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Alex Honnold Scales El Capitan Without Ropes, and the Climbing World Reels

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Re: Alex Honnold Scales El Capitan Without Ropes, and the Climbing World Reels

#81

Post by robotresearcher »

Lordarminius wrote: post #3
justinator wrote: post #2

Proper Planning and Practice Prevents Piss Poor Performance. and DEATH. In all seriousness, Alex's mental and physical conditioning to achieve this goal should be lauded, examined, written about, and taught.

Lauded, examined, written about - I agree. Taught - Not so sure. Alex Honnold is an extreme outlier. We mortals may marvel but Im not sure his feat can be replicated so easily. I may be wrong. The guy is simply rad. I couldn't stop laughing at this: A lighter moment came later, Honnold said, when he passed some climbers who had spent the night on a ledge. He did his best not to wake them. "I woke up one guy and he so…

Are you sure he was coming down?

Re: Alex Honnold Scales El Capitan Without Ropes, and the Climbing World Reels

#82

Post by blackguardx »

betenoire wrote: post #70
Fricken wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amongst the legendary free soloist rock climbers, here's the spread: John Gill, alive at 80 Peter Croft, alive at 60 Alain Robert, alive at 54 Catherine Destiville, alive at 53 Steph Davis, alive at 43 Alex Honnold, alive at 31 Dan Osmond, died at 45, not free soloing Dean Potter, died at 43, not free soloing Michael Reardon, died at 43, not free soloing John Bachar died free soloing at 52 It's a very small field, no…

adding John "Yabo" to that list.... but I couldn't find how he died, (suicide iirc?)

Yes, he committed suicide.

Re: Alex Honnold Scales El Capitan Without Ropes, and the Climbing World Reels

#83

Post by Fricken »

jedberg wrote: post #64
Fricken wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amongst the legendary free soloist rock climbers, here's the spread: John Gill, alive at 80 Peter Croft, alive at 60 Alain Robert, alive at 54 Catherine Destiville, alive at 53 Steph Davis, alive at 43 Alex Honnold, alive at 31 Dan Osmond, died at 45, not free soloing Dean Potter, died at 43, not free soloing Michael Reardon, died at 43, not free soloing John Bachar died free soloing at 52 It's a very small field, no…

Survivorship bias (of the most real kind). You can only be great if you live. :)

They were all established capable climbers before they earned a reputation free soloing. That's not really true in this case. I mean, every year there are inexperienced climbers who die, but comparing them to the masters is like comparing some kid with a spoiler on his Honda civic who loses control and hits a tree to a professional formula 1 driver.

Re: Alex Honnold Scales El Capitan Without Ropes, and the Climbing World Reels

#84

Post by DamnYuppie »

Lordarminius wrote: post #3
justinator wrote: post #2

Proper Planning and Practice Prevents Piss Poor Performance. and DEATH. In all seriousness, Alex's mental and physical conditioning to achieve this goal should be lauded, examined, written about, and taught.

Lauded, examined, written about - I agree. Taught - Not so sure. Alex Honnold is an extreme outlier. We mortals may marvel but Im not sure his feat can be replicated so easily. I may be wrong. The guy is simply rad. I couldn't stop laughing at this: A lighter moment came later, Honnold said, when he passed some climbers who had spent the night on a ledge. He did his best not to wake them. "I woke up one guy and he so…

I was reading a another article about this ascent yesterday and they brought up a great point. Prior to Roger Bannister running the 1st sub 4 minute mile it was thought to be impossible and beyond a humans capabilities. Once that barrier fell many more quickly pushed through it. There is something to someone moving the bar of what is possible. As a species we are incredible in our abilities and resolve to continually push ourselves.

Re: Alex Honnold Scales El Capitan Without Ropes, and the Climbing World Reels

#85

Post by atom-morgan »

NwtnsMthd wrote: post #79
DarkTree wrote: post #57

> "I woke up one guy and he sort of said, 'Oh, hey.' Then when I went by, I think he discreetly woke up his buddies because when I looked down they were all three standing there like 'What the f *?' " What an awesome story for a climber: "I was woken up on the wall by the first guy to free solo El Cap"

Oh, I'm sure they recognized Honnold. There probably aren't many serious climbers who don't know who he is.

I've never climbed anything other than a rock wall in a gym. If I know Honnold, they know Honnold.

Re: Alex Honnold Scales El Capitan Without Ropes, and the Climbing World Reels

#86

Post by burkaman »

dabernathy89 wrote: post #58
imsd wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a fairly experienced climber, this is a very difficult route; one that only the most elite climbers can free climb. But, free climbing it isn't necessarily rare and even as Honnold did this free solo, other parties were camping on the wall. There's little data on this sort of topic, but I'd estimate that less than 0.25% of climbers achieve the level of physical skill and technical expertise required to free climb…

If Honnold can solo this route in 4 hours, why do the free climbers need to camp on it? Do they take longer? Or need more rest time between sections?

Honnold climbed it incredibly quickly. Most people take three or four days, this is a very long and very difficult route. If you've ever been to an indoor top rope gym, imagine picking the hardest route and doing it about 80 times.

Re: Alex Honnold Scales El Capitan Without Ropes, and the Climbing World Reels

#87

Post by bdalgaard »

Fricken wrote: post #41
vkou wrote: post #4

As a climber, I wish this were less widely publicized. Free soloing is extremely dangerous, and dozens of climbers - including experienced ones die doing it every year.

Amongst the legendary free soloist rock climbers, here's the spread: John Gill, alive at 80 Peter Croft, alive at 60 Alain Robert, alive at 54 Catherine Destiville, alive at 53 Steph Davis, alive at 43 Alex Honnold, alive at 31 Dan Osmond, died at 45, not free soloing Dean Potter, died at 43, not free soloing Michael Reardon, died at 43, not free soloing John Bachar died free soloing at 52 It's a very small field, no…

I'll add Derek Hersey to that list. He's not as big of a name as those on this list, but there is a movie called Front Range Freaks which has a great segment about him and soloing. He died at 36.

Re: Alex Honnold Scales El Capitan Without Ropes, and the Climbing World Reels

#89

Post by ChicagoBoy11 »

The thing that I've most loved while following Alex's exploits over the past few year is how he talks about his mental preparation. He always seems very well prepared for whatever route that he is climbing. To me, the biggest evidence of that is the fact that he quit doing this exact climb a few weeks ago because he felt conditions weren't right. That's really hard to do with media, etc. on your tail, even IF your life is literally at stake.

It would be one thing if he were just incredibly bold and daring and were getting away with it; instead, its clear that his method is a very slow, methodical process in which he manages to practically guarantee that he will have a safe and effortless climb. Even in the interviews after this, it is clear that he is committed to his routine and managed to set-up this climb in such a way that it simply represented a comfortable, natural step in his evolution as a climber. He talks about it almost matter-of-factly.

Truly awe-inspiring.

Re: Alex Honnold Scales El Capitan Without Ropes, and the Climbing World Reels

#90

Post by avar »

specialp wrote: post #51
vkou wrote: post #4

As a climber, I wish this were less widely publicized. Free soloing is extremely dangerous, and dozens of climbers - including experienced ones die doing it every year.

I am a big Alex Honnold fan, but no matter how much your skill, free solo climbing will kill you one day. Alex Honnold is not the first free soloist, and won't be the last. He is great climber, and has no fear of heights it appears. Your average person or climber is not going to try to replicate what he is doing due to their desire to preserve their life. We do not see many people jumping gorges in rocket sleds like…

    > free solo climbing will kill you one day
    > [...] [Wikipedia] has a list of free solo
    > climbers.
The Wikipedia article you're linking to does list a bunch of people who've died doing it, but also famous free solo climbers in their 60s and even 80s.
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