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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Nobody ever told you to "worship" Anita, certainly not me.
Nor is anyone trying to bring Alex down to their level, he seems worlds beyond us.
But people are posting well considered thoughts here. No one is posting stupidities.
Your pure snarkiness is close though.
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atchafalaya
Boulder climber
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"Aren't you the person who once emailed me to give me a detailed list of all the climbs you'd done 30 years ago and who was who on SuperTopo so I could basically know that I was surrounded by greatness that I needed to respect and worship no matter what stupidities they posted here?"
Would love to see the list of Supertopo's greatest posters.
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blahblah
Gym climber
Boulder
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the only way a runner could possibly compare would be if they were in a 4 hour race with the best runners in the world and everyone except for the winner gets killed in the end. The thing that seperates this achievemnent from all the ball players, runners, paddelers, bikers and skiers etc in the world is the fact that the athlete will die with any mistake made in the 4 hours to complete the task and the fact that there is only one person in the world that can do this.
From that point of view, there's nothing very impressive about Honnold's achievement from a historical perspective.
Consider gladiators, who had a 50-50 chance of death each time, and whose lives depended solely on their athletic prowess (at least relative to their adversary). Now those were some real world class athletes! Forget all those guys who grow up in African villages or the slums of Rio and make their fortune playing football--their athletic skills are nothing compared to those who master our favorite pastime.
Can anyone doubt there are many climbers who could free solo Freerider with an order-of-magnitude less chance of death than a gladiator faced? I can believe that Honnold has the greatest chance of survival of anyone who could solo Freerider--maybe he was about 99% chance of survival, and some others would only be at 98% or so, who knows.
(Ondra probably has better things to do with his time, but seeing as how a solo would be 3 number grades or so below his max climbing level, I think he'd probably have a pretty good chance of survival--how often do most of you fall on a climb you've got wired that's three number grades below your max?)
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Bla Bla Bla. We are talking modern times here. The gladiators were not faceing the best in the world. they were simply faceing whomever got thrown in there. a more accurate assesment would be a four hour duel between Miamoto Mussashi and whomever was deemed to be the best in the world at that time.....
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landcruiserbob
Trad climber
PUAKO, BIG ISLAND Kohala Coast
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Funny how people want Alex to just become cattle like most of us humans. Let him explore the boundaries of his personal and physical growth. He's a unique mutation and hopefully he gets to breed.
Aloha and be well
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Oplopanax
Mountain climber
The Deep Woods
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Aside from the fact hat Hansjorg Auer didn't solo El Cap I don't see a lot of difference between Auer's solo of the Fish (900m, 12b/c) and Honnold's solo of Freerider (1000m, 12d). The Fish is less sustained but has much worse rock.
In terms of pure danger there's way more objective hazard in the alpine than there is on cliffs. Note that Ueli Steck fell on a snowslope on Nuptse, not soloing the Eiger NF.
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WBraun
climber
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(it is all genetics my friend)
No it ain't.
It takes a consciously advanced person to run that machine ......
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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the consquences of failure on this climb define the climb and the athletic achievement. like it or not the significance of this event is the fact that a single mistake anywhere on the climb means certain death. to try to discount that and compare it to sports where if you make a mistake you simply lose is pointless.
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GDavis
Social climber
SOL CAL
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Suddenly Alex is the one we need to focus on as being the most dangerous when in reality there were probably a handful of parties on El Cap this year alone closer to death than he was.
15 year old GDavis building anchors at Dixon Lake could use a letter from KP, only I didn't have The North Face to put pictures of my shitty anchors on a then non-existent facebook.
No, we focus on outliers and forget that the thread that runs through them runs through us all. Honnold might die soloing, Emily Harrington might die skiing an 8k meter peak, Caldwell might blow a dangerous sequence and penjy into a wall. Ice can hit Steve House, rockfall can smash up the Villanueve brothers (?? however you spell their names?).
But no, Alex's pictures are subjectively scarier, if not objectively. So we focus on that.
Not too fair now is it.
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anita514
Gym climber
Great White North
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This just in: Alex Honnold hiked to the top of El Cap to congratulate Pete & Limey Sean on their ascent
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WBraun
climber
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Lol ... good one
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Wade Icey
Trad climber
www.alohashirtrescue.com
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Dear Alex
Would have been better style to do it in a yellow tshirt, and jesus, man, wear some sunscreen!
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Bearbreeder is correct, there are better technical climbers than Alex, there just aren't any climbers who have his fusion of mind and body.
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blahblah
Gym climber
Boulder
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Bearbreeder is correct, there are better technical climbers than Alex, there just aren't any climbers who have his fusion of mind and body.
Who is a better "technical" climber (other than Ondra)?
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Alex would be the first to tell you that he is not the world's best boulderer or sport climber that takes nothing away from the fact that he is the world's best CLIMBER.
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phylp
Trad climber
Upland, CA
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Thanks for your post, Andy KP.
Your email from 2012 was certainly prescient.
When I heard about what he had done, soloed El Cap, my one and only reaction was to feel sad about it. Because it seems to be a part of a trajectory of ever increasingly difficult challenges that he is setting for himself.
As many have said, it's his life to live.
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blahblah
Gym climber
Boulder
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Alex would be the first to tell you that he is not the world's best boulderer or sport climber that takes nothing away from the fact that he is the world's best CLIMBER.
OK, you didn't write "boulderer or sport climber" in the post I responded to, you wrote "technical climber."
I suppose it isn't exactly clear what "technical climber" means, but I don't think most people would interpret that as "boulderer or sport climber"--I didn't. (And bouldering and sport climbing are different things--generally the same person isn't the best at both, although Ondra may be an unusual exception.)
I'd interpret "technical climber" as sort of an all-around trad/slab/crack (all sizes) gear-placing, trad-leading expert, and I don't know if there's anyone better than Honnold, which is why I asked. Certainly not many. I would imagine Ondra could become better if and whenever he chooses.
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JLyons
Sport climber
Cali
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Jun 6, 2017 - 12:35pm PT
"Aren't you the person who once emailed me to give me a detailed list of all the climbs you'd done 30 years ago and who was who on SuperTopo so I could basically know that I was surrounded by greatness that I needed to respect and worship no matter what stupidities they posted here?"
Would love to see the list of Supertopo's greatest posters.
This would be absolute ST Comedy Gold. What a bunch of self-important bloviators, lol
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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^^^What he said, from the get-go.
He gets paid to take risks, so what?
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i-b-goB
Social climber
Wise Acres
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What's amazing is Alex is that good! He had it dialed and was in the zone! He was rational and in control and a sure bet!
Sure something could have gone wrong, but he put in all the work and he knows what to do and he has done the high lonely many times and even backed off when it didn't feel right to him!
I'm sure he is more solid then most with a rope on Freerider, and it was not a suicide run but his manifest destiny! I'm still blown away, cheers Alex!
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