511–520 of 527 posts
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Well thank you, but the test in that link doesn't work. Anyway, I searched for some high sensation seekers tests, but the graph in the article has far more detailed results than any test I could find. It measures several interesting personality traits.
link worked for me. https://i.imgur.com/I7RKlW5.png
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I would also presume that from a physical perspective he must be above average in ways that matter for this sport.
there are actually a lot of people who can climb harder (on a rope) than alex honnold; he has done one 8c+; atm 350 people have done 9a or harder and a lot of people have done multiple 8c+ routes: http://escalade9.wifeo.com/par-nationalite.php i think what's so special about him are his mental abilities, not his physical.
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I don't think your analogy is on point here. This is more akin to playing football without a helmet, or driving a race car without a roll cage. Playing the sport is one thing, but I agree with the parent; what reason aside from tempting fate is there to climb without safety gear?
You are still racing cars, you are still playing football with the safety gear on (although football players in Australia do not wear helmets, and F1 cars don't have roll cages nor even roofs). Perhaps your analogies are off also ;) However, you can climb mountains in different ways and people want to explore the possibilities. Some climbers think bolts are OK, some don't. It's their personal philosophy. They don't g…
Sure... I wasn't implying that taking part in dangerous sports is something only adrenaline junkies do; I meant to say that doing so _without taking simple safety precautions_ puts you into that category.
Some great pictures from the climb: http://elcapreport.com/content/elcap-report-6317-special-edi...
Can you believe the first comment 'Now let's see it done with Total Commitment' dude? My god there are some asshats in this world.
By far the best article I've seen to supplement this: https://www.outsideonline.com/2190306/why-alex-honnolds-free... As a climber, there are very few people that I trust to have a more useful opinion on all this than Tommy Caldwell, a close friend and long time climbing partner of Honnold. It's so out there for most people that most jump to conclusions without proper knowledge of the subject. Caldwell is in an inter…
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.
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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…
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…
Why solo, then?
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It’s all too easy for headlines about climbing to lean on clichés about the climbers themselves—that these people are daredevils, thrill seekers, adrenaline junkies. But to most climbers, nothing is quicker to trigger the gag reflex. Climbing is an intimate relationship with our world’s most dramatic landscapes, not a self-boasting fight against them. I don’t claim to understand the inner workings of Alex’s mind, but…
I think the main thing you need to realize is that is climbing with ropes there is a lot of overhead involved to do it safely. I'd say about 1/8th of the time is climbing the other 7/8 is spent with the logistics of the rope management, partner management and placing protection in the rock. With free soloing you can focus entirely on the climbing and not on the logistics. I honestly think its more about this focus an…
This is why I prefer bouldering these days.
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you could say the same thing about top-roping vs lead climbing (placing protection from the ground up). Yes, top-roping is much safer, but the experience & sense of achievement is just not the same. Free-soloing (climbing without ropes) is the purest form of climbing. Not stopping to place protection, not having to bring up your partner, not having to haul a bag... It's just you on the wall. It takes most climber mul…
> If you really want to understand just how impressive this was: I have no doubt it's impressive. I'm impressed. I'm not trying to diminish that in any way. > you could say the same thing about top-roping vs lead climbing (placing protection from the ground up). Yes, top-roping is much safer, but the experience & sense of achievement is just not the same. My question is why is the sense of achievement not the same. I…
I've pondered this.
For me personally, the answer is: yes.
I think part of the sense of achievement after success comes from knowing what you invested (effort, risk, ...). I'd like to say that for me the fun of climbing would be about "oneness with nature" or some such thing, and that's partly true, but in reality daring to take a calculated risk, and succeeding, gives it a big extra something.
Maybe compare it with heli skiing vs backcountry skiing. Let's say both are equally non-risky. The sense of achievement (and exhaustion) after making the summit is quite different, even though it's the same summit. And having come up by chopper you might be able to benefit from the fresh powder on the way down more (because you're not exhausted), but the feeling of elation is just not the same -- at least for me.
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You are still racing cars, you are still playing football with the safety gear on (although football players in Australia do not wear helmets, and F1 cars don't have roll cages nor even roofs). Perhaps your analogies are off also ;) However, you can climb mountains in different ways and people want to explore the possibilities. Some climbers think bolts are OK, some don't. It's their personal philosophy. They don't g…
>You are still racing cars, you are still playing football with the safety gear on (although football players in Australia do not wear helmets, and F1 cars don't have roll cages nor even roofs). Perhaps your analogies are off also ;) Sure... I wasn't implying that taking part in dangerous sports is something only adrenaline junkies do; I meant to say that doing so _without taking simple safety precautions_ puts you i…
"Motor racing without a helmet" = "stupid and pointless", we can probably agree on that.
"Climbing Everest without oxygen" != "Climbing Everest as an adrenaline junkie as I have deliberately foregone a safety related item".
"Free solo" != "Free climbing as an adrenaline junkie as I have deliberately foregone a safety related item".
My family have different risk tolerances and desires than me, but they know me and don't consider me an "adrenaline junkie".
I guess we just disagree :)