Is soloing becoming too "casual"?

Discussion Topic

Return to Forum List

This thread has been locked

Messages 101 - 120 of total 134 in this topic

<< First | < Previous | Show All | Next > | Last >>

healyje

Trad climber

Portland, Oregon

Oct 13, 2016 - 09:30am PT

There is a certain mental endurance required to be seriously focused at all moments for an extended period of time.

Hmmm. I guess I don't experience it that way at all. In fact, I find it just the opposite; more a freedom from any kind of mental effort and exertion. I fall into a rhythm and pacing and everything else is more or less on autopilot and flow. And to be honest that's pretty much the same for me whether roped or unroped.

PapaDrew

Trad climber

Idyllwild, CA

Oct 16, 2016 - 08:08am PT

"I've always wanted perfect, but having 'perfect' means no perfectibility, no allowances for mistakes. I don't think I want 'perfect' anymore."

http://mobile.nytimes.com/comments/2016/05/29/opinion/sunday/why-you-will-marry-the-wrong-person.html

Jim Clipper

climber

from: forests to tree farms

Oct 16, 2016 - 09:12am PT

https://vimeo.com/123870988

Sorry if this is already posted. I thought that this may belong on the fall colors thread. Trees lost their leaves, berries are big this year.

radair

Social climber

North Conway, NH

Oct 18, 2016 - 11:19am PT

If you do it when no one is around, is it still showing off?

bungs

Trad climber

Oct 18, 2016 - 12:34pm PT

To cop a line from Whymper, look well to each step, young climber and old. That loose hold doesn't care if you can on-sight 5.13. It really doesn't. No lives matter to that teetering block.

The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent

-Kubrik

i-b-goB

Social climber

Wise Acres

Oct 18, 2016 - 01:52pm PT

PapaDrew

Trad climber

Idyllwild, CA

Oct 18, 2016 - 01:59pm PT

As I was growing up in the 1960's, the late Bob Kamps was one of my rock climbing mentors.

Once while dining at a favorite Chinese restaurant, Bob opened a cookie containing this apt "fortune":

"Who bravely dares must sometimes risk a fall."

Intrigued with his luck of being the one to receive it, Bob taped the slip of paper to his office desk for inspiration.

Visiting his office years later, when I first saw it I too was intrigued by how it came to be taped there, maybe the best climbing-inspired fortune cookie message ever.

Upon reflection on the content of the message, moreover, I realized it not only alludes to the sport of climbing but also teaches how Bob used safety gear for his legendary success at pioneering difficult new free ascents.

As John Gill noted above, Bob's claim to fame was not from free soloing. And nor can his fortune's literal message be understood to describe free soloing. Contrary to the fortune's advice, free soloists must not risk a fall; instead, each of their lives depends on incessant infallibility all the way up each of their solo ascents, as was the only way to climb in the earliest days of our sport.

Thus the literal meaning of "Who bravely dares must sometimes risk a fall" is practical only regarding the second, now naturally far more prevalent, way to free climb: the way which uses ropes and other modern safety equipment so that failure might be survived, and so trial and error could yield progress. Such progress for each individual climber ultimately results in increasingly difficult free routes, advancing the sport as a whole beyond what routes might be soloed currently with perfection.

That's why some free climbers say that when you are belayed and stoked to test the limits of your ability "you're not trying if you're not flying."

Royal Robbins wrote a memoir of his roped climbing exploits entitled "Fail Falling."

That was also Bob Kamps' way, by which he became one of the top free climbers of his generation.

In most senses of the word free, that way has predictably proved to be the freest of the two ways to free climb.

By invoking this second way, the advice by the author of Bob's fortune is all the more profound as an insight into achievements far beyond our sport. Since its author could not have anticipated it would be received by an actual climber, this advice must not have been intended to be taken so literally, to be specifically about climbing. Instead, it figuratively promotes the sage worldview that to succeed in whatever areas of life challenge us we all must bravely risk failure (analogous to falling while on belay). . . seeking progress without increasing unnecessarily the risk the failure will become an irremediable disaster.

WBraun

climber

Oct 18, 2016 - 02:07pm PT

test the limits of your ability "you're not trying if you're not flying."

This is such bullsh!t.

The whole point is NOT to fall and if you're falling you missed the flash and the real test of your limits.

If you're falling a lot then you're just doing puffed up virtual aid climbing masquerading as free.

Because everytime you fall and hang you're previewing .......

Winemaker

Sport climber

Yakima, WA

Oct 18, 2016 - 06:25pm PT

Reading this post has been interesting. I make no claims of being a good climber, quite the contrary in fact. But the same things apply to other situations. I was descending a steep exercise hike Thursday, trying to go down fast as I wanted to beat a time when, wham, the world was spinning around, sh#t was flying, and I was on my back. It was sudden, not a single hint of slipping so one could fall on one's ass ungraciously, but rather a violent twisting and thrashing. I tumbled on a steep bit. My butt hurt, but that seemed all. Friday night the pain started, as I had landed on sharp rocks with my right side and bruised ribs and did something to my right shoulder. Didn't sleep that night, as each movement just rubbed damaged stuff together. It was better the next night and I decided not to go to the doctor. Then yesterday my left knee started locking up and it became almost impossible to go down stairs. I severed my left quad tendon three years ago and struggled to get back, and here, from this stupid little slip I never even felt, the leg was useless. Again. Needless to say, the swelling is going down and it will be okay.

My point is that things happen despite best planning and to trust that every single move one makes will be the right one and work is delusional. Do what you want, but don't try and justify it, don't try to rationalize it. Sh#t happens and always will and it will catch you out. Just don't have kids.

Studly

Trad climber

Oct 18, 2016 - 06:27pm PT

or....just don't drink wine. ;)

Winemaker

Sport climber

Yakima, WA

Oct 18, 2016 - 08:12pm PT

Wine was not involved. I know you were joking, but I'm simply pointing out how unexpected sh#t happens, even in easy situations. There have been a lot of people killed on class 3 stuff.