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Comment by sgrytoyr | Hacker News Reader

Fantastic achievement if they pull it off.

Incidentally, Alex Honnold, one of the climbers interviewed in the article, is the star of one of the most frightening videos I have ever seen - him free-soloing El Sendero Luminoso:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Phl82D57P58

Even though I know perfectly well that nobody fell to their death on that climb, and have done a fair bit of climbing myself, I can’t watch this video without having a powerful physical reaction.

It’s mind-boggling what some people are capable of.

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That's an impressive achievement. El Sendero Luminoso is rated a 5.12d V climb. For those who don't know, back in the mid 20th century when climbing started becoming very popular they invented the "Yosemite Decimal System" for rating climbs, 5.9 was considered the most difficult class possible. However, climbing improved and starting in the '70s or so people were able to climb routes that were much more difficult than 5.9s, so they just extended the scale. But whereas 5.9 is just one level, 5.10 is actually 4 separate classes (5.10a-d), as is 5.11. That gives you a sense of how difficult (technically beyond impossible from the perspective of a 1960s era climber) a 5.12d class climb is. Additionally, the V grade indicates that it is normally considered a 2 day climb. Honnold's climb is simply astounding.

I can grant you that the technical skill and all around.... I dunno what a good word is... lack of the paralyzing fear that I'd feel in a similar situation: that's _amazing_.

However, the fact that it was done quickly makes a lot of sense if you think about how much goes into doing stuff like that safely. A lot of things that might take a long time take less time if you have the technical ability to pull them off with a lot of safeguards removed.

Moving is much, much faster when you can get rid of a partner, not drag a rope or set pro, and especially not have to carry equipment for spending a night on the rock.

I don't know if these safeguards would be good for most people to remove, but it is a neat case where there is a massive gain by changing the system.

Notable, also: the risk of free-solo climbing has scared off a corporate sponsor (Clif Bar) of Honnold and others.

http://www.outsideonline.com/news-from-the-field/Report-Clif...

Alex wrote about the topic after losing that sponsorship:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/20/opinion/the-calculus-of-cl...

It's a nice, quick read. Especially if you're even vaguely interested in climbing.

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