Why? Why would you do this?
And to quote Gwen on Galaxy Quest:
Well fuck that!
I have a fear of heights, so this is terrifying to me. I also wonder why people do this.
I have a fear of heights.
I broke my ankle in a life altering way falling down two stairs unto a sidewalk. That, to me, justified my already reasonable fear of heights.
I don’t understand why this is the “Thank God” ledge rather than the “Oh My God!” or similar ledge.
“Well
fuckscrew that!”Is my memory failing me and she actually did say “fuck that” and they dubbed it over with “screw that”?
They did. Apparently, it threatened the films PG rating. If they left it in, it would’ve been PG-13.
When I say I’m not afraid of heights; what I really mean is that I’m not abnormally afraid of heights.
*bonus edit: the legendary Dan Osmond. Died not long after, when a rope snapped. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCByLWtM7y4
Misread:
The legendary Dan Osmond who died not long after his rope snapped.
Two meanings. Sharing a goal…
It’s Alex Honhold. He’s wired differently than most people. Definitely not tethered.
Wired very differently. Free-climbing El Capitan is certified bonkers.
It’s amazing to me that he’s still alive, and lives in Las Vegas with a wife and kids. Like somehow he has a “normal” life on top of his climbing insanity.
Seriously. Doing that shit when you have a kid is nuts to me.
Irresponsible with an inevitable conclusion.
I think there’s some credit where credit is due for all the effort he puts in to minimising risk. There’s plenty of people that do various hiking/climbing that is at least as dangerous as what he does.
When you consider the climbing level this guy is at, him soloing a 6a route is probably comparable to someone “ordinary” going for a 20 km hike in exposed terrain: It has risk (rockfall, possibility of slipping, etc.) that could kill you, but it’s not generally considered an excessively foolish thing to do.
“Minimizing risk”, if you’re not psychic, involves safety gear.
i minimize risk by never coming closer to a ledge than my own height above the ground, unless there’s a fence. FFFFFFFFFFuck that shit.
i’ll peer just my eyes over a ledge while crawling. maybe.
If you wanna compare it to hiking, it’s like hiking a long distance in the wilderness alone without bringing any water or food or map or compass or a phone or anything besides some shorts and flip flops.
Even for people who are experienced in the wilderness, there’s a reason why you are supposed to take basic emergency supplies with you (and really the most important emergency supply being a buddy).
See: that guy who famously had to cut his own arm off. Also he’s “one of the lucky ones”. Experienced people die in the wilderness every year, just like experienced free climbers die.
Imagine sneezing
Imagine standing there and then suddenly that slab under your feet shifts.
I can imagine myself on that ledge and being the one person where after thousands of years of being perfectly fine, the ledge finally decided to give way and separate from the cliff.
Fun fact, Alex said in an interview that this is a picture of him having a panic attack. Just shaking and desperately trying to keep calm as adrenaline pours through his system.
Oh, this guy.
Dude needs to keep his death wish to himself and maybe use some safety gear when he’s on camera.
Like, he’s good; really good. But being good and being sensible are not exclusive.
Unpopular opinion, I get it. I never understood free climbers, especially when I was playing outside (I was raised gymbo with no wish to be mangled and no illusions about my normie skill, and one of those things makes me need to see a safety line on that kid). Downvote away because apparently that’s cool.
I’ve got a hard time glorifying potentially deadly sports. Hang on, I know the next comment is gonna be about something like F1 racing or something, but even F1 goes to great lengths to protect the drivers as much as reasonably possible. It’d be like going back to car racing in open air, no crashworthiness, no helmet, no HALO, etc. to compare to free climbing like this. This guy dies and people will idolize someone playing with suicide. Don’t particularly care if he dies doing it for himself, but the attention he gets could be done without.
Nah, F1 has come a long way from back in the day, and really done a lot for driver safety over the years. I’ve been following it since shortly after Jules Bianchi died, and the only time I thought “Holy shit, I’ve just seen someone die on live TV!” was Romain Grosjean’s crash, which he ultimately came away from with relatively minor injuries.
I think the motorsport equivalent would be something like the Isle of Man TT, or the motorcycle races at the Macau Grand Prix, where the approach to safety seems to mostly remain “Hey, don’t hit any of those stone/concrete barriers while going as fast as humanly possible, but if you do, there’s a doctor somewhere around, maybe they’ll get to you in time.”
Both of those events are, in all honesty, insane that they’re allowed to continue as is. The Macau GP seems somewhat better in terms of sheer death count, but despite being interested in motorsport generally, I don’t think I could ever make a holiday out of attending either one. I just don’t want to go somewhere that has a very real possibility of someone dying an avoidable death because “Ah, fucking health and safety have taken all the excitement out of racing, but we’re the real deal and hit stone walls at 200mph when we fuck up.”
“Nah”?
“Nah” what?
I don’t think you understood what I wrote or the context it was written.
Didn’t know that he was able to have panic attacks at all. Something to do with his amygdala or something. Good to know that he’s only human, I was deeply moved after watching him in Free Solo.
The good thing about this is that you don’t have to do this
That’s a nope for me, dawg.
He’s got a harness on but it doesn’t look like it’s connected to anything.
I don’t think that’s a harness I think it’s a chalk bag. You can see the bag just behind his hand.
Isn’t the chalk bag connected to the harness?
the chalk bag’s connected to the, leg bone
This is a well known picture of Alex Honnold free-soloing the route. Free-soloing means he is climbing without a rope. He has a chalk bag on a belt, but no harness or rope. There is a documentary that features this called “Free Solo”, if you could imagine. It’s worth a watch if you don’t have anything pressing going on.
Just looking at this picture makes my hands sweaty
Remember kids, it’s not the fall that kills you…it’s the sudden stop at the end.
Just completely miss the ground and you’ll be fine, duh
Today I fell off a ledge into orbit.
True, good luck breathing
