When watching Alex Honnold in Free Solo, I understood there was a exceptional aspect to him, but it took me seeing him climb with other people to really grasp the magnitude.
https://nautil.us/the-strange-brain-of-the-worlds-greatest-s...
The scientist found there was a gene encoding how daring a bird would be, mostly clustered in two groups IIRC. But there was a rare variant which made them much more fearless, causing them to go much lower than the others.
However they only found birds with one copy of that variation. Turned out if a bird inherited the variant from both parents, they never pulled out of the dive and smacked into the ground, killing the bird.
These crazy free solo climbs and similar reminds me of those birds.
(Source: I'm also a climber. Not remotely close to Alex's level. But frequent exposure significantly changes how your brain processes these situations)
https://nautil.us/the-strange-brain-of-the-worlds-greatest-s...
When that happens I have to do a mental inventory and ask myself, "Am I better off finishing the run or should I just bag it and take tomorrow off?" Two things; firstly every run hurts a little bit - especially the first mile. I usually get into a groove and sometimes, very rarely, I really have gotten to that place where I'm feeling no pain and a run seems like less effort then a walk - mostly though the nice part of a run has an undeniable unpleasantness bound up with it. I like being able to go out for a run though so I put up with the bad. Second thing. I'm an unreliable source. For all the reasons I just talked about I don't trust my ability to take stock of my physical state. I do occasionally take off or skip for days at a stretch but it's like candy - I don't trust it because I like it so.
Here's the thing. If I get that balance wrong I end up walking in the middle of my run.
I imagine Honnold has to do that same self assessment. If he gets it wrong he plunges to his death. Which - to my mind - is totally crazy. Takes all kinds though.
The Googlers had way better views XD
I was also terrified when ppl would engage with him directly lol
Do you have any photos on social media?
The second one is from the inside of the observatory (89th floor). Folks with media passes were allowed to get closer so that's the crowd you see pictured. He's climbing in the background.
Also, previously through the climb he makes efforts to be deliberate and chooses to interact positively with some of the people. Waving, offering a hand on glass for a high five, making a few jokes at the fans' expense over the headpiece "I offered him a high five. He was too busy on his phone. Kids these days"
My feeling about all this is the presence of many people was something he had rehearsed a lot and decided he was going to stay relaxed and positive about, and that's what he did.
He don't spook easy.
>Balin Miller, 23, was live-streamed on TikTok ascending and subsequently falling from the monolith on Wednesday.
>Details of what caused the incident are not clear, but Miller's brother Dylan told AFP he was lead rope soloing - a technique that enables climbing alone while still protected by a rope - on a 2,400ft (730m) route named Sea of Dreams.
>He had finished the climb and was hauling up equipment when he likely rappelled off the end of his rope, Dylan said.
>Tom Evans, a Yosemite-based photographer who witnessed Miller fall, told Climbing magazine he called 911 after Miller tried to free his bag, which was stuck on a rock.
>I'm wondering if this is because El Capitan is a much more technically difficult climb and thus posing much more risk than Taipei 101.
The climbing on Taipei was way more chill for him than the climbing on Freerider.
Of course, no question El Cap was technically far more challenging.
It would be insanely reckless to free solo without practicing first.
I imagine Threads and Instagram just got hit with like ten thousand vertical video clips of the climb if you're interested in seeing for yourself.
For me it was almost scary how abruptly he started and made it up the first ledge. Dude just fuckin went for it. Made me realize, for the first time, how truly incredible the feat was to be.
The observation deck level is often so windy I worry about losing my phone if I take it out. I can't comprehend how he managed that wind while hanging on by his fingertips. Then he stood at the tippy top for quite some time, which must be unbelievably windy. At some point he was tethered in for the rapelle down though so maybe he clipped in right as he got to the top.
I wonder what he was thinking about up there.
Your average roped climbers at a crag might get 3 pitches of climbing in an hour (sometimes even less when they're on hard stuff where they flail). You can get that done in 15 minutes free soloing. After climbing for a while there's a lot of terrain where you know the odds of falling are minuscule, and you know exactly when you feel insecure and have the option of backing off by down climbing. It's a very common practice among alpinists, where moving fast is an enormous advantage and the terrain usually isn't difficult compared to current sport climbing standards.
He just finds it very peaceful and thrilling. "Just him and the climb" kind of language.
Also I suppose clout has to be involved: only person to free solo El Capitan, as far as I know the only person to climb Taipei 101 let alone free solo (did the spiderman guy ever make it or was he arrested?)
For a deeper dive, the book "Alone on the wall" is a good read and I recommend it. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36531127-alone-on-the-wa..., although that said the book might be less appealing to someone who 'knows nothing about climbing' and is more of a time investment than the short documentary :)
But it's certainly time we admit everyone feels feelings diferently. Even something basal like pain experience is hugely individual with large variation.
(I get that there are more motivations underneath free soloing in general, but I doubt Taipei 101 with a million cameras is the climb he'd choose if it were not for the money.)
I've also done a facade inspection on a building where massive sheets of metal had been badly installed. The vast majority of them weren't connected to the structural steel beams, they were just held together by single screws (with no nuts!) that were falling off due to wind making the screws bore a bigger hole. A sheet had fallen off the 12th floor right onto the busy boulevard below.
the walls are thicker. everything is reinforced. external structures are bolted more securely. why is this a thing? taiphoons and earthquakes, is why.
if you like solid construction, there's plenty of it in taiwan. also, 101 is a flagship building. an item falling from the facade would kill someone or be a huge embarassment. this is not something they would let happen. just some local context fyi. that said, i wouldn't trust my life to those external structures either, but you do see alex testing as he goes.
The 1988 ascent of the Sydney Centrepoint was a technical climb with custom jumars for both the cables and the window tracks and a fun challenge for all, both the scouting, the climb, and the filming.
Originally titled The Only Building I Ever Wanted To Climb, later released as A Spire, there's a documentary film that follows a climb at night of "only" 1,000 feet.
... with a massive overhang.
Alex is just a bit too crazy to follow him. I don't like suicidal tendencies
For example I think a lot of 'good' climbers with several multi pitch climbs behind them could do this building fairly comfortably with ropes and really the only thing interesting about this is he did it without safety equipment which is frankly just a bit daft.
(I have climbed pretty extensively in the UK and also in Yangshuo China). I was kind of 'intermediate/good' at one point.
to a point, see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46750654 and consider that the initial overhang pass failed due to not finding an open bottomed window cleaning track to slot into, they backed up, tried another spar, and success )
this was an exercise of focus, indifference to exposure, and fitness to complete the 1,660 odd feet of ascent.
> he did it without safety equipment which is frankly just a bit daft.
People vary a lot, I had spent a few years climbing before someone pointed out that you could use ropes and protection .. indoor climbing gyms were fun for a while but never really became a thing of great interest for myself.
The fact that Netflix was behind it might’ve made it possible to get permission to climb this specific tower though.
A YouTube search pulls up a stream filmed from the ground (a nearby building?) using a zoom lens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vzthkg2ti2Q
One should be free to do whatever they want with their own life, provided they don’t hurt anyone else.
He mentioned he considers partying more dangerous than climbing. I can't tell how dangerous his stunts are, but he's still alive, so perhaps he knows what he's doing?
I'm with the OP - watching people so willfully put their lives in danger isn't my cup of tea. I'm just glad he didn't die.
I'm going to add that his coolest achievements were done with ropes. The friendly race to climbing a route graded 5.15 with Sonnie Trotter and Tommy Caldwell is a lot more interesting to me.
While I don't have statistics on free solo death rate per climb compared to death per car trip, this is most likely very, very wrong. You should really stop throwing such strange wild claims..
Free solo climbing is incredibly dangerous, but the people who do it (usually) prepare extensively and train their whole lives.
https://gitnux.org/rock-climbing-death-statistics/
This is in contradiction to the experience of driving, where any number of people on the road with you are untrained, undertrained, drunk, or suffering diseases that affect their ability to drive. Or just doing crimes like speeding or dangerous driving. So when climbing, your fate is entirely in your hands and that of nature's. When driving, it's in the hands of many strangers.
>> While I don't have statistics on free solo death rate per climb compared to death per car trip, this is most likely very, very wrong. You should really stop throwing such strange wild claims..
> Of all the thousands of times tens of thousands people climb, only 30 die per year. Of that 30, 30% are free solo deaths.
So? I would think few people die from free soloing at height not because it’s relatively safe, but because very few people do it.
"Come to Taiwan; you may or may not watch someone plummet to their death while here" doesn't appeal to me, personally anyway. Anyway that guy that did it with safety equipment a few years back made the rounds in the news too, so not sure this was necessary in that regard.
Injury and death happens in rock climbing even when tethered. Not often but it does happen, that's the nature of the sport and it's the same as BMX, skateboarding, motocross, any kind of racing.
It's also the same as just living - go look up Taiwan traffic deaths. There's so much more dangerous things happening here and wherever you live, it just seems silly to criticize someone for doing an extreme sport publicly.
There's like one injury per NFL game ffs...
It's an extreme sport and a thrilling thing to watch. The danger is exciting and makes his accomplishment all the more stunning. I think it's really cool that there are humans willing to push the limits of the human experience like this.
The travel to/from Taiwan was statistically riskier than the climb.
Selfish? Not even close.
Yes but I'd also say Alex is a bit of a different beast. He's clearly not a thrill seeker who attempts climbs he isn't sure about. And as he has once said, there's a very real risk of dying when you get in your car, play football, are a boxer, and so on.
People have a stark reaction to the visual of a guy being 200 meters above the ground but the reality is if you're a circus acrobat and you're 10 meters up the air you're also likely dead or maimed if something goes wrong. It doesn't get more dead than dead and in many ways he's probably more calculated and less reckless than people in other sports or performances.
No, it's the large number of free soloists that have died. And the small number of circus performers who have died. People's intuitions about the relative risks are actually very accurate here.
That doesn't seem plausible. What's the number of free soloists who have died in climbing accidents vs in commercial aviation accidents?
You just made this up.
That is not even close to being true, haha. Probably not as risky as it looks but come on.
Selfish is too harsh, but don’t go making up stats for this.
In my view this guy is pretty irresponsible especially for promoting a “sport” that is unnecessarily dangerous in the most preventable way imaginable.
A bunch of kids and stupid adults watched that live stream and a non-zero amount of them now think they can try the same thing without anywhere near as much training and skill.
I have a fascination with this kind of stuff. Taking risks is sometimes necessary and worthwhile in life, but seriously, risking your life just so you can say you realized a specific feat is really dumb. Especially when we have the technology to do the thing just fine with no problem whatsoever. I think those people live too comfortable lives and try to feel something. They could apply those skills to some meaningful work, but of course it doesn't get the same recognition.
For people like Alex, it's much more about the thrill, the experience, and 'proving' themselves than it is about money.
Come on, plenty of fathers and husbands have worked in coal mines, oil rigs; gone to war; served on ICE raids against armed insurgents. It is often hazardous to be a breadwinner. It seems that this dude is following his passion, for better or worse.