Comment by XalvinX | Hacker News Reader

Comment by XalvinX | Hacker News Reader

He's not the first to come along to receive this kind of attention and even accolades from the general public, and naturally from other climbers who sometimes do this, or would like to...including, I suppose, me.

Most of the ones that did receive a degree of fame from this activity, and got filmed, on TV, and whatnot are now dead.

As a climber myself who sometimes freesolos even up to 400 meters "off the deck" I don't see it as bad. What is stupid as fuck, however, is doing this 'on demand' for TV and film crews, and otherwise making a thing out of it at all.

Sure, go out and do your thing quietly, why not? But the only way he can continue to garner publicity (and let's be clear: money) is to push the limits more and more each time. There is only one way that can go...

Will National Geographic put that on TV, when he 'craters' (as we say) and blood, brains, and chips of bone splatter across the rocks? If they are responsible they will, because by doing this stuff on TV he and they are publicizing only the "glory" side of it, never mind all the people, some quite famous, that did fucking crater...

So, while I do think he has achieved some great feats, I don't like what he is doing for the reasons I just spelled out. And I don't think he will last long. Those "chewing gum" edges do snap off, bats and birds do shit slimy shits on required small edges, thunderstorms and hail storms and even snowstorms in the middle of the summer can come out of the blue sky in minutes in the mountains, and many other things can go wrong, including human error...and needless to say, human error is very frequently preceded by ego and pride....it would be very hard for someone to stay absolutely humble when the whole world is cheering him on and calling him "World's Greatest"....

As a former big wall climber I would add that articles like this forget to mention the difficulty factor. For some people a 5.10 is like walking on a sidewalk. People who would be killed by falling off a sidewalk or down a set of stairs (old people etc) rarely use harnesses. Risk is inversely related to skill and ability.

At least a rock climber's fate is largely in their control. The well-traveled Yosemite stuff isn't going to shift under you. Death zone, or ice climbers, are the real crazies. They role the dice. Skill and ability means nothing when the mountain decides to collapse underneath you. And such climbers tend to die in groups, their fate linked to whoever else is on the rope. Free soloists die alone.

Risk is inversely related to skill and ability

Ahem, objective hazard?

I personally consider the Fitz Roy Traverse to be Honnold's greatest ascent, which he did with Tommy Caldwell, and they certainly faced their share of subjective hazards on that climb:

https://www.redbull.tv/video/AP-1MQAPEZX91W11/a-line-across-...

> The well-traveled Yosemite stuff isn't going to shift under you.

Except when there are accidents. Like recently on El Capitan: https://www.climbing.com/news/eye-witnesses-recount-tragic-a...

Does anyone know what went wrong there yet, exactly? Just insufficient pro and unexpected fall?

Looks like the pair were simulclimbing and might not have had any pro between them at a bad moment.

In which case, gkanai is wrong -- the rock didn't "shift." This was almost certainly human error.

Wow, you explained this very eloquently. Sometimes I've heard this called intrinsic vs extrinsic risk. Alex generally chooses activities with intrinsic risks instead of extrinsic, and mitigates them. It's more responsible than playing around in avalanche zones or at deadly altitudes. By the way, I talked to him about his recent antarctic expedition and he said it was pretty sketchy at times -- there were extrinsic risks he couldn't control, and he didn't like that.

I don’t think that his capacity to garner attention depends on his pushing the envelope. The thing that brought him to the widest audience was a segment for sixty minutes where they filmed him free soloing a 5.11 in Yosemite — certainly impressive but totally casual by his standards. Nowhere near the envelope. He pushes the envelope for himself because he wants to — the public has no idea the difference in difficulty between the sixty minutes piece and the “envelope”.

Your comment on the public not knowing the difficulty of climbs reminded me of a great piece about a juggler, which includes this: "Jugglers don’t have to perform difficult tricks to entertain people, because audiences generally don’t know what’s difficult."

http://grantland.com/features/anthony-gatto-juggling-cirque-...

He climbed Sentinel for 60 minutes, it was a 1600 foot high 5.11, don't trivialize it, it is absolutely nothing to sneer at. When I was at peak climbing fitness 5.11 was a warm-up, but doing it for 1600 feet ropeless is an entirely different ball game.

No I agree - that route is an impressive solo — but it is not pushing the envelope or anywhere close to it. He does routes of that grade like others take an afternoon stroll or a jog around the neighborhood. It is of epically different difficulty than his hardest solos. My point is not to trivialize but to point out that to a large degree - he could attract significant attention based off his previous deeds without the necessity to further push the envelope. He pushes the envelope because that is what he wants to do not because he thinks society will further reward him for it.

I don’t think he’s opposed to society rewarding him though —- but I also think he’s aware that society deserves to know that they aren’t responsible for his actions — so he describes publicly at great length why he does what he does and it’s clear that he would do it even if society did not reward him for it (as he did for years before becoming well known)... I think he’s a pretty positive role model all things told — and there’s much more to gain from his example than there is risk of inspiring to die of soloing those who wouldn’t otherwise be so inspired...

I agree on those points. You don't get to climb full time and travel the world without playing the sponsorship game, and he certainly has an interest in his legacy, humble is not a word I would use to describe him. But he's not a materialist, he's dedicated to the dirtbag climber lifestyle and gives most of his winnings away.

Honnold is also much more than a free soloist, he's an ultra endurance athlete of the highest order, he's the hardest of hard men. Athletes who dominate other sports tend to be physiological mutants, but what makes Honnold special is what is going on in his head, and I've never seen anything quite like it. Exceptional boldness won't get you very far if it isn't paired with exceptional discipline.

1600foot=0.48768km

> (and let's be clear: money)

First, we all have bills to pay. Don’t knock someone for their chosen profession.

Second, I was lucky enough to be invited to a small group event to hear him speak. Either all or the vast majority of his fee was sent directly to a charity. Never hit his bank account.

Good rule of thumb is to remember not to make assumptions about people you know nothing about.

> we all have bills to pay. Don’t knock someone for their chosen profession.

You should take some time to read this again and ask yourself what powerful emotion powered this though to form and surface.

Why? It’s a perfectly reason sentiment to abstain from decrying someone’s legal (and even inspiring) profession.

Because with that line you could justify anything as long as it's for money to pay the bills?

I really think it was obvious but given the down votes I am now assuming there is a misunderstanding somewhere.

I know plenty about him and the climbing world, and the history of it, and have been involved in it personally since 1980, and have met many of the same people has, etc.

I stand by my statement. I'm not making assumptions, just observations. If he continues to climb for the audience he will end up dead. And they won't show that on TV, but they should, to be balanced and responsible.

And, yes, 5.11 is 'easy' but there are still hazards that are beyond his control, and 5.11 involves moves that are inherently insecure..that is what the rating means. 5.10a and above implies some level of dynamicism and/or trusting "nothing" holds or some combination thereof.

And, by the way, if he is "giving the money away" then your choice of the word "profession" is poor English.

It's a shame you got downvoted. I agree with you. I too have mixed feelings about the implicit normalisation and glorification of such an activity through profit-led media projects. Most curiously it's not just the media community that feel it's ok, but even the general opinion in the climbing community seems to accept it. Whereas I feel it sends deeply problematic mixed messages. On the one hand as a climber it's drummed into you to make safety the first and foremost concern. Yet here we see the romanticisation of an endeavor fundamentally dependent on the absence of life-saving safety. It makes no sense to me other than the simplistic gimmick of morbid curiosity.

I cannot believe for a moment that Alex Honnold doesn't get something from the attention he receives. There's something almost akin to the social taboo of watching others have sex, such as in pornography. We're not so much watching an athlete, but a psychologically notable person that allows us to vicariously experience the intimacy of emotions that arise from handing over one's very existence to the precipice.

XalvinX, while you are bragging, tell us, what grade do you solo?

Class 2 steep staircase, he uses the handrail.

You've posted more than one comment that crosses into personal attack. We ban accounts that do that, so please don't do it again, regardless of how wrong or annoying another comment may be.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I hope you aren't counting starpilot's replies to me as personal attacks... they seemed like legitimate items of discussion to me and I was happy to reply to them. I guess we could both be nicer to XalvinX...

It's not the grade that kills you. It's nature. I had a hold break on me while 140m up on a very easy solo.

Last thing I ever soloed.

I'm doing it for myself, and myself only.

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