Free Solo and Economic Growth

Post by QuotedForTruth » Fri, May 17, 2019, 7:26 PM UTC

mtnGoat wrote: post #80

QuotedForTruth wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? You'd be comfortable whipping in a swiss seat tied to a hemp rope (not dynamic) and stopped by a body belay? I don't think so. A clean fall onto a static rope can kill you from the sudden stop alone. There is a reason the mantra used to be "the leader must not fall" and its not because those guys were just scared. Sure 30 to 40 years ago (1980-1990) the equipment was good, and thats about when the explosion i…

what type of whippers are you taking? if you are setting your protection closely enough and your belayer is not leaving lots of slack, you shouldn't be falling far enough on a static rope to kill you.

I'm not taking any whips at all on static rope. That's just dumb.

But I guess you mean what kind of falls am I taking on dynamic rope that I wouldn't want to take on static rope? Its not about distance, its about fall factor [1]. Fall factor 2 falls are possible on multi pitch routes. Doing that on a static rope would really screw you up even if it didn't kill you. It could also easily shock load your anchor gear enough to break or pull it out, killing you and your belayer.

[1] https://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/skills/fall_factors_expl...

Post by tomxor » Tue, May 21, 2019, 10:12 PM UTC

mtnGoat wrote: post #79

rurp wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that same podcast Alex said that he had more or less stopped soloing easy routes, reserving solos for rare big accomplishment climbs, which makes a lot of sense to me. As a long time climber, I can't think of a single climber who died on an extremely difficult solo, but can easily name a half dozen or more elite climbers who died on easy terrain.

this makes perfect sense to me... there really aren't many that have died, maybe a couple dozen, so not much stat to draw info from. BUT they aren't always on the hardest routes, so the law of averages would dictate that they die on "average" difficulty routes.

I'm necromancing posts here but can't help it... Something else to keep in mind is what grade is viable to solo necessitates that on average they will be _very_ easy. No one solos at their hardest grade - to be clear, what Alex has soloed _is_ very hard and an incredible achievement, but in terms climbing with safety not super hard, and far under Alex's ability in absolute terms.

Re: Free Solo and Economic Growth

Re: Free Solo and Economic Growth