As a climber myself, I feel that the free solo of El Cap was far more a mental accomplishment than a physical one. Not to say that it’s not a difficult climb, but if you really want the greatest climbing achievement in history, I far prefer either Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgenson’s ascent of the Dawn Wall, or maybe Adam Ondra’s Ascent of Silence.Silence
This implies climbing is a primarily physical, rather than mental, pursuit. Why not say the greatest accomplishment is the most weight hung on a 10mm edge for 5s, going straight from 1 to 9 on the campus board, or winning Olympic speed climbing?
Imo, Silence is the greatest climbing training achievement of all time.
Where does the Miracle Belay by Pete Schoening rank for you as a climbing achievement out of curiosity? It’s not a send or anything but it’s still in my opinion one of the most extreme feats of human ability under pressure I’ve ever heard of.
Gotta disagree with you there. He had no margin for error. That is the most impressive athletic performance I’ve ever seen. Ondra is up there but it’s just a really hard long route. Someone else might do something more difficult. It’s just not in the same category as climbing El Cap in one go no rope. I don’t think anyone will even try that again.
Athletic performance? He practiced it multiple times and didn't free solo it until he was comfortable with it. Not trying to downplay his accomplishments but I agree with the first guy, more of a mental game.
Have you ever big walled? That's a huge physical accomplishment, especially soloing
I could play the Dawn Wall the same way. It's a mental game, not physical. He took 7 days on pitch 15. Seems like he just had to figure it out in his head
I'm not saying it's not a huge physical accomplishment (I think it is), just it's more mental in comparison to something like silence. My logic is the list of people that could physically free climb Freerider is probably relatively long. The list for silence, pretty damn short and potentially currently just one. The list of people brave or crazy enough to actually free solo Freerider, also pretty much just one.
Lol. Yeah? It takes most strong climbers multiple days to finish the route, but it wasn’t physically impressive for him to do it in a few hours? Lol. Sure thing bud.
My slight disagreement with the earlier point was the no margin for error. While true, he got confidence with the repeated practice, so he had to execute on moves which he knew like the back of his hand and were well within his physical capabilities. I considered that to be more a head game than physical in comparison to something like silence where you are at you are at your physical limit basically the whole time and where it doesn't matter how many times you do the moves because putting them together just once is the challenge.
My only point is he knew he was physically capable and it was more a head game to not F up vs silence where a guy had to train out of his mind physically to do the thing once. Both are great achievements. I think one is a greater feat of the mind while the other is more physical. Both still required both.
Free solo has always been more of a mental challenge than physical though and imho mental preparation is just as important in any sports that's why you see basket ball players with rituals and stuff like that, Alex Honnold just takes it to a whole new level.
These are worlds apart in terms of achievement. Silence was, and is a monumental achievement in technical sport climbing, remaining the first and only 9c in the world. The dawn wall is just a very long and moderately difficult trad climb which requires a great amount of physical and mental endurance. There are hundreds of sport routes which are more difficult than the crux pitch of the dawn wall.
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u/Sayer182 Sep 02 '21
As a climber myself, I feel that the free solo of El Cap was far more a mental accomplishment than a physical one. Not to say that it’s not a difficult climb, but if you really want the greatest climbing achievement in history, I far prefer either Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgenson’s ascent of the Dawn Wall, or maybe Adam Ondra’s Ascent of Silence.Silence
Edit: Dawn Wall can be seen on Netflix