It is a very intense experience, I used to do it in easy territory and I loved it. But now with kids, there is just too much risk. Because yes, it is way more dangerous. But it is only a certain path to death, if you push your luck.

kingkongjaffa 3y ago
> With experience you can tell what weight rocks will hold. As a climber, this is total hubris.
- hutzlibu 3y ago
  You don't recognize the different kinds of rock? Those that are sturdy and those that are brittle? Those that will likely hold and those that will maybe hold? But in case I was not clear, there is surely no 100% certainty. Just like you cannot rule out a rock falling on your head. But you can minimize the risk with experience. There is a difference between climbing in sandstone vs. granite. And the type of sandstone, how much iron it contains(color). How wet it is, etc. Do you debate that?
  - dpc050505 3y ago
    Footholds that look like absolutely bomber granite can exfoliate under a fraction of your bodyweight because geological time is now. One of the sturdiest cliffs in Canada, the Stawamus chief, has seen several historical rockfall events in the past couple years. The vast majority of the rock climbers climb is at least a little bit chossy in a way, limestone and sandstone always have small breaks, granite is more solid but when it breaks it's often enormous chunks. You must not have climbed a lot if you've never witnessed freak rockfall, there's a reason why most cliffs are littered by a talus field at the bottom. And that's not to mention loose rock above you which you can't even see and that could rain down on your head. It takes a bird standing on a ledge knocking down a softball sized people for you to eat it in the noggin and fall, or wind, or just being at the wrong place at the wrong time (I've coreshot a rope when natural rockfall rained on me while climbing in a funnelling feature, shit was scary).

tomxor 3y ago

> You will eventually, as in the article, hit a loose hold and fall. It's not that simple, it's not a pure dice roll because not all routes are equal. It depends how hard the route is, what type of rock, what quality of rock, what type of holds, what style of route, whether the route allows you to climb with redundancy or not, the weather conditions, the time of year... and finally you, the subjective component, how well you fit all of those variables. Granted I don't free solo 7a like this guy did, but I've soloed physically difficult but super solid, safe feeling routes, super easy but fragile, dangerous routes, and super easy, solid but crazy exposed mind fuck routes. I've been rained on, had a bird jump out of a pocket, had base jumpers surprise me, come across friends on route (unavoidably distracting), come across broken holds etc. All curve balls but I had plenty of room to accommodate because of my choices to climb with margins and contingency. Every route requires a different approach, not all routes are a good idea to solo for me, and not all routes are a good idea to solo period. The point I'm making is that It's possible to regularly partake in this style of climbing with a high probability living to a ripe old age. I believe the majority of people free soloing are trad climbers like me who free solo well under their grade, because it can be considered a subset of trad, and it's good for the mental fitness of harder trad routes and benefits from all of the nuance of the careful and considerate mode which is part of trad climbing. Only people who are pushing the limit, and their own limit when free soloing make the headlines. This guy appeared to be pushing himself to his limit, but on the flip side maybe this was worth the trade for him, non-climbers wont get this but it can be an incredibly rewarding part of your life, there's a risk to every style not just free soloing and we all accept that risk every time we get on a route. You accept a risk every time you get in a car, but you still get in a car, they are just on different levels of risk reward, what you are willing to accept for what type of reward is entirely subjective so please don't judge others if they are happy doing what they are doing and understand the risk.

ke88y 3y ago
> because it can be considered a subset of trad Yeah, this 100%. Also a very natural extension of high balling. Have you done any stupid soloing? Did it happen when you were having a particularly hard time with your mental health? Because I think that's really common and we should talk about "soloing as a sort of suicidal release that hopefully doesn't end in death" issue...

iambateman 3y ago

I generally agree with you, but I do want to point out that the same could be said for deep sea diving, nascar, jumping out of a plane, flying in a plane at all, going to space, running drugs across a border, and telling your mother-in-law what you really think. Some humans seem to have a different kind of risk tolerance than you and I do. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

ke88y 3y ago
> for deep sea diving FWIW, I have literally never heard of a rock guide or mountain guide free soloing with a paying client...
- hutzlibu 3y ago
  It depends what you count as free solo. In the alps you definitely can book tours without a rope, that involve low grade climbing, that most not mountain people would consider as free solo. And it is the same principle there. One wrong step and you fall to death. And people do. But experienced guides can minimize the risk, by going routes, the client can manage.
  - detourdog 3y ago
    Knowing the Swiss attitude a guide would refuse to help someone get over their head. This is also called passing down techniques through oral tradition.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
jacurtis 3y ago
I know it is semantics, but the activities you listed are all very different than free soloing. I'm not trying to pull a "no true Scotsman" here, they are genuinely much different. What you list are activities that have risk. But in all of these activities there are considerations to implement safety to preserve the participant as much as possible. Most of these activities the participants have multiple layers of safety in case something happens in order to minimize the risk. Sky diving, Nascar, Plane Flying, Space exploration, deep sea diving, all prepare for the worst and implement safeguards to minimize it. The risk is continually minimized. Of the activities you list, trad-climbing/sport-climbing would be the free-solo equivalent. This the relatively safe method of rock climbing that most people participate in. There is still risk and people still die. But you can make mistakes and the safeguards generally protect you from death. Free soloing is a level above that. In free soloing, the risk of imminent death is a feature, not a bug. It is embraced as the core of the activity. The only comparable activity equivalent I can think of to Free Soloing is wing suit base jumping, although even that is often done with backup safety systems, so it still puts it a tiny step ahead. In other words, you could think of all those activities as something people choose to do DESPITE the risks, but free soloing is done BECAUSE of the risks. That makes it very different from other adventure activities. It's also worth noting that the last two examples (drug running and coming clean to your mother-in-law) are just a matter of necessity and survival. While there's technically choice in both activities, it is only done as a last resort despite the risks, which put those into a 3rd category. They are usually involuntary activities.

ke88y 3y ago

There are varying degrees of truth to what you say, but the real point is about how risk management and mental health interact. Reasons that free soloing isn't necessarily suicidal-tendency levels of poor risk management: 1. Do Not Fall zones aren't unique to free soloing. This is also true for ALL ice climbing, but also for a lot of trad and aid climbing. And even in some cases for sport climbing and bouldering. In fact, free soloing is -- for many practitioners -- a natural extension of the run-outs found on sparsely protected lines. I've taken more risks with my life on the sharp end than out alone. I think that's probably true for most climbers. And the closest I've come to death was a stupid trundling mistake on a to-be-developed sport climb. 2. Life is dangerous. Free soloing a juggy ledge-strwen route below 5.5 definitely feels WAY, WAY less dangerous than the drive home. For example. You are more likely to die on the drive home. More to the point -- you are more likely to die on rappel or from rock fall. 3. Free soloing routes that I know up to 5.6 is no more dangerous -- for me -- than hiking on an exposed trail. And in some cases feels way safer than climbing with a rope and gear (see #1; also, climbs at that grade rarely have clean falls). I suspect that for me free soloing up to 5.9 is probably less dangerous than mountain biking or most skiing. That said, the sort of soloing Austin was doing is definitely of the riskier "fuck that" variety. Oh, and dangerous soloing is definitely correlated with mental health events. The trope of guys doing a ton of free soloing after bad breakups exists for a reason. Anyways. This is a hard topic to talk about -- especially online -- because "the first rule of free soloing club is...". So you don't have the usual "first hand experience" vs "hypothetically thinking about this" split. IMO it's time to be a bit more open about it, particularly given the mental health thing. I spent a lot of time free soloing. Some of it was dangerous, but some of it was probably no less irresponsible than driving late at night or skiing a bit to aggressively on a groomer. The dangerous stuff happened when I was in a bad place. Let's talk about that more. That's why I appreciated this piece.

fingerlocks 3y ago
> because "the first rule of free soloing club is..." …telling everyone that you’re a free soloist? Any busy weekend you can spot some conspicuous soloists on Cathedral in Tuolomne, Corner Crack in Squamish, or GNS at Index. Maybe the few “hard” soloists are incognito, but the vast majority are regular 5.11-ish climbers that want to show off their confidence on a slabby 5.7 jug haul in front of a bunch of new climbers.

fwlr 3y ago

It’s the same as any other extreme sport - skill reduces risk but cannot fully eliminate it. Eventually a skydiver’s parachute will fail in a way they couldn’t have prevented, etc.

pbhjpbhj 3y ago
Skydivers carry reserves though, free-soloists eschew safety equipment.
- fwlr 3y ago
  Yeah, based on the other comments here I think I have quite a different view than most. To me, trad climbing vs free soloing seems like riding a bike with or without a helmet - it’s the same sport, just with different levels of safety equipment. But it seems like that is a qualitative difference to most people, which is interesting.
  - pbhjpbhj 3y ago
    Mostly, a helmet is unlikely to be the difference between life and death for a cyclist. 30mph (faster than I've ever been on a pedal-bike) is about 13m/s. That's about ~10m fall if my maths is right. Did you mean a motorbike? It feels like the comparison to cycling would be at least two orders of magnitude in difference of increased risk.
    - fwlr 3y ago
      I did mean bicycles, yeah. Really I just think I have a very different way of understanding and conceptualising things. Like to me, sky-diving is “jumping out of a plane”, that’s the activity, and whether you have zero, one, or two parachutes is just a question of safety equipment.

willbudd 3y ago

I feel like you and all the people replying to you are completely missing the obvious. To someone who has been depressed for many years, for someone who literally (according the article) contemplated jumping of the roof of a 10 story building, "probably dying at some point" is not a deal-breaker or even all that much of a downside per se. We're all going to die at some point, and while most/many of us might want to delay that inevitability as much as possible, I don't think it's warranted at all to assume that the same premise applies to every single one of us. This guy realized that the only thing in life he could truly enjoy was climbing rocks. Do we really need to fault him for deciding to then just do that thing until fate eventually catches up as it always does? Sure, it may be rough on the people whose lives they intersect with, but provided they're not a parent raising a child/children/etc, acceptance of one another for who we are is all that remains. Personally, I'd take short-lived good company over long-lived mediocre company any day.

ke88y 3y ago
> is not a deal-breaker or even all that much of a downside per se. Close, but I don't think you quite get it yet. It's not about "no downside"! That completely misunderstands. It's about a HUGE upside. It dials in your mental space and all the negative thoughts flood away. You're present in the moment. It's like being on a hard drug, but you feel clean and clear-headed instead of hung over afterward. You feel a lot better about life for days or even weeks at a time. You do it because NOT doing it might just kill you. Free solo today, or shoot yourself in the back of your car at the firepit tonight. And it's not about the risk, and it's not adernaline. It's the focus and calm. Does that make sense? I think it's really hard to understand if you haven't experienced suicidal thoughts for most of your life. I haven't talked to very many free soloists who haven't made the point that they're horrendously depressed/suicidal and that they do it to live, not to die. Sometimes. Normally the ones who do "quite safe soloing" -- way below their grade, on well-known routes, etc. etc. The article isn't just about Austin. It's about a lot of people. And not just climbers. Similar dark shit in skiing, mountaineering, dirt biking, and so on. > Personally, I'd take short-lived good company over long-lived mediocre company any day. I've never met an irresponsible soloist who wasn't a beautiful soul.
- 3y ago

paulcole 3y ago

> You will eventually … die and it wasn't due to anything you could have prevented Everybody else replying to you is talking about how it’s the same in any extreme sport. The truth is it’s the same for you and me, too. Don’t you want to live doing the things that you want, knowing that no matter what you’re going to die in the end anyway?

activiation 3y ago

Many do it with a rope first and memorize everything

douglee650 3y ago

It's fatalistic by nature; then media every once in a while can publish these types of navel gazes. In return, the climber gets attention in life and in death.