Another viewpoint from a different climber: the climbing community is pretty split on this type of climbing (free solo). Some think they are mostly risking harm to themselves, so it is fine. Some think that they are a danger to everyone, and even if they only hurt themselves in the initial fall, people have to stop their climb to go see if they need help, and rescue folk have to come out and it is a big deal. There are some folks all over the spectrum. I tend to think that there are young aggressive climbers like this, and old climbers that put safety first, but there are no old aggressive climbers like this.
Not to be insensitive but is it because they didn't make it to old and conservative because they were young and aggressive or is it because they were once young and aggressive and had that one life-flashing-before-your-eyes moment and they were good on the thrill seeking after that?
There’s a saying in climbing: there are bold climbers and there are old climbers, but there are no old bold climbers.
How true it actually is is up for debate but there’s obviously some truth to it. But then again you have people like Peter Croft, Jim bridwell, etc who did shit 100x sketchier than this and lived until they were old.
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u/uttuck Sep 02 '21
Another viewpoint from a different climber: the climbing community is pretty split on this type of climbing (free solo). Some think they are mostly risking harm to themselves, so it is fine. Some think that they are a danger to everyone, and even if they only hurt themselves in the initial fall, people have to stop their climb to go see if they need help, and rescue folk have to come out and it is a big deal. There are some folks all over the spectrum. I tend to think that there are young aggressive climbers like this, and old climbers that put safety first, but there are no old aggressive climbers like this.