You will eventually, as in the article, hit a loose hold and fall. When that happens you probably die and it wasn't due to anything you could have prevented.
We're all going to die at some point, and while most/many of us might want to delay that inevitability as much as possible, I don't think it's warranted at all to assume that the same premise applies to every single one of us. This guy realized that the only thing in life he could truly enjoy was climbing rocks. Do we really need to fault him for deciding to then just do that thing until fate eventually catches up as it always does?
Sure, it may be rough on the people whose lives they intersect with, but provided they're not a parent raising a child/children/etc, acceptance of one another for who we are is all that remains. Personally, I'd take short-lived good company over long-lived mediocre company any day.
Close, but I don't think you quite get it yet.
It's not about "no downside"! That completely misunderstands. It's about a HUGE upside. It dials in your mental space and all the negative thoughts flood away. You're present in the moment. It's like being on a hard drug, but you feel clean and clear-headed instead of hung over afterward. You feel a lot better about life for days or even weeks at a time. You do it because NOT doing it might just kill you. Free solo today, or shoot yourself in the back of your car at the firepit tonight. And it's not about the risk, and it's not adernaline. It's the focus and calm. Does that make sense? I think it's really hard to understand if you haven't experienced suicidal thoughts for most of your life.
I haven't talked to very many free soloists who haven't made the point that they're horrendously depressed/suicidal and that they do it to live, not to die. Sometimes. Normally the ones who do "quite safe soloing" -- way below their grade, on well-known routes, etc. etc.
The article isn't just about Austin. It's about a lot of people. And not just climbers. Similar dark shit in skiing, mountaineering, dirt biking, and so on.
> Personally, I'd take short-lived good company over long-lived mediocre company any day.
I've never met an irresponsible soloist who wasn't a beautiful soul.
Let's compromise and say it's both? You're right that the upper bound experienced may be a lot higher than most may realize, but it's also true that the lower bound may no longer seem that deep of an abyss as it appears to most. Hence the mental equilibrium in-between being at a point that can seem somewhat alien to those who live more slow-burning lives.
> Hence the mental equilibrium in-between being at a point that can seem somewhat alien to those who live more slow-burning lives.
I suppose that requires a profound amount of empathy from both perspectives. And even with infinite empathy, at the end of the day, it's still two aliens staring at one another across a chasm.
Romanticizing suicide is gross.
There is an inequality between doing something explicitly to die and doing something that may cause death but probably, usually won't.
Equating them is a mistake.
Of course everyone dies eventually, but I'm guessing the life expectancy of free soloers is significantly below average.
Neither can really be classed as committing suicide - it has an explicitly different intent.
Is there not some sort of romanticism in choosing how one dies?
I owned a motorcycle for some years, but then sold it. Years later, when I got diagnosed with cancer*, I broke up with my then girlfriend (not a healthy relationship) and bought a new 1000ccm sports bike. That was a big tipping point in my life. I went from depressive moments with thoughts of "I want to die" to depressive moments of "I hate this, I want out, but I want to live". The motorcycle gives me freedom I don't feel in a car, makes my head clear up, and I feel happier after. I guess most of the change in thought patterns was because of the Cancer looking-over-the-edge-at-death experience, but the motorcycle adds life quality in daily life that is worth the risk. So, a bit like climbing? *shrug*
*- I'm fine now. :)
Both of us think the other guy is gonna fucking die.
Both of us don’t really see our preferred routine dance with death as all that risky. It brings a kind of clarity.
This also gets talked about in climbing quite a bit -- people who find their path out of alcoholism or other drug use and into climbing. I'll emphasize that this is now about climbing in general, not free soloing per se.
Climbing (especially with protection) is healthier than drug addiction, in some sense. But it's displacing one addiction with another. Or introducing addiction as a coping mechanism, in the case where the pain doesn't originate from another pre-existing addiction.
But sometimes cope is healthier than the alternative, and coping can play an important role in "getting you through to the other side". As long as you do actually make it through, of course, both in terms of not dying and in terms of getting to a healthier place where you don't need the coping mechanism.
I think you nailed it here. A lot of our mental issues are made so much worse by twisting them in this abstract world in our minds. Doing something that is so pure and requires you to be 100% in the moment kind of destroys all of that and pulls you back to reality, it can really put things into perspective.
In the past, suicide was viewed as immoral and criminal. We have moved past that, not because suicide is more socially acceptable, but because of a desire to more easily help people suffering from mental illness.
It's about the grey area in-between the extremes of committing suicide (the "black"), and forever running away from risk so that you can die of cancer while undergoing chemotherapy and getting your diapers changed in an elderly home (the "white"(?)).
And if even discussing the topic in those terms touches on some kind of taboo, then yes; perhaps you're right to emphasize the cultural component involved.
It meant I dropped in on waves well beyond my skill level. I had lots of near misses but learnt heaps from the ones I caught.
I’m thankful I no longer feel that way, I want to stick around for those around me. Now I’m content on smaller waves and take a lot less risks in all aspects of life.
Thanks for putting things in perspective.
It's rare but it happens at more or less the same frequency as fatal shark attacks - not often, but memorable.
eg: The Right
Honestly I never rode anything too gnarly, but I definitely was too much of a kook for some of them. Maybe I was overestimating the danger and it was beneficial overall?
It's not that simple, it's not a pure dice roll because not all routes are equal. It depends how hard the route is, what type of rock, what quality of rock, what type of holds, what style of route, whether the route allows you to climb with redundancy or not, the weather conditions, the time of year... and finally you, the subjective component, how well you fit all of those variables.
Granted I don't free solo 7a like this guy did, but I've soloed physically difficult but super solid, safe feeling routes, super easy but fragile, dangerous routes, and super easy, solid but crazy exposed mind fuck routes. I've been rained on, had a bird jump out of a pocket, had base jumpers surprise me, come across friends on route (unavoidably distracting), come across broken holds etc. All curve balls but I had plenty of room to accommodate because of my choices to climb with margins and contingency. Every route requires a different approach, not all routes are a good idea to solo for me, and not all routes are a good idea to solo period.
The point I'm making is that It's possible to regularly partake in this style of climbing with a high probability living to a ripe old age. I believe the majority of people free soloing are trad climbers like me who free solo well under their grade, because it can be considered a subset of trad, and it's good for the mental fitness of harder trad routes and benefits from all of the nuance of the careful and considerate mode which is part of trad climbing. Only people who are pushing the limit, and their own limit when free soloing make the headlines. This guy appeared to be pushing himself to his limit, but on the flip side maybe this was worth the trade for him, non-climbers wont get this but it can be an incredibly rewarding part of your life, there's a risk to every style not just free soloing and we all accept that risk every time we get on a route. You accept a risk every time you get in a car, but you still get in a car, they are just on different levels of risk reward, what you are willing to accept for what type of reward is entirely subjective so please don't judge others if they are happy doing what they are doing and understand the risk.
Yeah, this 100%. Also a very natural extension of high balling.
Have you done any stupid soloing? Did it happen when you were having a particularly hard time with your mental health? Because I think that's really common and we should talk about "soloing as a sort of suicidal release that hopefully doesn't end in death" issue...
I have but it's a drop in the bucket (thankfully). I've done a few routes at a time in my life (over a decade ago) where I wasn't ready for them, and they weren't the most appropriate for soloing.
Other areas of my life were not great at the time. I was not suicidal, but it was a very low point for sure. At the time doing those routes gave me absolute control where I had none elsewhere and lifted me from a dark place into a place of pure focus and presence, and although they were not really conscious decisions (they should have been), I think this is the reason I did them. I don't want to encourage this, but it actually helped me, it gave me confidence and relief. In the interim years, I've sometimes checked myself, and pulled myself back when I think I'm about to solo something for the wrong reasons. I don't want to die if I can help it, but I can totally empathise with Austin, I've seen the entrance to the path he went down, I know why he went down it, I don't blame him.
While I wasn't suicidal, I think there is a spectrum of "despair" on which it exists, and anyone in despair might reach for free soloing as a release and way to gain control. And from personal experience I'm saying it doesn't not work, but it's neither a long term or safe solution when you are in that state of mind.
They’re a direct correlation between low points in my life and doing some fucking stupid climbs without protection.
Also agree it’s basically just highballing but … more.
I'm not a climber, but I get it. However, I have met people who are incapable of thinking about risk at all. As in, if you manged to convince them they were risking their lives driving, they would not be able to drive ever again. For them, ignoring everyday risks is an essential part of navigating life.
As an example, driving is a very avoidable risk. Owning or spending significant time around pool, too, especially with small children. Nevertheless many would say these are “everyday risks”.
I always wear a setbelt and when I climbed was roped in, but to claim these generally acceptable risk mitigation techniques aren't subjective is just claiming your beliefs are everyone's beliefs. That's not true.
Oh this is totally a thing, and it's kind of interesting... there are two kinds of people when it comes to fear, the first does not acknowledge many of the activities they do regularly as risky and so don't experience fear at all (key difference), and the second set of people do experience varying degrees of fear.
You can pass from the first into the second or start in the second, you've taken the red pill so to speak. At this point remaining petrified is not useful, it increases risk, realising this you then can then learn how to exist in a state of fear and maintain mental clarity. Next, depending on the activity, you can also learn to modulate it through experience and perspective. e.g when you "should" and shouldn't be scared, varies greatly with the route the conditions, your physical condition, technical skill, and experience and being aware and mindful of your own ability... this is one reason people solo, to "tune" their fear, because it should feel scary, but plenty of protected routes shouldn't.
The funny thing is someone in the first category can appear much like an experienced person in the second category, but one is oblivious, and one is very attuned to their fear and thus more likely to survive, it's only people in the middle that are scared out of their mind.
But to be clear I'm not saying this applies in this climber's case, he was mostly likely very attuned to the risks, but gaining higher and higher tolerance and pushing those to the edge for other reasons.
Reasons that free soloing isn't necessarily suicidal-tendency levels of poor risk management:
1. Do Not Fall zones aren't unique to free soloing. This is also true for ALL ice climbing, but also for a lot of trad and aid climbing. And even in some cases for sport climbing and bouldering. In fact, free soloing is -- for many practitioners -- a natural extension of the run-outs found on sparsely protected lines. I've taken more risks with my life on the sharp end than out alone. I think that's probably true for most climbers. And the closest I've come to death was a stupid trundling mistake on a to-be-developed sport climb.
2. Life is dangerous. Free soloing a juggy ledge-strwen route below 5.5 definitely feels WAY, WAY less dangerous than the drive home. For example. You are more likely to die on the drive home. More to the point -- you are more likely to die on rappel or from rock fall.
3. Free soloing routes that I know up to 5.6 is no more dangerous -- for me -- than hiking on an exposed trail. And in some cases feels way safer than climbing with a rope and gear (see #1; also, climbs at that grade rarely have clean falls). I suspect that for me free soloing up to 5.9 is probably less dangerous than mountain biking or most skiing.
That said, the sort of soloing Austin was doing is definitely of the riskier "fuck that" variety. Oh, and dangerous soloing is definitely correlated with mental health events. The trope of guys doing a ton of free soloing after bad breakups exists for a reason.
Anyways. This is a hard topic to talk about -- especially online -- because "the first rule of free soloing club is...". So you don't have the usual "first hand experience" vs "hypothetically thinking about this" split. IMO it's time to be a bit more open about it, particularly given the mental health thing. I spent a lot of time free soloing. Some of it was dangerous, but some of it was probably no less irresponsible than driving late at night or skiing a bit to aggressively on a groomer. The dangerous stuff happened when I was in a bad place. Let's talk about that more. That's why I appreciated this piece.
…telling everyone that you’re a free soloist?
Any busy weekend you can spot some conspicuous soloists on Cathedral in Tuolomne, Corner Crack in Squamish, or GNS at Index.
Maybe the few “hard” soloists are incognito, but the vast majority are regular 5.11-ish climbers that want to show off their confidence on a slabby 5.7 jug haul in front of a bunch of new climbers.
I think it's clear from my post that I mean the non-"5.7 jug fest/flatirons/etc." type people don't talk about. Sorry if I'm not being clear.
In another comment I called it "soloing as a sort of suicidal release that hopefully doesn't end in death". The difficulty isn't as important or the point; it's the sort of climbing where, for the climber, there's very little or no margin. Which for some could be some very easy thing. It's relative. I mean the mental health aspect, and how it correlates with risk selection, not the climbing per se.
Some humans seem to have a different kind of risk tolerance than you and I do. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
FWIW, I have literally never heard of a rock guide or mountain guide free soloing with a paying client...
What you list are activities that have risk. But in all of these activities there are considerations to implement safety to preserve the participant as much as possible. Most of these activities the participants have multiple layers of safety in case something happens in order to minimize the risk. Sky diving, Nascar, Plane Flying, Space exploration, deep sea diving, all prepare for the worst and implement safeguards to minimize it. The risk is continually minimized.
Of the activities you list, trad-climbing/sport-climbing would be the free-solo equivalent. This the relatively safe method of rock climbing that most people participate in. There is still risk and people still die. But you can make mistakes and the safeguards generally protect you from death.
Free soloing is a level above that. In free soloing, the risk of imminent death is a feature, not a bug. It is embraced as the core of the activity. The only comparable activity equivalent I can think of to Free Soloing is wing suit base jumping, although even that is often done with backup safety systems, so it still puts it a tiny step ahead.
In other words, you could think of all those activities as something people choose to do DESPITE the risks, but free soloing is done BECAUSE of the risks. That makes it very different from other adventure activities.
It's also worth noting that the last two examples (drug running and coming clean to your mother-in-law) are just a matter of necessity and survival. While there's technically choice in both activities, it is only done as a last resort despite the risks, which put those into a 3rd category. They are usually involuntary activities.
Yes. Climbing with a rope makes you climb more dangerous areas. You plan for falling (which comes always with a risk involved).
When free solo, you do not. So unless you literally have a death wish, you climb way below the level, you would do with a rope.
Even walking down stairs is dangerous if you don't master it. That's why we don't let babies close to stairs: they could kill themselves.
But an adult is so confident at using stairs that they don't consider it a risk anymore. Not that accidents never happen, but that is a risk that we are all willing to take because we "master" stair-climbing.
I see it similarly for free solo: one can master it to the point where climbing a route is fairly safe. It would be extremely dangerous for most humans, but for those, it is not. It is still risky, of course, but then some people die skiing slowly on-piste, and we don't say that it was "suicide".
Obviously, some people will take more or less risk when free soloing. But some people take a lot of risks while driving, and we don't say that "driving a car is equivalent to suicide" for most drivers.
The other sports that have no safety features and may look risky would be cliff diving and free diving.
Lead climbing is plenty dangerous, but the danger is mitigated as a feature of the practice itself - you get ‘save points’ to literally fall back in case you fail. Free soloing chooses not to take advantage of this safety measure.
It’s be like saying “race car driving is inherently dangerous” while refusing to wear a seat belt and helmet. The no, safety gear exists and has been extensively developed over decades of practice - you are simply refusing to avail yourself of it.
It also takes skill to look at rock and have an understanding of how likely it is to be safe to put your weight on. And it takes skill to repeatedly do climbs with a rope to get to the point where you're comfortable doing them unprptected.
Finally, it takes skill to hold yourself on the wall with 1-3 of your other limbs in the event that one of the holds gives away or your hand slips (the latter of which does happen plenty often).
If it weren't skill-based, you'd see random daredevil freaks freesoloing all the time. It just wouldn't be interesting. It'd be like, "Man climbs tall unsteady ladders regularly!" No, what these guys are doing is both insane but also insanely impressive.
Just that when it goes wrong, you're just screwed.
I think those things soloists they do in order to lower the probability of freak events (choosing climbs smartly, not soloing when they're no in the right headspace, practicing, being good at recovering from mistakes, choosing good holds, etc) makes it very skill-based, but they can never lower that all the way to 0%.
Everybody else replying to you is talking about how it’s the same in any extreme sport. The truth is it’s the same for you and me, too. Don’t you want to live doing the things that you want, knowing that no matter what you’re going to die in the end anyway?
30mph (faster than I've ever been on a pedal-bike) is about 13m/s. That's about ~10m fall if my maths is right.
Did you mean a motorbike?
It feels like the comparison to cycling would be at least two orders of magnitude in difference of increased risk.
But accidents and misstakes happen. But they totally can happen when you use a rope as well! A rope can even give you a false sense of security (if you don't know what you are doing).
When you climb free solo - you know everything is on you. One big misstake and it is over.
It is a very intense experience, I used to do it in easy territory and I loved it. But now with kids, there is just too much risk. Because yes, it is way more dangerous. But it is only a certain path to death, if you push your luck.
As a climber, this is total hubris.
But in case I was not clear, there is surely no 100% certainty. Just like you cannot rule out a rock falling on your head. But you can minimize the risk with experience. There is a difference between climbing in sandstone vs. granite. And the type of sandstone, how much iron it contains(color). How wet it is, etc. Do you debate that?
And that's not to mention loose rock above you which you can't even see and that could rain down on your head. It takes a bird standing on a ledge knocking down a softball sized people for you to eat it in the noggin and fall, or wind, or just being at the wrong place at the wrong time (I've coreshot a rope when natural rockfall rained on me while climbing in a funnelling feature, shit was scary).
I did witness quite some things fall, also sometimes with me being under them. But the point of this thread was the theory, that freeclimbing is a certain path to death.
To which I disagree.
Unless of course we also say, that climbing with a rope is a certain path to death, because of all the things you cited and that will eventually happen to you, if you do it long enough. I mean, there was recently a whole mountain top collapsing in switzerland. There is nothing you can do, if that happens spontaneous and you are under it, rope or not.
And then there is of course the chance you will die in a road accident on the way to the mountain.
So I don't understand why you are trying to proof that free solo comes with risks. I am quite aware of it, otherwise I would have been dead a long time ago. And I stated it clearly above.
Yes holds can come off. But if you have your weight on other points, you won't fall.
Climbing with a rope is a certain path to falling.
Free soloing professionally is a certain path to falling to death, unless you stop free soloing first.
I'm not a climber. But reading this thread makes me think maybe the ability to make this distinction could be a kind of fizz/buzz for selecting climbing partners.
Yes. And if you miscalculated, you will still fall on a rock and break your back.
Or a sharp rock will cut the rope and you will fall to death.
Or the nut will come off and you will fall to death.
Or the material was bad and you will fall to death.
There are many ways climbing can go wrong (especially if you are inexperienced or careless, most accidents happen on easy routes). And I am quite sure, that the way I was doing freeclimbing, was way more safe, than what many casual hobby climbers are doing with a rope. That is quite often horrific. And this is what I meant with false security.
Dan Osman, Alaine Robert, Alex Honnold, Steph Davis, Catherine Destiville, Better Harrington, Hazel Findlay, Will Stanhope, Brad Gobright, Michael Reardon, Peter Croft, Dave McLeod and many others have all accumulated impressive free solo resumes, but did not die while free soloing. (Some of them died, but not from a free soloing fall)
There was Derek Hersey, who I guess isn't pro, but certainly was prolific. Among other very notable ascents is his triple route linkup on the Diamond of Longs Peak.
Ryan Triplett was a very well known climber in the PNW that died free soloing 15 years ago. Perhaps he would have more name recognition if still alive today.
There’s likely a number of semi-pros that didn’t live long enough to make the short list.
> As a climber, this is total hubris.
LOL. IMO GP is correct on the object level ("you can free solo with zero risk of being killed by a chossy hand hold") and you are correct on detail level ("if you haven't ripped a piece of choss off the wall by surprise maybe get more mileage outside of perfectly manicured de-facto-gym-crags").
Anyways, the point is that the choss risk is usually totally irrelevant. Most soloists don't solo on-sight. By the time you're soloing a route you usually know these sorts of details. TBH being killed by choss is way more likely belayed or at least on a rope because of the route-familiarity bias in soloing. My closest choss-related call was on TRS trundling shit.