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Vitaliy M.
Mountain climber
San Francisco
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It's not as easy, but much more rewarding, I know lots of dead guys, and it sounds like you're a little messed up, so chill, your family loves you.
I do not think he is messed up. My regular friends think I am messed up for climbing in general. Alex H. is a special kind, a unique individual. I hope he will achieve what ever he wants in this life, and does not die soloing, but of old age, some day much later.
Good luck!
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Synchronicity
Trad climber
British Columbia, Canada
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You folks keep saying things like this, evertytime this kind of topic comes up, so provide some examples. Because this is what you WISH were true, not what is actually true.
DanO - All over the Masters of Stone series soloing. On a "No Fear" brand poster, soloing.
Reardon - Sprayed like a waterhose. All over video, Acopa ads, his own website "freesoloist.com" with full rundowns of hard stuff he soloed (or claimed to, anyway).
Dean - All over Masters of Stone series, soloing.
Even the fairer sex... Steph, soloing in the Creek, Castelton, and the Diamond, on video.
I already covered Bachar and Croft above. Maybe you have a different idea of who qualifies as "cutting edge soloists".
Ok so scratch the term "cutting edge" but I stand by what I said. Many well known soloists DO publicize their exploits but there are a great many people not so well known that solo quietly for their own pleasure. Some even solo at or near their limit (which is obviously relative) and few decide to talk about it unless asked. I'm not saying its a bad thing when people do spray, to the contrary, for me it's the most interesting thing to read and a look into a world I can barely comprehend. I don't necessarily correlate "spraying" with motivations at all.
Regardless of all this speculation, from my experience you can fool the masses but you can't fool yourself. I would be hard pressed to believe someone like Dano, Potter, Hersey, Bachar, Reardon, Croft, Honnold, anybody would find themselves hundreds of feet off the ground ropeless if they didn't truly believe in what they were doing. Besides who am I or you to question someones motives?
The problem in soloing is that it may not matter why you do it, or what makes you tick, you can still die either way. To quote Joe Simpson "You like to think you control the odds by your judgement and by your skill and its not exactly true".
As for me I'm not soloing 5.12b so nobody cares anyways, but to me these experiences, however small, are powerful and addictive. I constantly ask myself why I want to do it before I go. I've told my experiences to a few trusted friends but some of the most important things I've ever done I keep to myself. I think no matter what you could say to explain, nobody could ever understand the personal feeling inside you at that moment and what it means to you is a very individual thing.
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boomdogg
Trad climber
California
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How are his write ups and motivations any different than the Trip Report section on this site? People die climbing all the time. It's a dangerous activity. Just because he's soloing doesn't mean it HAS to be a secret.
Writing a trip report doesn't mean you're doing it for the wrong reasons. People document their climbs for all sorts of reasons and I find it a wee bit hypocritical to criticize Alex for doing it also. I love reading trip reports (or spray, whatever you wanna call it), and I hope he continues to document his incredible outings.
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LongAgo
Trad climber
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Notes to Honnold
The Fall
I so hope you don’t fall. You seem filled with authentic joy for the walls and moving on them. Bravo, it’s all that matters. Hope you can enjoy the walls for a long time. A rope adds to the odds you can do so for a longer time, of course. Your choice.
Humbled
It is humbling to watch you climb. You make it hard for all of us to gab about our climbs and how or why we climb. You make some of us feel we should forever shut up on climbing so small is all by comparison. Take the sport trad bolt and climbing style debate we wrangle about – puff, irrelevant as here we have no protection hardware of any kind placed, no rope tension to work moves, no previewing. Well, I guess you don’t on-sight everything you do solo, but still. Bravo again to your skill and accomplishments.
Fulfillment
Your writing gives an inkling of finding an odd truth about climbing: it does not matter if you climb rope less, nude, upside down, every day, 10 days a year, on rock, snow, 5.4 or 5.14; the essence of it is what you gain inside. Preoccupation with feats in climbing obscures this truth, but there it is. As your latest most honest writing on MF suggests, even your level of achievement may or may not fulfill. There is the rub for you, for all of us. Keep an eye on what fulfills. The freedom of soloing, the unobstructed movement is wonderful. So too is looking out to the mountains, rivers, meadows, sky and horizon from a belay, and bantering with a partner about the day. So too is an animal seen, snow, a sunset, color or polish of rock or scent of flowers in the breeze. These may strike you more than a climb. Wonderful. Know that. Keep that.
Writing
I’m glad you write. It gives a look into your inner world, whether what you writing goes commercial or stays in a secret journal. Don’t be concerned about criticism of your published or shared pieces. We all blab sometimes well, sometimes poorly whether in journals, on websites or just to friends. We’re human. But the key to rewarding writing is whether it plumbs deeply and honestly, or whether it glosses over the big stuff or is just for effect. It does no good for the writer or audience if the latter. Writing if done well is revelatory. It faces itself. It says to yourself who you are and even shapes who you are, whether put out on the web or kept to yourself. Strive for honest, insightful writing finding and revealing the truth of the moment.
Illusion
In the video, you say you are in complete control. You say believing you won’t fall insures you won’t. Living by certain fictions in climbing and life generally is important to going forward with verve and hope. But knowing down deep what are fictions is vital. The American Dream is one such fiction. We live by it, we laugh at it. There is no perfect and everlasting control in climbing. Sh#t happens, strange, unpredictable events having nothing to do with the firmness of our resolve, the calm of your brain, the strength of your body. Ask fellow climbers to tell you about such events and see what you make of them. Catalog and ponder them. Maybe you will decide they don’t apply to you. One of mine? Swallows flying out of a crack into my face on Enduro Corner, sending me off.
Progression
Life and time progress. Making the leap to be with a life partner and kid (if so blessed) means you become a new you. The new you consider how your actions impact your family because hurting them will hurt you and jeopardize what you prize and want to keep. You will give much angst to your life mate and kid sooner or later if you stay with your current way of climbing. So, you must choose between how you are now and how it will be with another. Don’t fool yourself into thinking no choice is needed and nothing will change. That’s a fiction which will doom you to years of unhappiness. I’ve seen it all too often.
Tom Higgins
LongAgo
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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I've been here before, with this particular discussion and can only add Goethe's great call,
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.
And yet there continues this peculiar notion that climbing is not at all a romantic conjecture and barefaced will to flight but rather somehow a reasoned enterprise undertaken by sober men and women for what might even appear to be rational means for rational ends. As if navigating the world safely with practical purpose. Such would be a misread of most of the history of mountaineering, several hundred years of it, and then its ancient antecedents as well. Alex is very much a part of us and is going forward on our behalf as well as his own. Climbing CAN justify its deaths, it just is so very terrible when it has to.
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jstan
climber
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For the person who climbs because it is a reasoned enterprise, it seems like a reasoned enterprise.
The person who climbs because it allows fate to be defeated, goes out of his way to tempt fate.
Each observer reads the message in climbing that most appeals to them.
It is all in the head.
Both have to take care they do not land on their heads.
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Michael Kennedy
Social climber
Carbondale, Colorado
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Three in a row. Thanks, Tom, Peter and John, for putting it all in perspective.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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...no rope tension to work moves...
Kind of the [lost] essence of climbing in a nutshell...
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PeteC
climber
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Wow, Tom Higgans advice is priceless and the best thing I've read on supertopo
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Just an observation:
We've had plenty of discussion on Super Topo in which the community generally came down in support of never changing the run-out X rated routes (common in Tuolumne for instance)
Stuff like Solitary Confinement (5.9 no pro) and a variety of "better not Fall" route from moderate to harder.
and also in defense up putting up routes that are desperately unsafe, even applauding it as the best style
Some of the same people adamant about "Let's keep climbing dangerous. It's important that there be "you fall, you die" routes are the same folks cautioning Alex not to solo routes a number grade or two below his ability.
Sure there are differences but I'd suspect it would be more dangerous for the mortal man climber to attempt some of these x rated routes a number grade below their ability than for Alex to do what he does.
Just sayin'
Peace
Karl
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WBraun
climber
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People that are against people free soloing should mind their own fuking business.
It's not your business.
Go climb the way you want but leave these guys alone.
As far as run outs and dangerous climbs and pitches.
If you don't like it then stfu and stay off of them.
Tough sh!t people. There's always gonna be dangerous sh!t in the world.
If you can't "think for yourself" then there's no hope for you as you're just plain stupid.
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Thank you Captain Bossyface.....
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Go climb the way you want
I'm blaming Werner for all the bolts added to routes I put up.
;)
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Johnny K.
climber
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Werner solos with babies on his back.
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landcruiserbob
Trad climber
BIG ISLAND or Vail ; just following the sun.......
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Most people spend their lives trying not to die, please respect the ones who are trying to live.
I may solo 3-5 times a year & I never plan it; It just happens. Your senses from those moments create lasting memories. The smell of the rock, the wind from the back, every little texture of the rock create those memories.
Don't judge him he is living it on the real & you can't ever get back from that. Endorphins are the drug of choice & you can't come back from it.
Alex is pulling off some brilliant stuff, keep on pushing it bra.
Aloha & be well
Rg
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LongAgo
Trad climber
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Peter, I have saluted Honnold in my post. And, as you know, I was once in the ranks of both the romantics and stupid in many of my climbing days. You may recall my foolish but passionate upside down time on the Owl Roof in Yosemite, going solo by jumar protection of all things, and more foolishly on the Bachar Yerian in the same way, tales told on SP in the past. Bless our irrational days. Still, those days do not prevent us from both saluting Honnold’s boldness (which I do) while caring and fearing for him, and urging him to pay heed to an inner voice expressed in his writing, then offering thoughts based on our times in climbing, the good, the stupid, the inspirational. I don’t fool myself as to whether he is listening. These are my thoughts and hopes for him from a place of admiration and reflection, hardly any prescription. As to whether climbing can justify its deaths, as if climbers march toward an ever rising golden horizon, generation upon generation, and loses are worth the cause, I see no grand cause at all, only personal satisfaction and joy, and so make no such calculation.
Karl, I certainly agree there are many ways to make for death risks in climbing aside from free soloing. I certainly hope I never created X routes of the kind you refer to in Tuolumne, and tried to avoid climbing those others created. I am not of the camp touting climbing death routes for any supposed personal good. Thus, I don’t believe I am being hypocritical in laying out what I have for Alex. But, did I never do things which might have risked my death on walls, driving on mountain roads in a VW bug as if in a Porsche (and then in one), swimming too far from a beach in Hawaii or otherwise make regrettable choices? Indeed, and partly I write from the place of having been foolish myself. From that place, I tried to write with empathy rather than prescription. You are right: none of us are pure or noble or perfect in the discussion of how and why we climb. But Supertopo would be a silent place if we had to be before giving our opinions and understanding from days on the walls.
WBraun: Your are right. It is not my business. It is none of our business. It is only his business. But we can still discuss the business and send our thoughts, reflections, and hopes to him and one another on the business. These are not dictates.
Tom Higgins
LongAgo
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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And now Tom, you are just getting splashy again. I love you when you get that way. It's pretty endearing. Really.
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ß Î Ø T Ç H
Boulder climber
bouldering
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Seems like he makes a point of not repeating Bachar, Hersey or Croft (etc soloist's) solos, so spotlight 100% on him or something (?). In OP's (text) article, A.H. eludes to Caldwell being so great, but off-handedly pussifies/ describes him doing the same route with a rope - when then A.H. solos it, and complains it wasn't even spicy enough.
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Mister_Roborto
Trad climber
Queensland
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Is there a list somewhere of all the new routes that Alex has put up?
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SuperTopo on the Web
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Let us know!