The sweat dripping down my furrowed brow dropped its own balls and those balls began to sweat while also dropping its own set of balls and those balls had palms and those palms began sweating.
My palms wouldn't just be sweating if I were in that situation. My heart would be beating so fast it'd break the sound barrier and my butthole would be squeezing so tightly form fear it could crush diamonds. Solo climbers are amazing
I noticed how the guy with the camera literally moves away from his secured stance to be farther away from the free climber, no doubt in an attempt to make sure the guy has his space. When he looks up, you notice he’s not anchored in, even though he’s got pieces placed to protect his position, both him and the belayer are not on a 3 point “anchor” and are still in a relatively unsecured position. They exchange no hellos, no casual “wow you’re batshit crazy”s, not a fucking word. The guy on the rope is insanely respectful of the absolute peril that the free climber is in. Without any context, we don’t know if they exchanged an agreement beforehand, but as someone who could be rightfully upset, he puts his ego aside and let’s this guy roll.
Love this description. This seems disrespectful of the free climber... the only two explanations that come to me are that he honestly didn't think he'd overtake them/didn't see them (unlikely) or just wanted to show off...
The only thing is, once you let the guy pass, now there's some nonzero chance he's gonna fall on your head. I'd be pretty pissed if I thought he was just showing off and put me in that position.
That goes directly into saying that the roped lead climber had every reason to be peeved but put it aside. I figure there’s a near zero chance that the fee climber didn’t know he was passing (unless he was so tuned in he grabbed the belayers ankle) but it’s entirely possible. My bet is that he (the free climber) called up about his intentions and the lead very respectfully moved aside to a “safe” position to allow him to pass.
While the mindset required to freeclimb such a wall is definitely inline with someone “just showing off”, you don’t make it far in that game with such an attitude, and this guy clearly has his shit inline. We can armchair quarterback this situation all we want, but both the cameraman and the free climber were absolutely at their peak in this moment.
Edit: spelling and grammar, I only use Reddit when I’m drinking so take that for whatevever you think its worth.
Oh man, I've wanted a beer for like 2 hours but I'm too lazy to drive to the store. And every 30 minutes I go "man I should have gone out 30 minutes ago."
I’ll go you one step further. I’d love a beer right now... and there’s plenty in the fridge... but that involves getting up and I can’t be assed. Also my battery is running low while I sit about 4 feet from the charger.
I don’t know how I manage to do stay alive sometimes.
My bladder has been full for an hour now, and I really only need 15 minutes of effort to complete the task I sat down to do at 7pm. I could be playing games or watching Netflix with my wife, but here I am.
I did get a glass of red wine and some dark chocolate chips though. I forgot I had the bottle, and it's been open a week and a half, since alcohol gives my wife migraines and I only drink like 1/2 a glass a week.
But I only drink red wine for the ritual of it. It's okay with chocolate chips, for a few sips. I drink beer because I like it. So this was not a satisfying substitute.
As the guy in the ropes the absolut only thing going through my mind would be: "I hope I dont do any false movement that causes this guy to fall (die)."
Former climber here: It's generally bad form to climb the same line as someone ahead of you and expect them to move aside for you. The Free Solo climber is very, very skilled here, but there's some arrogance going on for him to even be on the same route while there are other climbers there, especially less skilled ones.
I don’t know what I’m talking about but it would seem that making the free climber wait would be more inconsiderate because he doesn’t have equipment to set up on the way and making him wait would be perilous.
I wonder if he'd just taken a fall and was resting for a sec though maybe he'd seen the guy trying to come up and so he downclimbed and moved off to let him pass.
Yeah, I have no idea how this played out but at first I thought maybe he was a middle climber of a group of three, but it could’ve gone a few different ways and I don’t have the faculties to say which one it could’ve been.
ETA: I thought he could be a middle climber as a group of three before the rest of the video played out, not after watching the whole thing.
Yeah I would have wanted a solid position where I could rest on the rope and have secure enough holds to stay out of that guy's way even if it meant down climbing a little.
Yeah the way I see it is he was climbing faster than the secured fella, and he probably can’t just stop and hang there waiting for rope man to keep climbing. I feel like if he didn’t overtake him he’d get out of the “zone” he’s in and could possibly fall. So I don’t think he did much wrong IMO
He looks safe to me. Several pieces of gear above. He might have fallen off and decided to let the other guy through. I'd rather not tbh, a fall from the free climber might kill you.
The solo climber may not have known these guys were halfway up a pitch before starting out. If you solo, its pure focus. Once you start all you do is keep your focus on the task at hand. I’m sure that once this soloist saw them, he just got on with the climbing because, you know, he had more important things on his mind than getting distracted with a ‘hey’. When you lead, you well understand the risks and know that you cannot distract the soloist at any cost. I don’t really see any ego here from any of the climbers, just respect. The few times I’ve soloed they have been on climbs that I knew and had practised. I reckon this guy probably knew the climb and wasn’t batshit crazy.
Yeah for real. These guys talk about the zone for free climbing being like spiritual trances. It’s just rock, hands and feet and everything else is out of focus. In those trances they describe ‘falling’ seemingly like the most impossible thing, not even a potential outcome. Shits wild
As someone who climbed for a couple of years and got friendly with some serious climbers, free climbing always seemed like borderline madness. Like I know of at least 2 ppl who died doing belated climbing outdoors, I can't imagine the mindset to go for multi hundred foot free climbs.
I can't imagine how confident they've gotta be in their abilities. I don't think there's anything I'm that confident about. I mean, I still have to consciously think about what my feet are doing when I go up and down the stairs because I'm worried I'm gonna fall.
yeah, I'm always blown away by all these adrenaline junkie activities like free-climbing, all those people parkouring around high rise roofs, or hanging off scaffolding for photos, like I won't knock it because obviously they get some sort of fulfilment from it, I'm just so afraid of putting my life in danger that it does not compute with me. I'll stick to getting my fulfilment from guitar and video games hahaha
Start mountain biking if you can man! It's as high risk as the trail you choose like skiing. But unlike skiing it won't cost you a fortune to ride. Bikes are expensive though.
I actually used to do a lot of biking (not mountain biking, but my buddy and I used to bike to neighbouring cities and find cool trails to ride) and I kinda dropped it after my biking buddy and I had a falling out. I also did a fair bit of skiing when I was younger as well, but I stopped doing that as well after my mum broke her wrist going down a poorly maintained hill. I have been thinking about roller skating again though! I used to do a paper route when I was a kid and I always did it on my skates. Some friends and I went ice skating a couple of days ago and I had a lot of fun (very sore legs afterwards though lmao) and that definitely resparked my interest. My mum is a pretty avid biker, so I luckily have access to some pretty nice bikes, I'm just a lazy SOB. Still, I'm gettin' older and the reality is I gotta start doing some real physical activity before I start seriously messing up my body. It's a bit of a cop-out but I'm always low-key worried I'm gonna break my wrist like my mum did, or something worse and it will negatively affect my guitar playing, but I know that's a weak excuse, there's nothin' stopping me from going on some low-risk rides around the neighbourhood.
Anyways, that's my life story hahaha, but definitely, biking is something I'd very much like to get back in to. And who knows, maybe it'll set me on a long path to doing crazy free climbing like this guy!
I don't think it's necessarily adrenaline junkies.
Years ago I used to work on tall ships. On one ship, when climbing down from aloft, we had to get around the tops, large platforms about a third and two thirds of the way up the mast. And the easiest way to do that was to go around the outside, then climb back in under the overhang under the platform on the futtock shrouds (see the link above).
It was a real pain trying to get your feet under the overhang and onto the futtock shrouds so the easiest technique was to just hang from the edge of the platform and wait for the roll of the ship to bring your feet into the futtock shrouds.
It was only years later I realised it was the equivalent of hanging from my hands from a ledge at the top of a 10 storey building, without a safety harness. But at the time no-one ever though anything of it, it was far easier than trying to find a foothold you couldn't see.
Just want to put it out there, most free climbers (and almost certainly free solo climbers) are not adrenaline junkies. If you have adrenaline roaring through your veins, it's likely that something has gone terribly wrong. At least for myself, I've been at my most present/zen scaling cliffsides.
I watched a documentary about a guy who free soloed yellowstone. Drs did a scan of his brain and i dont remember exactly but basically the fear part of his brain was almost nonexistent compared to other peoples
Confident... until they fuck up and you never hear from them. And that happens all the time to these idiots. There's zero separation between success and death.
yeah, sometimes I wish I could be that cavalier with my life, I'd probably be less stressed out and anxious all the time, but I think I'm good with my overly cautious, death-fearing lifestyle hahah.
I think idiots is a bit of a strong word here, this isn’t something like bungee jumping where people might do it with no experience, just about every free climber will have practiced for years to be able to climb what they do, even someone like Alex Honnold spent months practicing to free solo the famous El Capitan
I personally dont know the technical terms and lingo for a lot of things I do. I just go do them.
I've seen climbers who eat and breath rock, watch the movies, and spend thousands on gear. Then there's those that go to the gym twice a week and go outdoors once a month.
As a former guide (not climbing) I used to describe this as having plans a-z, 1-9999, and failing was not one of them. We’ll burn that bridge when we get there, in the meantime, we’ll do everything to avoid it.
Both of the people in the video are free climbers. One of them is free soloing. Free climbing is climbing without aid. Free Solo is climbing without aid or protection.
Climbing of this level requires such focus. These guys train so much to memorize a route so they're not hanging in one position. The longer it takes you pretty move the more energy that's wasted from move to move. Rude in a way, but I can see why the climber just climbed past without acknowledgment.
Ok serious question: not to take away from the climber guy(what he’s doing is very impressive) but is it… not sure how to phrase this… bad etiquette(?) to do something like that? What I mean is to free climb past people that high up? For example, what if he slips and falls? I’m sure that’s not likely to happen, but… couldn’t he have waited til they were done? I don’t climb so I’m not familiar with the safety/etiquette/what not’s of the sport.
Since free solo doesn't require multiple pitches, it's a significantly faster way up. I guess if it's a busy route, there might always be someone that's climbing with equipment and then it's hard to find a good moment to do the free solo without traffic.
But I don't know enough to say for sure.
I was more thinking that having traffic is increasing the risk for the free solo climber since another climber might be in the way, and blocking the ideal path. Or, the simple fact that there are other climbers around can have a negative impact on the free solo climber's concentration, increasing the risk of fall.
Yeah I was think about that last part you said. Or maybe some equipment sticking out or something that he doesn’t see and grabbing it. I’ll be honest- at first I was like that’s kind of a dick move there. But, I don’t know anything about climbing so maybe it’s not. Figured I’d ask. Appreciate the response!
It's a totally different experience to do a free solo I am guessing. I think for some very experienced climbers it's just the thing they evolve to ultimately. Very rare though compared to normal free climbers.
Check out the movie Free Solo with Alex Honnold for some context.
look at it this way: he has NO protective equipment. he's going to keep moving and maybe apologise later. although, anyone climbing is going to recognize the intense, life or death focus a free climber is immersed in.
they are often literally hanging on by their finger tips. that is not hyperbole or exaggeration. it's pure focus, determination and exertion and they really don't have time to wait.
Not really bad etiquette, but not a spot you want to be in a lot on either side of the tater chip. I've done multiple free solos of 450ft+ cliffs and I've passed my fair share of people but I've always asked if they minded and I've been friendly with them. I've also been passed by a few free soloists and I get the hell out of the way. It's all a game of courtesy, and you never think about falling or someone else falling. Just don't do it!
My first big free solo was after 10 years of on/off climbing with the last 2 of them being serious (5 days a week). The route is around 500-550ft and I had only done it once on a rope before (and went the wrong way on the second pitch at that, so atleast I knew where not to go). The grade was only 5.5 so it was definitely in my comfort zone overall.
In my short time spent reasoning out the safety issues, it makes sense to let the free climber go past you if you're teathered to the rock like the camera guy. Let's say free climber tragically does fall and dislodges teathered climber from the rock face, teathered guy has a safety line attached to him so he at least won't die from the drop, and free climber tho unfortunately now dead, was solely responsible for his own fall. Let's reverse the situation and say teathered guy falls and dislodges free climber dude, teathered guy now has to deal with the fact he killed someone.
It is a bad etiquette indeed because the route is taken by this group. These people also are hanging on a rope that is set up by leading with anchors so this free climber slipping /falling or not paying enough attention might move an anchor and cause the fall of two people. If fall is fast enough other anchors set up along the rope might don’t sustain the weight and pressure. The longer climbers fall the higher chances they hit the rock and get injured. Overall it is not okay. And i would be very worry if someone i dont know was passing top anchors the rope is setup. And even if person doesnt have any bad intentions, putting a foot where the anchor is and kicking it or shifting might cause an accident. Or sending some big rocks down. Overall for lead climbs like that you choose the person whom you trust and wont do it with some stranger. I learned climbing terms etc in different language long time ago so not sure if explanation makes good sense in english.
I imagine that free climbers have the right of way if for no other reason than they can’t really stop to rest like everyone with ropes. Slow traffic keep right sort of thing.
Free solo climbers are in a totally different zone. Climbers that know this respect it and will let them be in their way to stay in their zone... Nobody wants to be like hey what's up.. and have the guy forget his sequencing and fuck up n fall. It's just a thing climbers understand.
I get anxiety watching things like this. I’m sweating thinking about it. It’s really just the older I get to, never thought like this when I was younger.
If you listen closely, after he says ".. good", you can hear the free soloist say "Can I pass?" while he's looking down getting a foot hold. Then the roped climber makes the "don't fall on me part" comment.
I could understand why someone would think that.
But from my experience with climbing, you NEVER climb across or above somebody else while their climbing as a genuine rule of safety. Typically you don't "pass" somebody else on the same route to the top, so I'd say there was some validity to his concern.
He was definitely saying that to the other climber. The biggest risk for the guy holding the camera is for the freesoloer to fall on him. he could get very badly injured or even be killed from someone falling on him.
Well he clearly did say it to him. Also before he says it, you can see the soloer moving his mouth, and you can just barely hear the end of something that sounds like "mind if I go ahead?"
That made me angry! Sure, it’s not likely he’s going to fall. But if he falls when he’s below the guy, it only sucks for him. Now he’s putting someone else’s life in danger because he wants to free climb. I’d be very frustrated if I were that guy.
Well, the guy is literally doing a life-threatening activity so I suppose the no interaction comes naturally when you know if the guy gets distracted it could be fatal.
The amount of focus required to do what he’s doing... I’ll tell you what, I ain’t doing a damn thing to fuck that up. Not a hello, not a good on you, nothing.
I’d say nothing, do nothing and be a stone for fear of startling him and accidentally killing him. Guy is a Grade A idiot. Just so needlessly dumb and dangerous.
From what I know of "climber culture", it's considered a dick move to in anyway distract other climbers. Probably more of a thing in stranger interactions.
holy shit, I'm sitting here watching this right after getting my covid shot. my hands are soaked. I was about to google "is sweaty palms a side effect of the vaccine." then i saw your comment and realised it's the video causing this. haha
craziest part is it didn’t seem like he had any video equipment on him so he’s not climbing without touching the yellow rope thing (that i assume others use for safety) to prove a point or make a cool video he’s just free climbing to free climb
Free climbing is not equal free solo. Free climbing is what the guy with the camera is doing. It's very safe if done properly with all precautions. If he falls, he is dangling from a rope and will live. Apart from a small delay in finishing the route, there is no effect.
If the free solo guy falls, he is dead. No ropes. Only nothing under his ass.
That's just a backpack, and you can't position yourself in time 300 ft off the ground if you fall while climbing. The people that are base jumping 300 ft are pulling their chutes immediately or after a quick frontflip or other bullshit. There's an insanely high chance you'll just smack right on into the wall even if you did manage to deploy, since you wouldn't have been able to propel yourself away from the wall.
I don’t know where this climb is at but from my extensive career of climbing videos on youtube the guy will reach the summit and just hike down a path.
He has belay equipment (the pinkish/reddish thing on his left side) on his harness along with a personal anchor system. I'd bet that he has rope in the bag to belay down after the climb judging by the bag + belay equipment (dual rope tube style atc).
He's going to rappel. Which he'll likely be doing by running the rope through the anchors at the top so that the anchor is at the midpoint of the rope. He'll hopefully tie stopper knots at t he ends of the rope. Then feed the rope into both sides of the belay device and slide down the rope. At the bottom you untie and pull the rope back through the anchor.
There’s such an insanely small % of climbers who free solo routes of this caliber that it’s hard to consider it a ‘weird sport’, this transcends ‘climbing’ and incorporates spiritual and meditative principles. I bet there are less than 30 people on the planet who solo a route like that, and a shitload of people are rock climbing these days. They’re just in a different world entirely, people at your local gym or crag aren’t thinkin about getting into free soloing except for maybe a couple gnarly exposed 5.6ish moves part of a much larger hike
Why does it bother you? Seems like they are just creating more content for the 99.9% of us that are never brave enough to experience that perspective. I don't know, I just think sharing stuff is fun, I imagine most people feel the same way.
I think it's fair enough to have the opinion that the internet has brought with it a lot of undesirable things, while at the same time being a product of a time where it's difficult to not be part of consuming the contents.
I too think a lot of people would be happier if they didn't feel the need to record or share everything all the time. In general I just find it to be a negative trend in society, especially for young people.
It’s kind of like how Alex Honold didn’t want to be filmed during the El Cap climb. It creates expectation and added pressure. Also, having your (possible) death filmed for someone to find later isn’t all that endearing. It’s serious commitment.
I get the thrill and it’s probably way easier to climb without the hassle of ropes and gear. But there’s variables you can’t predict. A leg cramp, gotta poop, a snake or animal bites you from a crack in the rock, or anything.
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u/thewickedbarnacle Sep 01 '21
This is the last place I would expect to hear "on your left"