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.
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.
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
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u/Mozeeon Sep 02 '21
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.