Comments on: A Painful Learning Curve

By: Justin

Justin — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:39:02 +0000

I’d like to echo thedirtbag’s sentiments. Soloing to me is colored, not unlike most interesting things in the world, in shades of gray.

I haven’t soloed much if at all in recent years, at least nothing more than a few highballs, but it was definitely an passion of mine in the past. In fact, one of the greatest days of my life was spent soloing in Tuolumne Meadows. Would I try and recreate that day by re-soloing those routes? No, but there are a lot of things in my life that I wouldn’t repeat, but I wouldn’t take them back either if given the opportunity.

While I would never encourage people to go soloing because of the potential consequences, I will also never deny that I did it, or may do it again in the future. Passing judgment upon another for soloing is difficult and not something I’m particularly keen to do, but I will say that ones motivations and ones responsibility to the needs and emotions of others should be the leading factors when deciding whether or not to solo. On the other hand, if one needs someone to tell them this its probably best to stay at home.

-Justin

By: Eggbert

Eggbert — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:55:39 +0000

Gravity and the camera. A terrible combination! Heal quick.

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 05:42:25 +0000

A better approximation would be keffiyeh or kuffiyeh (the prior being close to a different Arabic word). If you can read this it as follows:
كوفيّة or Anglicized, ka-wau-fa-ya (with sheddah)-tarmarbuta.

To make this a little less non sequitur…

Rock climbing is cool. Hurting yourself is not. That is all.

By: Andrew from Nickolodeon

Andrew from Nickolodeon — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 02:41:49 +0000

You know Max, I don’t know why you wear traditional palestinian kafias. You don’t throw rocks, you climb them. You are so wealthy it offends me.

By: thedirtbag

thedirtbag — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:43:56 +0000

I have to say I think it’s pretty cool that people are talking about this. I remember an older climber telling me “Soloing in our sport seems to come in waves. A couple people lead the way. It becomes fashionable. Then people die. The enthusiasm for soloing goes away.”

I do have to say — it’s not as black and white as some people want to make it. We all make choices with how to express ourselves with our passions. Some people push. Others pull back. As climbers we will do both in our lives. Remember that when your looking at other peoples’ decisions. I’m a reformed soloist. I gave it up not because of a close call, but because I saw how clearly impacted the people I loved. It was my call. I was good at it — maybe I even did it better than anything else in my life. But I just walked away and once I did that for a little bit, I just never felt like having to relearn that skill. Looking back, some of those days were the most important moments in my life. They were my own. They were definitively me.They were incredible. Would I be the person I am today if hadn’t soloed — I don’t think so. Were my solos selfish? — maybe, but isn’t okay to do things in life that are for ourselves? Would I encourage my child (hypothetical at this point) to start soloing. HELL NO.

By: Narc

Narc — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:32:58 +0000

The Honnold piece was an episode from the First Ascent series. Unfortunately, the show will not be airing in the U.S. unless something has changed that I’m not aware of.

By: Sean

Sean — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:20:47 +0000

I feel a little cheated since I bought Progression but didn’t attend the reel rock tour…what movie is all this honnold footage in? I thought the only movies showing at RRT were progression and a sneak preview of the first ascent series?

By: Andrew Bisharat

Andrew Bisharat — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:04:02 +0000

cool … just like me!

By: Maxim

Maxim — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:44:56 +0000

P.S.

@AB, Gavin and I are the “New England hipsters who are probably wealthy, bored, and uninteresting.”

By: Maxim

Maxim — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:37:27 +0000

I believe it is probably somewhere in between. While the route itself only covers 30 feet of climbing, it has one of the worst/weirdest multi-tiered talus-filled landings I’ve ever seen. There would really be no way to have enough pads to make it anywhere near safe.

Also, the route is capped by a four foot roof and involves maybe a V3 mantle to top out. If one were to come off cutting the feet (a mandatory move) when matched on the lip or on the mantle itself, you would actually pitch off the steep hillside and probably roll an extra 60 feet after you hit the ground. A fall from the top would very much be life threatening.

Glad I didn’t get to test that theory.