Reading this I am once again fascinated by the link between body and mind. My hands start to sweat as soon as I read the headline.
Czech climber Adam Ondra has conquered the Dawn Wall in record time
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Re: Czech climber Adam Ondra has conquered the Dawn Wall in record time
#42Plug for Valley Uprising (on Netflix) if you're interested in climbing. The progression of difficulty and (mostly friendly and supportive) competition between climbers is inspiring. Amazing feat! PS: Would be happy to take anyone else's recommendations for videos or books too.
Seconded! Valley Uprising is worth watching (and available on Netflix in loads of countries, not just the US) I just finished Alex Honnold's book (Alone on the Wall) and it's a fun read. Gives you a bit of backstory to the media frenzy that surrounds him at times. In terms of videos, the Reel Rock film tour is amazing. They cover some really awesome climbs. And "Meru" is on Amazon Prime Video in a lot of countries (a…
Often Banff Mountain Film Festival has a good climbing film or two. The Caldwell/Honnold Fitz Traverse (for which they won Piolets d'Or) was in there this year. Strongly recommended- a really great story.
Re: Czech climber Adam Ondra has conquered the Dawn Wall in record time
#43Plug for Valley Uprising (on Netflix) if you're interested in climbing. The progression of difficulty and (mostly friendly and supportive) competition between climbers is inspiring. Amazing feat! PS: Would be happy to take anyone else's recommendations for videos or books too.
This is only relevant if you understand Ondra's native tongue (Czech), which is extremely unlikely :-) But for anyone who does speak Czech: this is a rather fun interview, especially if you don't know much about climbing.
https://video.aktualne.cz/dvtv/mam-lezecky-mozek-sedi-mi-div...
Re: Czech climber Adam Ondra has conquered the Dawn Wall in record time
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's also worth mentioning that 95% of the Nose can be free-climbed by just about anyone that really trains for it. It's hard, but it's not that hard. The Dawn Wall, in contrast, is basically off limits for your average free climber -- especially the middle pitches -- unless you're among the best of the very best. You can check out the topos for each climb. This is the nose ( http://www.supertopo.com/topos/yosemite/t…
It's much, much harder, particularly when you realize that the Yosemite Decimal System progresses like the Richter scale, in the sense that a step from 5.13a to 5.13b (an increase of 1 grade unit) is leaps and bounds harder to achieve than improving from, say, 5.8 to 5.9. Although this was the myth I was taught (or what us precocious kids must have made ourselves believed, since obv. we were progressing so well/so po…
I've always thought of it in the way that if you went to an area like Yosemite or Font (bouldering) - then for every 100 people messing about, then 10 of them would be able to climb (5.12, Font 7a+) and 1 of them would be climbing (5.13, Font 8a).
Those difficulty conversion are possibly way way off and this areas may attract particularly good climbers ... but my point is the scale is logarithmic in the sense of how many people can achieve each tick level.
Re: Czech climber Adam Ondra has conquered the Dawn Wall in record time
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
This has been getting a bit easier, emotionally. He had a phone and Internet (he posted on Instagram from the wall, if I read the article correctly)
No amount of internet would change my mental state when trying to sleep on a tiny platform 2,000 feet above the ground.
It seems crazy, but it is really no different than sleeping in a hotel room or going camping. You initially are uncomfortable and it takes a bit of time for your brain to acknowledge it is safe to sleep in a strange place. Then you realize you are exhausted and pass out.
And unless you REALLY toss and turn in your sleep, you are as safe as your anchors (and if you are doing this, you know how to make anchors. Or are so incredibly stupid that you are trying to win a Darwin award).
Re: Czech climber Adam Ondra has conquered the Dawn Wall in record time
#46Here's a google translation of just a few days old Czech article about him from his beginnings as a child. I thought Alex Honnold is the best one and didn't know about Ondra till this weekend although I am Czech as well.
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=cs&tl=en&js=y&prev...
Re: Czech climber Adam Ondra has conquered the Dawn Wall in record time
#47Keep in mind that although he did it in a single push of 8 days, he has actually been up and down the wall for a lot longer, freeing and aiding every pitch many times. I was on the Nose almost a month ago and I could see his portaledge hanging out there. His accomplishment is really amazing and the Dawn Wall is so damn blank! No idea how these people get so good!
Well yeah, but Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson studied the wall for years. That this is Adam Ondra's first trip to Yosemite Valley and his first big wall makes it even more impressive. What an amazing achievement!
Adam actually consulted with Caldwell so he had quite a lot of prior knowledge but still, he's only really studied it for a month. Source: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/2016/climber-ada...
Re: Czech climber Adam Ondra has conquered the Dawn Wall in record time
#48In what way is this a hacker piece of news ?
What's next ? "This cat completes Record Backflip" ?
Please refrain, Thx
Re: Czech climber Adam Ondra has conquered the Dawn Wall in record time
#49Here's a google translation of just a few days old Czech article about him from his beginnings as a child. I thought Alex Honnold is the best one and didn't know about Ondra till this weekend although I am Czech as well. https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=cs&tl=en&js=y&prev...
> "Vymrčel I get it,"
Google translate learnt Czech from people from Prague :)
Re: Czech climber Adam Ondra has conquered the Dawn Wall in record time
#50That is fucking amazing. I can't even comprehend what it must be like to be living on that wall for eight days (let alone 19 or 28). The mental and emotional state it must put you in...
If you want to get a sense of what this was like in the "old days," read about Charlie Porter spending nine days, alone, climbing a new, difficult route on Mount Asgard [0], in the Baffin Mountains.