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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

#271

Post by sib »

kareemm wrote: post #91
Lordarminius wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A large number of them have died. Paul Preuss (October 3, 1913) died during an attempt to make the first ascent of the North Ridge of the Mandlkogel free solo, fell a thousand feet

Man. According to Wolfram Alpha[1] it'd take 7.9 seconds to fall 1000 feet, with a final velocity of 170mph (77 m/s). [1] - https://m.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=time+to+fall+1000ft

I thought that terminal velocity for a human on Earth was about 120 miles/h. Seems like Wolfram doesn't take that into account.

Just makes the horrifying fall even longer!

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

#272

Post by hluska »

georgemcbay wrote: post #212
jonny_eh wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honnold needs the following to do what he did: Absolute fearlessness, talent (most couldn't ever do what he did even with years of practice), and discipline (to train like crazy). People like Honnold are pretty rare.

And: Luck (because shit happens). I don't mean for this to in any way diminish his amazing accomplishments, but no matter how well he trains and how disciplined he is, he is always one unexpected external event (failing hold, rock falling from above, just enough loose dirt) from complete failure.

That reminds me of a very dark joke that I heard in a bar in Canmore once.

- How do you become the greatest climber in the world?

- You become the second greatest climber and wait for #1 to die.

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

#273

Post by arcticfox »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #242
piptastic wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess, but I am one external event away from dying on my drive to work too.

Sure. Just a lot less probable.

Alex only does dangerous free solos on rare occasions. He's certainly vastly more likely to die on one than the average person on the average day, but the fact that he only does it rarely is how he's still alive at all.

Nobody really knows exactly what type of risk he's taking, but my rough guess is that he's probably on the order of ~10x an average mortality rate (which is 1.5% / yr among males his age).

Whether that's insane or not is up to an individual. For me, it's a rare combination of crazy and rational, which I find fascinating.

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

#274

Post by tomsthumb »

komali2 wrote: post #244
cbtacy wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as a former sponsored, professional climber who happens to have been one of the first Americans to solo 5.13... sorry but I'm still alive and kicking. Listen... soloing is obviously very dangerous. Nobody who is out there soloing as a pastime is unaware of this. But comparing soloing to trying to jump gorges on rocket slides isn't doing justice to a complicated and nuanced subject. Soloing is a personal deci…

You would not be posting this if you were dead, this is selection bias.

Existing as a counter example to someone's categorical claims is _not_ selection bias.

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

#275

Post by pacaro »

blackguardx wrote: post #60
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…

Reardon's death has been attributed to free soloing on a sea cliff, but the official cause of death was drowning.

Deep-water soloing is its own discipline, with a unique set of hazards.

Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep-water_soloing

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

#276

Post by eigenvector »

jeffdavis wrote: post #229
ChicagoBoy11 wrote: post #89

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 li…

How do you quit a free climb?

1. Someone climbs to your location from the ground, or descends from the top of the route, hauling a sufficient amount of gear for you to rappel or be lowered to the ground. Obviously impractical on massive routes like El Cap.

2. A rescuer is slung onto the route near the incapacitated climber's location using a helicopter long-line. They prepare the climber for extraction and then they are both slung off by the helicopter at one time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicopter_Flight_Rescue_Syste...

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

#277

Post by jojoo »

DoubleCribble wrote: post #255
mistermann wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ten pull ups with one finger on only one arm ?

I can't find the video I want right now, but this has some nice visuals. Check out this climber planking around 0:39. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igYhX5xyprw

maybe it was a video from magnus mitboe? https://youtu.be/BEc5uVsM6bE?t=1m33s

or the 80ies oldschool classic; wolfgang guellich in a german gameshow: https://youtu.be/rugoETlUAVI?t=22m47s

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

#278

Post by jonah »

psyc wrote: post #151
jonah wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the most striking quotes for me was: "Alex once told me that he had never fallen completely unexpectedly—meaning without at least some prior inclination that it could happen. When I told him that I had unexpectedly fallen at least ten times, he looked confused, like somehow that didn’t compute." It really illustrates what a professional Alex is and how in-tune he is with his skills and his craft.

I take the same thing from that quote. I have a good friend who has become one of the top competition paraglider pilots in the world. A lot of paragliders see him as doing terrifying, reckless things. He's told me that he considers himself a conservative pilot, and that he doesn't take risks. I agree with his self-assessment. I've known him a long time, and saw him ascend through a long, well-ordered series of increm…

Luck only lasts so long. You don't last long at sports like this if you aren't cautious and well-trained, that's for sure.

I'll offer a counter anecdote to yours: I was talking to a guy this weekend who had been a serious hang-glider for over a decade when he was younger. Every time a friend would have a problem, he analyzed it and saw that because of the way he operated he wouldn't make the same mistake and could therefore rationalize his continued participation in the sport. Eventually though, he had a problem, he made a mistake, it scared him, but it took fully two years of continuing to fly before he finally worked through it and decided that he could never eliminate enough risk and quit flying.

EDIT: I may have mischaracterized his response and removed "error-free" language and clarified with "eliminate enough risk".

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

#279

Post by rl3 »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #176
Florin_Andrei wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read an article recently - someone actually scanned Honnold's brain and it turns out his amygdala does not respond in the usual way to inputs that in most people would elicit fear. In colloquial terms, he's "fearless". If true, that would explain a lot.

Someone did the same with top downhill skier Aksel Lund Svindal last year, with the same conclusion. They also attached a pinhole camera inside his goggles to study eye movements, and found that he never blinks for the full 2 1/2 minutes of a race.

I forget to blink at a healthy rate when playing unusually intense matches in certain RTS games.

Usually my eyes dry out and I end up with smeared vision and halos around light sources until the eyes regain their moisture.

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

#280

Post by jojoo »

eigenvector wrote: post #276
jeffdavis wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you quit a free climb?

1. Someone climbs to your location from the ground, or descends from the top of the route, hauling a sufficient amount of gear for you to rappel or be lowered to the ground. Obviously impractical on massive routes like El Cap. 2. A rescuer is slung onto the route near the incapacitated climber's location using a helicopter long-line. They prepare the climber for extraction and then they are both slung off by the heli…

in this case he could just wait on a ledge until other climbers went by and ascended with them.
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