I didn't tell my girlfriend what I was doing today
December 30, 2022 9:30 AM Subscribe
[TW: Acrophobia, real life fear] A lovely Friday video, in which professional climber Magnus Midtbø has Alex Honnold (previously) convince him to free solo, or, climb without safety equipment, a 206 meter cliff.
Free climbing irrationally...enrages me? Not quite the right word...but close...don't understand it, I admit that. But also don't want to. I still click on these videos though.
posted by tiny frying pan at 10:23 AM on December 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by tiny frying pan at 10:23 AM on December 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
I think it's quite possible that Alex Honnold might be a straight-up sociopath.
Yeah; seriously. Is there anything to be admired here? It's one thing to make these decisions for yourself. It's yet another thing to have a friend who decides, on their own, that they want to do this -- and help them to make the best, safest, smartest choices for completing the trial without injury or death. But to *convince* someone to take extraordinary risks that - if unsuccessful - have life-long impact on the person, their family, and loved ones? Those people get pushed to the outer regions of my circles of trust. I am a risk-taker. I hang out with risk takers. You prevent jackasses from doing something jackassedly stupid on your watch; you encourage and support and protect people who have decided to take on something outside of their current skill level. You do not try to *convince* someone to remove all safety gear for something that could potentially kill or permanently damage them.
On occasion, you get one of these types showing up. My go-to line when I see this happening is, "you want them to take this risk? Ok - are you willing to sign a document right now saying that if they fail you will agree to be there daily to feed, clothe and bathe them for as long as is needed?" Not one of them has ever said yes.
posted by Silvery Fish at 10:36 AM on December 30, 2022 [17 favorites]
Yeah; seriously. Is there anything to be admired here? It's one thing to make these decisions for yourself. It's yet another thing to have a friend who decides, on their own, that they want to do this -- and help them to make the best, safest, smartest choices for completing the trial without injury or death. But to *convince* someone to take extraordinary risks that - if unsuccessful - have life-long impact on the person, their family, and loved ones? Those people get pushed to the outer regions of my circles of trust. I am a risk-taker. I hang out with risk takers. You prevent jackasses from doing something jackassedly stupid on your watch; you encourage and support and protect people who have decided to take on something outside of their current skill level. You do not try to *convince* someone to remove all safety gear for something that could potentially kill or permanently damage them.
On occasion, you get one of these types showing up. My go-to line when I see this happening is, "you want them to take this risk? Ok - are you willing to sign a document right now saying that if they fail you will agree to be there daily to feed, clothe and bathe them for as long as is needed?" Not one of them has ever said yes.
posted by Silvery Fish at 10:36 AM on December 30, 2022 [17 favorites]
I dunno… I'm a crappy weekend warrior climber and even I could do that route basically in sneakers. At the level these guys are climbing —there's probably only a couple hundred people in the world who can climb like Midtbø—, I think it's really hard to gauge the level of risk that free soloing something like that entails.
posted by Omon Ra at 11:04 AM on December 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Omon Ra at 11:04 AM on December 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
He did tell his girlfriend in the end:
Girlfriend reacting to climbing with Alex Honnold
posted by Omon Ra at 11:08 AM on December 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
Girlfriend reacting to climbing with Alex Honnold
posted by Omon Ra at 11:08 AM on December 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
I always wonder what a "close call" feels like for these guys. Like, how many times on the average climb do they have that moment where their grip doesn't seem to hold or their balance goes off or they completely blank and don't know what to do next? It seems unreasonable that they'd never have any moments like that. Does every climb include at least a millisecond of "oh shit, I'm going to fall" terror?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 11:21 AM on December 30, 2022
posted by RonButNotStupid at 11:21 AM on December 30, 2022
I would never do this but you know what, as long as he's not doing it with a kid on his back...
posted by kingdead at 11:42 AM on December 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by kingdead at 11:42 AM on December 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
As a climber, I hate the way the attention that movies like Free Solo and The Alpinist and their attendant news coverage have put on free soloing as though it were the ne plus ultra of the sport. I lost a lot of respect for Midtbø when I saw that he had done this. I have not watched any of those movies, and I won't watch this. There are much better films about people pushing the limits of the sport safely and responsibly (e.g. Dawn Wall).
A much more interesting story is what a free soloist thinks after they manage to survive a serious free solo accident. Josh Ourada fell while free soloing a relatively easy route that he had climbed before, with and without a rope. He survived, though with severe injuries. He had this to say afterward:
I can't find it at the moment, but earlier this year in one of the climbing magazines (Outside, maybe?) there was an article about a search and rescue veteran and his mental health struggles. It described the experience of recovering the broken bodies of fall victims. It's horrible.
Free soloing is just Russian roulette with a lot of empty chambers. Eventually, a hold will break. Eventually, a gust of wind will catch you wrong. Eventually, a rock will fall from above. Eventually, the weather will turn while you're on the wall. Eventually, you will make a mistake. Eventually, you will die or be severely injured, and other people, who did not sign up for it, will have to deal with your broken body.
I wish this weren't on MetaFilter.
posted by jedicus at 11:44 AM on December 30, 2022 [29 favorites]
A much more interesting story is what a free soloist thinks after they manage to survive a serious free solo accident. Josh Ourada fell while free soloing a relatively easy route that he had climbed before, with and without a rope. He survived, though with severe injuries. He had this to say afterward:
On an emotional level, I’m going to be processing this event for a long time. The feelings are still really raw—regret, naturally, comes to the forefront. I regret putting other climbers at risk, and I regret the impatience I felt.It strikes me as very similar to the feelings expressed by many suicide survivors, who often report regret, remorse, and a realization that they did not actually want to die.
I can't find it at the moment, but earlier this year in one of the climbing magazines (Outside, maybe?) there was an article about a search and rescue veteran and his mental health struggles. It described the experience of recovering the broken bodies of fall victims. It's horrible.
Free soloing is just Russian roulette with a lot of empty chambers. Eventually, a hold will break. Eventually, a gust of wind will catch you wrong. Eventually, a rock will fall from above. Eventually, the weather will turn while you're on the wall. Eventually, you will make a mistake. Eventually, you will die or be severely injured, and other people, who did not sign up for it, will have to deal with your broken body.
I wish this weren't on MetaFilter.
posted by jedicus at 11:44 AM on December 30, 2022 [29 favorites]
This might be a bit of a derail, but I have a somewhat irrational pedantic annoyance at the term "Free climbing" to describe this. Free climbing is climbing without aid gear, but still using a rope to protect you in case you fall. "Free soloing" is climbing with no rope at all, as in this video.
But this is an extremely common use of the term outside of climbing circles, that suggests that the climbing community picked a poor set of terms. Non-climbers nearly always say "Free climbing" in this case, even when the activity is directly described as "Free soloing".
posted by vernondalhart at 11:47 AM on December 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
But this is an extremely common use of the term outside of climbing circles, that suggests that the climbing community picked a poor set of terms. Non-climbers nearly always say "Free climbing" in this case, even when the activity is directly described as "Free soloing".
posted by vernondalhart at 11:47 AM on December 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
I lost a lot of respect for Midtbø when I saw that he had done this.
If it helps, in both the climbing video and the reaction video with his girlfriend, he admits to feelings of regret that kicked in right around the point of no return and says it's something he'll never do again.
I was being somewhat facetious earlier when I labeled Alex Honnold a potential sociopath, but a few things Magnus says in the reaction video set off even more alarm bells:
If it helps, in both the climbing video and the reaction video with his girlfriend, he admits to feelings of regret that kicked in right around the point of no return and says it's something he'll never do again.
I was being somewhat facetious earlier when I labeled Alex Honnold a potential sociopath, but a few things Magnus says in the reaction video set off even more alarm bells:
- When trying to talk Magnus into climbing, Alex says he'd previously taken several unexperienced climbers with him up the cliff, but it turns out those people were actually seasoned climbers
- He tells Magnus there will be plenty of chalked places along the route; there are none
- There's a part where Alex has Magnus follow him to a harrowing-looking place on the rock where they have to do what Magnus calls "crack climbing" which seems like it was sprung on him in the moment with no previous warnings
- At one point Alex is right above Magnus and directs him to one particular hand-hold that he describes as "beautifully solid," but during the reaction video, Magnus says it looks quite brittle and precarious and that he would never have used it if he'd seen it from above
It's a bit confusing actually - Midtbø has done free soloing before, and on signficantly harder routes. What's different in the Honnold video is that he's flashing an unfamiliar route.
posted by kickingtheground at 12:23 PM on December 30, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by kickingtheground at 12:23 PM on December 30, 2022 [5 favorites]
I'm a crappy weekend warrior climber and even I could do that route basically in sneakers.
This is the wrong attitude. Even incredibly skilled climbers, divers, bikers, etc., have a bad day; a bad moment; a rock or a root suddenly loosened or an obstruction unnoticed. We wear safety gear because even the best encounter unexpected events.
I have held the head of a skilled athlete who had one of those moments on an incredibly easy trek. It was a freak accident. I can tell you all about the half dozen other people who stood helpless while he sobbed in fear and pain. I can tell you all about the mechanical beds and screws and the ultimate diagnosis of quadriplegia. I can tell you about the extensive care that bankrupted his parents and the visits of friends (me included) which eventually dwindled. Five years later, in an attempt to continue to give him his outdoor adventures, his sister and friends took him - with full safety gear and the careful planning of trained guides - on a "simple" whitewater rafting trip. The boat flipped. It was just one of those things. A storm a few weeks' prior had washed a tree further downstream. The water level receded and the log was just enough to change the flow of water in a "simple" bend in the river. He was pulled to shore, his sister died trying to save someone else. Your cavalier comments really hit a wrong note with me, but I can only assume they come from a lack of experience and imagination, possibly coupled with some really bad hype media and an unmatured ability to think outward to the repercussions of the risks we try to prepare for. I highly, warmly, encourage you to look up videos of people who have survived these unexpected accidents taking "simple" risks and see what their lives are like, now, and forever.
Look: those of us who love the outdoors WANT more people to find their connection there. We want you to experience the joy and the experience of you, with people, doing amazing things. And we also want you to be able to walk and speak and dress yourself and have a family and have a functioning brain enough to remember those times and to be able to *continue* doing all of those things for a long time to come.
I wish this weren't on MetaFilter.
I 100% agree.
posted by Silvery Fish at 12:36 PM on December 30, 2022 [24 favorites]
This is the wrong attitude. Even incredibly skilled climbers, divers, bikers, etc., have a bad day; a bad moment; a rock or a root suddenly loosened or an obstruction unnoticed. We wear safety gear because even the best encounter unexpected events.
I have held the head of a skilled athlete who had one of those moments on an incredibly easy trek. It was a freak accident. I can tell you all about the half dozen other people who stood helpless while he sobbed in fear and pain. I can tell you all about the mechanical beds and screws and the ultimate diagnosis of quadriplegia. I can tell you about the extensive care that bankrupted his parents and the visits of friends (me included) which eventually dwindled. Five years later, in an attempt to continue to give him his outdoor adventures, his sister and friends took him - with full safety gear and the careful planning of trained guides - on a "simple" whitewater rafting trip. The boat flipped. It was just one of those things. A storm a few weeks' prior had washed a tree further downstream. The water level receded and the log was just enough to change the flow of water in a "simple" bend in the river. He was pulled to shore, his sister died trying to save someone else. Your cavalier comments really hit a wrong note with me, but I can only assume they come from a lack of experience and imagination, possibly coupled with some really bad hype media and an unmatured ability to think outward to the repercussions of the risks we try to prepare for. I highly, warmly, encourage you to look up videos of people who have survived these unexpected accidents taking "simple" risks and see what their lives are like, now, and forever.
Look: those of us who love the outdoors WANT more people to find their connection there. We want you to experience the joy and the experience of you, with people, doing amazing things. And we also want you to be able to walk and speak and dress yourself and have a family and have a functioning brain enough to remember those times and to be able to *continue* doing all of those things for a long time to come.
I wish this weren't on MetaFilter.
I 100% agree.
posted by Silvery Fish at 12:36 PM on December 30, 2022 [24 favorites]
As Magnus Midtbo's videos go, I prefer this one.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 12:50 PM on December 30, 2022
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 12:50 PM on December 30, 2022
I love Midtbø’s visit to the worst-rated gym in Tokyo, which turns out to be an undiscovered gem.
posted by argybarg at 2:01 PM on December 30, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by argybarg at 2:01 PM on December 30, 2022 [4 favorites]
I'm finding this personally odd to find on MetaFilter because a couple of weeks ago I fell or dived into a rabbit hole of climbing videos for some reason, especially the "HowNot2Slackline" YT channel which has been doing a lot of in depth videos about climbing gear, techniques and testing climbing gear to destruction.
Which was about when I discovered that Alex Honnold FREE SOLOED El Capitan a couple of years ago in something like 2-3 hours, which is totally insane to me. Aid and free climbers usually take 2-3 days to do El Capitan while camping and living on portaledges, hauling gear and cleaning routes as they go. (Cleaning meaning removing "clean climbing" gear and aids like nuts and cams.)
Like I'm not even sure how he free soloed El Cap because as far as I know there are a couple of spots - in particular under the "nose" - that can't be crossed without doing a swing traverse where you're top roped and have to run-swing back and forth over the traverse until you can finally reach a crack and hold like 30-50 feet away from the last pitch. (I know they filmed this climb, but I haven't seen it yet.)
I've done some climbing and rappelling over the years and a lot of it was technically free solo bouldering because I was doing stuff like climbing huge rock piles and lower skill faces, chimneys and cracks and stuff without any gear besides my hands and some hiking boots and just because it was there. And I'll never do that shit again because I definitely almost died a couple of times. At this point I don't even like the idea of being 10 feet up a boulder even with a permanent top rope and belay.
One memorable random climb I did where I definitely almost died and fell off was a really big boulder pile somewhere in the Mojave and just picking my own route. There was a part where there was about a 2 foot wide ledge under about a six foot tall boulder face but was totally exposed below the ledge about 100 feet up, where the rest of the climb and route I had been following was much less exposed and mostly just rock and boulder scrambling where a fall would have only meant a few feet or so to the previous boulder.
Well, I mantled up on that boulder and as soon as I got my head and shoulders up over the edge of it there was a rattlesnake coiled up and just warming up in the morning sun about two feet away from my hands and face.
It took everything I had to not simply say "FUCK THIS!" let go and push back from the boulder and just let go.
And at this point my feet are off the ledge and I'm hanging there my my hands and elbows on the boulder, and I'm frozen and trying to slide back down to get my feet on the ledge but I can't find it, and I'm liking the idea of leaving my hands up near the rattlesnake even less, and so I had to make a decision before my hands and grip strength wore out.
And I knew better, especially about desert safety and the whole concept of not putting your hands and feet into places you can't see because that's how you meet the wrong end of a rattlesnake or scorpion.
I remember talking some nonsense to the snake and quietly announcing my intentions to climb around it, and since it was so early in the morning and still very cold, it was really docile and not rattling or coiling up to strike. I distinctly remember the snake was flicking it's tongue out and tasting the air, then sort of pulling back its head to nuzzle into it's own coils like a cat curling up and covering it's face with it's paws, which I read as a good sign that it was too sluggish to be bothered.
It must have taken me 15 minutes to finish mantling up over the boulder, getting my feet on top of it and edging around the snake and just sweating bullets the whole time. It felt like an eternity.
And thankfully that was pretty close to the top of this boulder stack and I had the option to take an easy trail back down the other side because I was well and truly done and totally exhausted from adrenaline and fear.
I haven't climbed anything that big ever since that incident, aided or protected or otherwise. Those brief few minutes of unwanted exposure on that ledge were enough. I was done.
Part of me still wants to climb and experience camping and chilling on a big face because it looks really fun, but then I see some of the rock fall and shedding event videos of big faces like El Cap and it cures me of those thoughts in a hurry. There are some YT videos about a really big rock fall that happened in the last few years on El Cap, and the people on the climb and route had just been previously camping there in the fall area.
And there's pretty much nothing you can do to protect yourself in a rock fall. If your climbing protection and aids are attached to or near that rock you're going down.
Additional side note: There's a video of someone on the Half Dome face and they're taking a break on a ledge and someone BASE jumps and wingsuits from the top of Half Dome and blasts past them at like 150 MPH. It's barely just 3-4 frames of action cam footage. I can't imagine sitting there and in the climbing mindset of not falling and then suddenly a human body falls right past you a few feet away, but on purpose. The people on the ledge doing the climbing all instantly react and are physically startled for a second or two until they realize it's someone in a wingsuit. Startle someone at the wrong time while they're climbing and that could end up being very, very bad.
posted by loquacious at 2:29 PM on December 30, 2022 [8 favorites]
Which was about when I discovered that Alex Honnold FREE SOLOED El Capitan a couple of years ago in something like 2-3 hours, which is totally insane to me. Aid and free climbers usually take 2-3 days to do El Capitan while camping and living on portaledges, hauling gear and cleaning routes as they go. (Cleaning meaning removing "clean climbing" gear and aids like nuts and cams.)
Like I'm not even sure how he free soloed El Cap because as far as I know there are a couple of spots - in particular under the "nose" - that can't be crossed without doing a swing traverse where you're top roped and have to run-swing back and forth over the traverse until you can finally reach a crack and hold like 30-50 feet away from the last pitch. (I know they filmed this climb, but I haven't seen it yet.)
I've done some climbing and rappelling over the years and a lot of it was technically free solo bouldering because I was doing stuff like climbing huge rock piles and lower skill faces, chimneys and cracks and stuff without any gear besides my hands and some hiking boots and just because it was there. And I'll never do that shit again because I definitely almost died a couple of times. At this point I don't even like the idea of being 10 feet up a boulder even with a permanent top rope and belay.
One memorable random climb I did where I definitely almost died and fell off was a really big boulder pile somewhere in the Mojave and just picking my own route. There was a part where there was about a 2 foot wide ledge under about a six foot tall boulder face but was totally exposed below the ledge about 100 feet up, where the rest of the climb and route I had been following was much less exposed and mostly just rock and boulder scrambling where a fall would have only meant a few feet or so to the previous boulder.
Well, I mantled up on that boulder and as soon as I got my head and shoulders up over the edge of it there was a rattlesnake coiled up and just warming up in the morning sun about two feet away from my hands and face.
It took everything I had to not simply say "FUCK THIS!" let go and push back from the boulder and just let go.
And at this point my feet are off the ledge and I'm hanging there my my hands and elbows on the boulder, and I'm frozen and trying to slide back down to get my feet on the ledge but I can't find it, and I'm liking the idea of leaving my hands up near the rattlesnake even less, and so I had to make a decision before my hands and grip strength wore out.
And I knew better, especially about desert safety and the whole concept of not putting your hands and feet into places you can't see because that's how you meet the wrong end of a rattlesnake or scorpion.
I remember talking some nonsense to the snake and quietly announcing my intentions to climb around it, and since it was so early in the morning and still very cold, it was really docile and not rattling or coiling up to strike. I distinctly remember the snake was flicking it's tongue out and tasting the air, then sort of pulling back its head to nuzzle into it's own coils like a cat curling up and covering it's face with it's paws, which I read as a good sign that it was too sluggish to be bothered.
It must have taken me 15 minutes to finish mantling up over the boulder, getting my feet on top of it and edging around the snake and just sweating bullets the whole time. It felt like an eternity.
And thankfully that was pretty close to the top of this boulder stack and I had the option to take an easy trail back down the other side because I was well and truly done and totally exhausted from adrenaline and fear.
I haven't climbed anything that big ever since that incident, aided or protected or otherwise. Those brief few minutes of unwanted exposure on that ledge were enough. I was done.
Part of me still wants to climb and experience camping and chilling on a big face because it looks really fun, but then I see some of the rock fall and shedding event videos of big faces like El Cap and it cures me of those thoughts in a hurry. There are some YT videos about a really big rock fall that happened in the last few years on El Cap, and the people on the climb and route had just been previously camping there in the fall area.
And there's pretty much nothing you can do to protect yourself in a rock fall. If your climbing protection and aids are attached to or near that rock you're going down.
Additional side note: There's a video of someone on the Half Dome face and they're taking a break on a ledge and someone BASE jumps and wingsuits from the top of Half Dome and blasts past them at like 150 MPH. It's barely just 3-4 frames of action cam footage. I can't imagine sitting there and in the climbing mindset of not falling and then suddenly a human body falls right past you a few feet away, but on purpose. The people on the ledge doing the climbing all instantly react and are physically startled for a second or two until they realize it's someone in a wingsuit. Startle someone at the wrong time while they're climbing and that could end up being very, very bad.
posted by loquacious at 2:29 PM on December 30, 2022 [8 favorites]
Your cavalier comments really hit a wrong note with me, but I can only assume they come from a lack of experience and imagination, possibly coupled with some really bad hype media and an unmatured ability to think outward to the repercussions of the risks we try to prepare for.
Yep, you're assuming a bunch of things…
I don't particularly care for free soloists that much, tbh. I much prefer The Dawn Wall to Free Solo, and I would actually like Honnold to stop practicing free soloing if possible (I like the guy, and his foundation is doing great things in the world, and at some point the odds will be against him).
That being said, to just label these climbers suicidal, sociopathic or deranged feels reductive. I find it natural to consider why some climbers would practice free soloing. There's always been people who's brain chemistry is attuned to the riskier ends of the spectrum (Philippe Petit comes to mind), whose drive for risk that has no relation to an adrenaline high, and the way they calculate risk is in itself interesting.
Free soloing is an ultra-fringe activity; an extremely small niche of climbers practice it (in 15 years of climbing I've never seen someone do it, or personally known someone who's done it); and, 5 years after Free Solo's debut and Oscar, there's scant evidence that its a growing field. So, yeah, I find it weird to dismiss it altogether or to discuss it as if it were any sort of regular activity.
Then again, if the community consensus is that there's no middle ground for these fringe activities, and that these guys are just plain selfish-assholes, then, yeah, it feels like this shouldn't be in Metafilter.
posted by Omon Ra at 2:30 PM on December 30, 2022 [4 favorites]
Yep, you're assuming a bunch of things…
I don't particularly care for free soloists that much, tbh. I much prefer The Dawn Wall to Free Solo, and I would actually like Honnold to stop practicing free soloing if possible (I like the guy, and his foundation is doing great things in the world, and at some point the odds will be against him).
That being said, to just label these climbers suicidal, sociopathic or deranged feels reductive. I find it natural to consider why some climbers would practice free soloing. There's always been people who's brain chemistry is attuned to the riskier ends of the spectrum (Philippe Petit comes to mind), whose drive for risk that has no relation to an adrenaline high, and the way they calculate risk is in itself interesting.
Free soloing is an ultra-fringe activity; an extremely small niche of climbers practice it (in 15 years of climbing I've never seen someone do it, or personally known someone who's done it); and, 5 years after Free Solo's debut and Oscar, there's scant evidence that its a growing field. So, yeah, I find it weird to dismiss it altogether or to discuss it as if it were any sort of regular activity.
Then again, if the community consensus is that there's no middle ground for these fringe activities, and that these guys are just plain selfish-assholes, then, yeah, it feels like this shouldn't be in Metafilter.
posted by Omon Ra at 2:30 PM on December 30, 2022 [4 favorites]
> If it helps, in both the climbing video and the reaction video with his girlfriend, he admits to feelings of regret that kicked in right around the point of no return and says it's something he'll never do again.
I haven't listened to the video; does he explain why he posted it? If he regretted doing it, I think it would make more sense to not post it and instead write a piece about what he learned.
posted by The corpse in the library at 3:06 PM on December 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
I haven't listened to the video; does he explain why he posted it? If he regretted doing it, I think it would make more sense to not post it and instead write a piece about what he learned.
posted by The corpse in the library at 3:06 PM on December 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
Haven't watched the whole thing, but the girlfriend-reaction video Oman posted has me not terribly sympathetic to the dude. "I know I promised you I'd never free-solo, but it wasn't a hard promise" What the heck is a "hard" promise? Then he justifies this free-solo by saying she took it better than he thought she would the last time he free-soloed after promising he wouldn't.
When he told her about the last time, she says she thought he was going to tell her he was cheating on her so maybe that's why she didn't get so upset. I'm pretty sure that someone who likes taking extreme risks while deceiving his girlfriend has probably cheated.
Girl, DTMFA.
posted by tllaya at 3:12 PM on December 30, 2022 [7 favorites]
When he told her about the last time, she says she thought he was going to tell her he was cheating on her so maybe that's why she didn't get so upset. I'm pretty sure that someone who likes taking extreme risks while deceiving his girlfriend has probably cheated.
Girl, DTMFA.
posted by tllaya at 3:12 PM on December 30, 2022 [7 favorites]
What was revealed during Honnold's brain scan?What this may be telling us is that activity in our own amygdalas is necessary for us to fear for others, too.
In a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) test with Honnold, neurobiologist Jane Joseph found there was nearly zero activation in his amygdala. This is a highly unusual brain reaction and may explain why Honnold feels no threat in free solo climbs that others wouldn't dare attempt.Apr 12, 2020
posted by jamjam at 3:41 PM on December 30, 2022 [7 favorites]
Interesting! I think that probably explains why there haven't been a rash of amateur climber deaths in the wake of the Free Solo movie's success. Despite the viral popularity of these types of videos, unless your brain happens to be wired this way, you'll probably Nope Out of any climb long before getting high enough to do serious permanent damage to yourself. (At least, I hope so!)
posted by Atom Eyes at 4:11 PM on December 30, 2022
posted by Atom Eyes at 4:11 PM on December 30, 2022
The impossible climb: Alex Honnold, El Capitan, and the Climbing Life by Mark Synnott:
IN THE MONTHS FOLLOWING the brain scan, while Alex trained relentlessly for Freerider, I decided to dig deeper into the amygdala question. I contacted Joseph LeDoux, a neuroscientist at New York University who has been studying the amygdala for thirty-five years. He kicked off the conversation by telling me that writers have a tendency to oversimplify when trying to explain something as complicated as the brain. He said that contrary to popular belief, the amygdala is not the fear center of the brain. “The amygdala has a lot of consequences in the brain that affect our feeling of fear, but the feeling of fear is not generated by the amygdala. . . . The field [neuroscience] has always failed to make the distinction between fear as an experience and fear as a sort of implicit processing system, and it’s caused a lot of confusion.” According to LeDoux, damage to the amygdala does not eliminate the conscious experience of fear; rather, it prevents the behavioral and physiological responses to threats—sweaty palms, spiking pulse rate, and tunnel vision.posted by Omon Ra at 5:02 PM on December 30, 2022 [3 favorites]
When I asked LeDoux about the zero activation, he said it was a meaningless result because fMRI machines are tuned to detect a certain threshold of electrical activity. “The fact that the experiment failed to find it doesn’t mean it wasn’t there,” he said. He told me that electrodes placed directly onto Alex’s amygdala, that is, on the inside of his brain, not the outside, would indeed detect synaptic activity.
And LeDoux dismisses the possibility that Alex’s amygdala is dormant. Instead he posits that Alex may have been born with a muted amygdala response relative to the general population, making him a genetic outlier, so to speak. He also says it’s likely that Alex has desensitized his amygdala to be less responsive to threats, particularly those associated with heights, by routinely exposing himself to high places. “By self-exposing, training himself in those situations, he’s going to reduce the amygdala activity, because that’s what exposure does. And perhaps he has trained himself to be able to turn on that inhibition when he goes into those kinds of situations.”
Climbing as an athletic and problem solving challenge and free soloing are almost two separate activities entirely. (Sure they overlap, but if they overlap too much in the same event, the participants don't survive!) One climber might do both at different times. I'm more impressed by some really good bouldering than simply climbing a relatively simple route with no ropes. (I mean, the psychological challenge is impressive, but not always in a good way.) So here is some impressive natural bouldering by Magnus and friends.
posted by TreeRooster at 6:10 PM on December 30, 2022
posted by TreeRooster at 6:10 PM on December 30, 2022
I disagree that this shouldn't be on the blue, it has brought forth an excellent discussion. Not a climber other than an occasional scramble on a hike, but large sections of the video looked like ladders almost and at a low level would not even count as a climb for these guys. I dunno, I recall skiing over to the edge on backside of Aspen Highlands looking straight down at the highway with ant sized cars and thinking one slip, and then later someone said later that great snow years folks would ski it and hitch back to the base. I agree with all the issues about free climbing, good to hear it's not exploding with newbies, but where's the line.
posted by sammyo at 6:40 PM on December 30, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by sammyo at 6:40 PM on December 30, 2022 [6 favorites]
Eventually, a hold will break. Eventually, a gust of wind will catch you wrong. Eventually, a rock will fall from above.
It took my 40+ plus years to grasp this: and only after a slew of acquaintances had bad to fatal accidents (and dumb, no fault accidents (wild turkey, slippery road etc) that it started to click.
I found the Honnold movie good but would have liked more to hear how he had climbed the route dozens of times, and on the day before with Caldwell to check the route and, largely, he was more prepared than I might ever be for anything. I tell myself that but I’ve been on the receiving end of the blip of luck too many times now to ever do that. You cannot imagine what can go wrong.
Our older child, a strong boulderer, has expressed non-negative sentiments about free soloing and I can only point out to him his aunt who, a passenger on a motorcycle, was hit at twenty miles per hour and broke - many bones. That, you can’t foresee the thing that is going to bite you in the ass (the hold that collapses under you hand, the bird-poo that takes away all of your traction in one instant you needed it.
The reward of getting to the cusp of old - knowing just how narrow the route is.
posted by From Bklyn at 8:05 AM on December 31, 2022
It took my 40+ plus years to grasp this: and only after a slew of acquaintances had bad to fatal accidents (and dumb, no fault accidents (wild turkey, slippery road etc) that it started to click.
I found the Honnold movie good but would have liked more to hear how he had climbed the route dozens of times, and on the day before with Caldwell to check the route and, largely, he was more prepared than I might ever be for anything. I tell myself that but I’ve been on the receiving end of the blip of luck too many times now to ever do that. You cannot imagine what can go wrong.
Our older child, a strong boulderer, has expressed non-negative sentiments about free soloing and I can only point out to him his aunt who, a passenger on a motorcycle, was hit at twenty miles per hour and broke - many bones. That, you can’t foresee the thing that is going to bite you in the ass (the hold that collapses under you hand, the bird-poo that takes away all of your traction in one instant you needed it.
The reward of getting to the cusp of old - knowing just how narrow the route is.
posted by From Bklyn at 8:05 AM on December 31, 2022
That being said, to just label these climbers suicidal, sociopathic or deranged feels reductive.
I believe Honnold was called a sociopath because he basically pressured Midtbø into free soloing, and lied to him before and during the climb.
I saw this video several months ago, and it made me very uneasy. Honnold is a superstar and used his fame to pressure a content creator to do something he wasn't comfortable with and at risk to his life. Honnold, of course, isn't the only one at fault here. Midtbø chose to chase the clicks.
posted by touchstone033 at 8:19 AM on December 31, 2022 [2 favorites]
I believe Honnold was called a sociopath because he basically pressured Midtbø into free soloing, and lied to him before and during the climb.
I saw this video several months ago, and it made me very uneasy. Honnold is a superstar and used his fame to pressure a content creator to do something he wasn't comfortable with and at risk to his life. Honnold, of course, isn't the only one at fault here. Midtbø chose to chase the clicks.
posted by touchstone033 at 8:19 AM on December 31, 2022 [2 favorites]
Perhaps a dumb question, but isn't free soloing easier than climbing with ropes?
It's like a surgeon saying: look I can do the surgery way faster if I don't wash my hands or put all this restrictive garb on. Yeah, no shit.
posted by splitpeasoup at 8:36 AM on December 31, 2022
It's like a surgeon saying: look I can do the surgery way faster if I don't wash my hands or put all this restrictive garb on. Yeah, no shit.
posted by splitpeasoup at 8:36 AM on December 31, 2022
Perhaps a dumb question, but isn't free soloing easier than climbing with ropes?
Yep, I've seen a couple of climbing channel videos pointing this out. There's a reason why Honnold's climbs are so fast. He's not carrying a big wall rack on his harness with like 30+ pounds of stuff on it and having to set or remove protection.
I'm just spitballing here but a free solo climber is ascending something like 10 times faster than someone setting protection, testing it, routing and managing ropes and so on. If not a lot more than 10 times faster.
And a free solo climber actually needs to move fast and keep moving because they can't just clip in to protection with a quick link and let go for a few minutes to rest. If they have to hang on a particular jug hold or finger crack hold for too long they're more likely to get tired of that particular static hold, so they want to keep moving dynamically up the pitch and varying their holds.
Even with protected or aid climbing they often pause and rest at good places with varied dual holds and will pause and hold with one hand for a minute or two and shake out their free hand, then switch holds, resting the other hand, and then even back and forth a few times so they can rest a bit before continuing.
They also point out that this can be a huge problem on popular routes when a free solo climber is mixing it up with aid or protection climbers and there is too much traffic on the pitch or route.
The standard etiquette seems to be to let the free solo climber pass as quickly and safely as possible, but that can mean that the protection or aid climbers have to set new protection, clean out other protection to make way and do stuff like clip in to protection and swing aside just to make enough room for a free solo climber to safely pass.
Repeat this dozens and dozens of times on a busy big wall or pitch and you can see how this can get dicey for everyone on the route.
With big epic climbs and routes like Honnold's El Cap free solo, I think we can safely assume that it was huge news and other climbers knew it was happening and that people were talking about it and negotiating all of this on the ground, because he also had a protected film crew climbing with him to film it. They also use radios these days so they could have talked to people already up on the wall to help plan and negotiate the attempt.
Climbers are really closely knit and talk a lot to each other about their plans, and there were probably a lot of people who stayed off particular routes or pitches that day, or waited to time their pitch attempts after Honnold had passed and cleared a pitch.
He was moving so fast that it would be pretty easy to know his status via radios, and if there was a group camping on the wall on the same pitches and routes to simply take more time eating breakfast and striking camp to give him enough time to pass so it was safer and more pleasant for everyone.
And for something like Honnold free soloing El Capitan it would have been really major news in the Yosemite Valley climbing community. They would have been talking about it for days if not weeks and months or more. I would guess a lot of people voluntarily chose not to climb that day or choose different pitches and routes to make room for him and the film/support crew.
Because basically everyone there would have been totally stoked by it, and/or totally freaked out and on the edge of their seats and rightfully worried or some mixture of both.
Climbers are bonkers but they're definitely not suicidal or murderous and they want everyone to not die and get back down safely. No one wants to be responsible for Honnold falling because they were blocking his route or not making room for him to pass.
(Again, I haven't seen the movie/doc about Honnold's El Cap climb yet, I'm just extrapolating based on what I know about climbing and the climbing community, especially in Yosemite.)
So, yeah, parts of free solo climbing are physically easier but I don't know about psychologically or endurance-wise. There are major benefits to aid climbing as far as psychological tolls and physical endurance is concerned because you can just hang off of protection and chill out for a few.
All that being said? I'm on the fence about the morality or ethics of this, including Midtbø's climb in the video. Yeah, it's not fair or kind to his partner and that was all problematic. So was Honnold lying to Midtbø about flashing the route and all of that. Not super good enough, as climbers say.
But I also understand the philosophy of taking risks for sport and effort like this, and having friends that help push your boundaries in sport is a known thing, because this is how you progress and develop new skills and confidence. Being pushed to test your boundaries isn't always a bad thing or "sociopathic".
Shoot, I regularly I take similar risks without ever leaving the ground just biking around alone in the woods around where I live and not telling anyone where I'm going because I don't know where I'm going and I could be almost anywhere on miles and miles of trails. That's like the whole point to me of being free to adventure and roam.
There's a much larger than non-zero chance I could have a bad crash and break a limb or get a head injury even with my helmet on somewhere so deep in the woods that someone might not find me for days or weeks.
So I am definitely not comfortable saying or agreeing that free solo climbing should be banned or making blanket statements that it's always a dumb idea.
They also used to say that about "clean climbing" using cams, nuts and hexes as opposed to using old "dirty climbing" techniques of pitons and bolts, and it's easy to forget that the development of clean climbing techniques is relatively recent and that when things like cams and nuts came out the climbers at the time didn't trust them at all and they thought that using anything but pitons and bolts was madness and unsafe.
Those climbers at Chouinard (later Black Diamond) and Yvon Chouinard himself (Also founder of Patagonia) and his crew of dirtbags had to take huge risks to develop those clean climbing tools and aids and prove that they worked before clean climbing tools revolutionized the sport.
People really thought that hanging off of cams and bolts was total madness back in the day, but here we are where it's the default way to climb and using pitons and bolts in Yosemite Valley is now taboo if not outright banned due to the damage that it causes to routes.
And even then, clean protected/aid climbing isn't exactly risk free, either. Some of the protection they use is little more than a brass shim or nut the size of a pinky fingernail or smaller with a bit of wire on it, held in place by a mere flake of rock.
Even when roped and clipped in to protection right in front of you if you fall and whip on protection you're looking at 10-20 foot falls due to how belaying works and how stretchy dynamic climbing ropes are, and if your first protection point fails that fall height can double, or even triple, and 20+ foot falls the wrong way are also enough to be lethal even when roped in and wearing a helmet.
posted by loquacious at 10:57 AM on December 31, 2022
Yep, I've seen a couple of climbing channel videos pointing this out. There's a reason why Honnold's climbs are so fast. He's not carrying a big wall rack on his harness with like 30+ pounds of stuff on it and having to set or remove protection.
I'm just spitballing here but a free solo climber is ascending something like 10 times faster than someone setting protection, testing it, routing and managing ropes and so on. If not a lot more than 10 times faster.
And a free solo climber actually needs to move fast and keep moving because they can't just clip in to protection with a quick link and let go for a few minutes to rest. If they have to hang on a particular jug hold or finger crack hold for too long they're more likely to get tired of that particular static hold, so they want to keep moving dynamically up the pitch and varying their holds.
Even with protected or aid climbing they often pause and rest at good places with varied dual holds and will pause and hold with one hand for a minute or two and shake out their free hand, then switch holds, resting the other hand, and then even back and forth a few times so they can rest a bit before continuing.
They also point out that this can be a huge problem on popular routes when a free solo climber is mixing it up with aid or protection climbers and there is too much traffic on the pitch or route.
The standard etiquette seems to be to let the free solo climber pass as quickly and safely as possible, but that can mean that the protection or aid climbers have to set new protection, clean out other protection to make way and do stuff like clip in to protection and swing aside just to make enough room for a free solo climber to safely pass.
Repeat this dozens and dozens of times on a busy big wall or pitch and you can see how this can get dicey for everyone on the route.
With big epic climbs and routes like Honnold's El Cap free solo, I think we can safely assume that it was huge news and other climbers knew it was happening and that people were talking about it and negotiating all of this on the ground, because he also had a protected film crew climbing with him to film it. They also use radios these days so they could have talked to people already up on the wall to help plan and negotiate the attempt.
Climbers are really closely knit and talk a lot to each other about their plans, and there were probably a lot of people who stayed off particular routes or pitches that day, or waited to time their pitch attempts after Honnold had passed and cleared a pitch.
He was moving so fast that it would be pretty easy to know his status via radios, and if there was a group camping on the wall on the same pitches and routes to simply take more time eating breakfast and striking camp to give him enough time to pass so it was safer and more pleasant for everyone.
And for something like Honnold free soloing El Capitan it would have been really major news in the Yosemite Valley climbing community. They would have been talking about it for days if not weeks and months or more. I would guess a lot of people voluntarily chose not to climb that day or choose different pitches and routes to make room for him and the film/support crew.
Because basically everyone there would have been totally stoked by it, and/or totally freaked out and on the edge of their seats and rightfully worried or some mixture of both.
Climbers are bonkers but they're definitely not suicidal or murderous and they want everyone to not die and get back down safely. No one wants to be responsible for Honnold falling because they were blocking his route or not making room for him to pass.
(Again, I haven't seen the movie/doc about Honnold's El Cap climb yet, I'm just extrapolating based on what I know about climbing and the climbing community, especially in Yosemite.)
So, yeah, parts of free solo climbing are physically easier but I don't know about psychologically or endurance-wise. There are major benefits to aid climbing as far as psychological tolls and physical endurance is concerned because you can just hang off of protection and chill out for a few.
All that being said? I'm on the fence about the morality or ethics of this, including Midtbø's climb in the video. Yeah, it's not fair or kind to his partner and that was all problematic. So was Honnold lying to Midtbø about flashing the route and all of that. Not super good enough, as climbers say.
But I also understand the philosophy of taking risks for sport and effort like this, and having friends that help push your boundaries in sport is a known thing, because this is how you progress and develop new skills and confidence. Being pushed to test your boundaries isn't always a bad thing or "sociopathic".
Shoot, I regularly I take similar risks without ever leaving the ground just biking around alone in the woods around where I live and not telling anyone where I'm going because I don't know where I'm going and I could be almost anywhere on miles and miles of trails. That's like the whole point to me of being free to adventure and roam.
There's a much larger than non-zero chance I could have a bad crash and break a limb or get a head injury even with my helmet on somewhere so deep in the woods that someone might not find me for days or weeks.
So I am definitely not comfortable saying or agreeing that free solo climbing should be banned or making blanket statements that it's always a dumb idea.
They also used to say that about "clean climbing" using cams, nuts and hexes as opposed to using old "dirty climbing" techniques of pitons and bolts, and it's easy to forget that the development of clean climbing techniques is relatively recent and that when things like cams and nuts came out the climbers at the time didn't trust them at all and they thought that using anything but pitons and bolts was madness and unsafe.
Those climbers at Chouinard (later Black Diamond) and Yvon Chouinard himself (Also founder of Patagonia) and his crew of dirtbags had to take huge risks to develop those clean climbing tools and aids and prove that they worked before clean climbing tools revolutionized the sport.
People really thought that hanging off of cams and bolts was total madness back in the day, but here we are where it's the default way to climb and using pitons and bolts in Yosemite Valley is now taboo if not outright banned due to the damage that it causes to routes.
And even then, clean protected/aid climbing isn't exactly risk free, either. Some of the protection they use is little more than a brass shim or nut the size of a pinky fingernail or smaller with a bit of wire on it, held in place by a mere flake of rock.
Even when roped and clipped in to protection right in front of you if you fall and whip on protection you're looking at 10-20 foot falls due to how belaying works and how stretchy dynamic climbing ropes are, and if your first protection point fails that fall height can double, or even triple, and 20+ foot falls the wrong way are also enough to be lethal even when roped in and wearing a helmet.
posted by loquacious at 10:57 AM on December 31, 2022
Yeah, it's worth keeping in mind that soloers are not some sui generis thing, they're continuous with people climbing sketchy 'runout' routes with a section or two of poor protection where if you slip you'll probably die. Writing off soloers does not close the door on the conversation about risk acceptance.
posted by away for regrooving at 12:56 AM on January 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by away for regrooving at 12:56 AM on January 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
There are much better films about people pushing the limits of the sport safely and responsibly (e.g. Dawn Wall).
Just watched Dawn Wall because it was mentioned here a couple of times. Amazing film, mind-boggling accomplishment.
posted by Mavri at 5:04 PM on January 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
Just watched Dawn Wall because it was mentioned here a couple of times. Amazing film, mind-boggling accomplishment.
posted by Mavri at 5:04 PM on January 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
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