Life insurance
'Free Solo' preview out from National Geographic
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BlackAchilles
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He recently had a child too. He compares these climbs to jogs, so I don’t think he’s going to change his perspective even though he now has more to lose
Copy Ninja
Superstar
He a whole HOE for letting that man play with his life like that.
Dude is a sociopath, you don’t peer pressure someone who’s clearly uncomfortable to do something like that “yeah that rock is slippery but firm, sort of a trade off”
Yeah that was fukked up. One simple mistake and that dude is dead. It was clear he didn't want to do any of that but this dude Alex was basically acting like he was a p*ssy if he didn't climb up there.
They got great content out of it but if I was his camera man I would have talked some sense into him.
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Beyond stupidity.
It's not as risky as it feels, at least in that case.
Honnold said he had less than 1% chance of dying but in reality it's probably more like 0.1%. He could have done that difficulty of route 500 times with ropes, would he have fallen even once? It's not El Capitan. This is a veteran climber doing a route that's way beneath him.
I'm not saying that's not risky, doing anything with only a 99.9% chance of survival is fukking terrifying. If you make decisions like that on a daily basis you're gonna be dead in a couple years. Which is why full-time free soloists like Honnold do often die. As a once-in-a-lifetime experience though, it's probably not as dangerous as the 10 stupidest driving decisions you've ever made.
(Interesting, btw, to think of how much people downplayed the 1% fatality rate of Covid when any rock-climbing experience with a 1% fatality rate would terrify the fukk out of them and they wouldn't agree to it in a million years.)
That being said, I would never fukking try to convince someone to free solo in my life, it's still wild irresponsible. I once solo-scrambled a tough 4 with some inexperienced college kids practicing with ropes on the face, the instructor who was watching got kinda excited by it and had all of them solo the scramble route too. Really made me uncomfortable even though it was easy as fukk.
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Coincidentally just a few days ago I saw this preview for a new Honnold movie. When I saw the thread upped I initially thought it was gonna be on this:
Here's a good interview about the expedition:
www.climbing.com
Climbing: Does that change the way you’re looking at future expeditions?
Honnold: Yeah, for sure. Like, why not bring somebody like Bruce on every trip? It basically made me appreciate how difficult it is for scientists to get funding for their various ideas and expeditions, and how relatively easy it is for sports adventurers to get funding for action sports. For example, Jimmy Chin shot a couple of tire commercials in Greenland with people base jumping off like giant mountains. And, it’s easy to get funding for that kind of thing, but then it’s hard for a climate scientist to get funding to spend a month in a base camp researching things that have actual significance—certainly more significant than a tire commercial. And a trip like this just makes you appreciate that. If you’re going to any of these locations for climbing, you really may as well be bringing some expertise with you to actually learn about the area while you’re there.
Climbing: And so do you think you’re going to do that moving forward?
Honnold: Yeah, my only real big trip for this year is the trip to Greenland actually, through National Geographic as well. And it’s also with climate scientists and sort of the same ideas as this tepui trip, where we’ll be doing some learning along the way.
Climbing: That’s awesome. What do you hope viewers will take away from this and/or do after viewing?
Honnold: I kind of hope the viewers gain a certain sense of humility around the natural world. Like a realization that we don’t know that much about a lot of places on earth and that there’s still a lot to learn and there’s a lot that’s worth protecting. Some of these areas are being destroyed before we even know anything about them. Ideally, we don’t destroy them. And ideally we learn about them a little more quickly as well.
Here's a good interview about the expedition:
"In Normal Life, I Don't Catch Frogs": Alex Honnold Talks About New Climbing Film 'The Last Tepui'
The Last Tepui, a Disney+ film, streams tomorrow on Earth Day. In it, Alex Honnold, alongside a team of climbers, help look for new species.
www.climbing.com
Climbing: Does that change the way you’re looking at future expeditions?
Honnold: Yeah, for sure. Like, why not bring somebody like Bruce on every trip? It basically made me appreciate how difficult it is for scientists to get funding for their various ideas and expeditions, and how relatively easy it is for sports adventurers to get funding for action sports. For example, Jimmy Chin shot a couple of tire commercials in Greenland with people base jumping off like giant mountains. And, it’s easy to get funding for that kind of thing, but then it’s hard for a climate scientist to get funding to spend a month in a base camp researching things that have actual significance—certainly more significant than a tire commercial. And a trip like this just makes you appreciate that. If you’re going to any of these locations for climbing, you really may as well be bringing some expertise with you to actually learn about the area while you’re there.
Climbing: And so do you think you’re going to do that moving forward?
Honnold: Yeah, my only real big trip for this year is the trip to Greenland actually, through National Geographic as well. And it’s also with climate scientists and sort of the same ideas as this tepui trip, where we’ll be doing some learning along the way.
Climbing: That’s awesome. What do you hope viewers will take away from this and/or do after viewing?
Honnold: I kind of hope the viewers gain a certain sense of humility around the natural world. Like a realization that we don’t know that much about a lot of places on earth and that there’s still a lot to learn and there’s a lot that’s worth protecting. Some of these areas are being destroyed before we even know anything about them. Ideally, we don’t destroy them. And ideally we learn about them a little more quickly as well.