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Comment by BaseballPhysics | Hacker News Reader

> While their pursuits are dangerous, they took great care in their craft and respected the mountains and the art. This guy just seems like a reckless fool, pursuing likes on Instagram out of some stubborn unwilligness to deal with his depression head on

Bluntly, if you are willing to justify Honnold's behaviour but not Howell's, I think you're just rationalizing. At least Howell didn't have a kid.

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Honnold has kid now, in the height of his fame curve when he did most dangerous stuff he had barely a girlfriend (with typical fanatic attitude of 'me any my passions first', and if there is sometimes anything left then others).

He is still doing some soloing, and may very well die from some stupid accident outside of his control like random loose rock just falling on his head, but chances compared to before are much smaller.

I'm not really sure the chances are any smaller. Here's one example, he onsight soloed a 13 pitch 5.11a last year a few months after his kid was born: https://www.instagram.com/p/CfSIT0QuzXq/

He does this kind of thing all the time (and usually doesn't post about it), and it's arguably more dangerous than what he's most famous for, which is soloing really big routes only after he's climbed them on a rope hundreds of times. It's like a retired Olympic marathon runner going for an easy jog every few days, but if they ever trip they'll die.

I mean, 5.11a is really not that hard. Of course, there are levels to the game. 13 pitches changes the calculus a bit, but he regularly does 50+ pitch linkups. So, that's basically just a warmup for him (and others).

Not without risk, but then again, neither is driving to the crag.

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