Rope or not this is terrifying! It's a no from me
this post was submitted on 06 May 2025
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This is a lot less impressive when you rotate the image to the right.
I dunno, that background tho. Becomes something out of scifi.
More pixels:
Rope and anchor much easier to see here.
I'm actually glad for that. I thought he was free climbing and it made me nervous.
I still couldn't see it, till I realised it's underneath, not above, the climber!
Thank Jebus he has a rope. Original picture made me feel bad and nervous.
I'm so pleased to discover he's smart
"smart" being a relative term here...
Yeah. Rope and anchor mean that falling isn't guaranteed death. I still wish he'd have a helmet, though.
Yeah, my thoughts go more towards a slip and fall and smashing into the side of the mountain rather than a slip and fall to the bottom.
I trust the rope and anchors to keep his body in the air.
He apparently trusts his body to do the rest.
Every single manner of objectively rating or quantifying intelligence has disappointed me
But still 😵💫
Ah, thank you
Does anyone know of any active climbing community on Lemmy?
Not very active, but !climbing@lemmy.ml sees some posts every now and then. Only way to make it more active is to join :)
Fyi Adam is free climbing here but not free soloing; there's a big difference. The rope in this photo has either been edited out or is hard to see. Free climbing means climbing without aid, like ladders or ascenders attached to the rope. If youve climed at your local gym, you have free climed.
Edit: it's just hard to see but it's there. It's yellow and coming down beneath him.
Yeah what we see here is called "trad climbing" and specifically it seems like he's lead climbing here (first one up and putting in the rope as he goes along).
Adam is a fucking beast btw for those that don't know him he's one of the best in the world.
Nah; it's actually sport climbing, not trad. You can see in the higher definition photo that he's got a quick draw attached to a bolt below him. Trad (traditional) climbing means climbing without prebolted routes where you place pro(tection) as you climb, like cams, nuts and hexes to name a few. If he were climbing trad, you would see a bunch of pro hanging off his belt because he'd need to place it as he climbs. Also pretty sure there's not even enough going on on the dawn wall to climb trad which is why it's generally looked down upon to bolt a wall if pro can be placed. Trad climbing the same wall would be much harder than sport climbing the same wall because placing pro is so more more involved than placing a quickdraw. Also you have to carry it up. Also if you place pro incorrectly and you fall you can die. Sport climbing in practice is much safer.
To clarify further, the quickdraws are already placed for him. This is likely because the dawn wall is just that hard that you really don't have a chance if you have to spend the energy placing quickdraws as you climb.
Oooooh right you're right trad is placing the anchors etc yourself, I'm still learning. So is this still lead climbing (while being sport climbing) since he's going up with the rope?
Yes, lead climbing applies to both trad and sport climbing, as long as you climb above the last bolt/piece of protection to clip the rope to the next one.
Thanks for explaining it in a way that a noob like me could understand. So the wall has prebolted routes? Does that mean someone with a drill climbed the wall trad and attached them or how the heck is this done?
Usually when you bolt a route like this (routes that are impossible or near-impossible to trad-climb) you'll go up some other route and rappel down while placing the bolts. Especially when the bolts are hand-drilled, because that requires both hands.
That makes sense. Thanks for clearing that up
In Yosemite it is illegal to use power tools so all those bolts were drilled by hand by hitting a masonry drill bit with a hammer and twisting.
If that scares you, do not look up Alex Honnold freeclimbing yosemite several times now. And he's taken some gnarly routes.
A what point does it change from unique hobby to death wish?
When they go from this to free solo. Especially on such a hard route.
A what point does it change from unique hobby to death wish?
100% when you remove the safety gear.
The mountain, you see, is in nature; and Nature doesn't give a fuck about your inability to fly once you pop off that flake.
It's hard to see from the shrunken picture, but he has a rope to catch him if he falls. The likelihood of an injury is very low.
https://brainasap.com/adrenaline-addiction-rock-climbers-thrill-seeking-behavior/
I'm all for letting people have the hobbies they want, but adrenaline junkies are literally wired differently. Kind of weird that they get put on a pedestal for being the "right" kind of neurodivergent.
I don't think any of the climbers I know would call it an adrenaline sport. It's slow, considered, thoughtful. It certainly gets a high sometimes, pun intended, but it's much more akin to a runners high or the elation of finishing a difficult task well.
Halfway through reading this I realized I'm addicted to mountain biking lmao
Better than than cigs, if nothing else
Skiing here, I’d jump off some stupid stuff if I could afford to get there.
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I watched a video about a person with a rare condition that makes him not have a fear response and now, everytime I see people doing stupid shit like this, I think "bet it's not so fucking rare"
Don't be do quick to judge: He's secured by a rope that passes through a series of bolts that are drilled into solid granite. You could lift a car with the gear he's using to secure himself.
You're less in control of your fate when passing someone on the highway than he is here. The only way he dies in this situation is first slipping off (first layer of protection is your hands and feet), and then having several layers of ridiculously redundant protection fail.
Belaying a lead climber is much less straightforward than belaying a top roper, so that's all true assuming he has an excellent belayer, which I'm sure Adam does. That being said mistakes still happen; just look at Sara Al Qunaibet's recentish fall. Alex Honnold was also dropped by his (at the time) girlfriend and suffered injury. He was lucky to be on the first pitch of a multi pitch climb at the time.
It's absolutely true that human error can occur, and it does happen sometimes. Of course, nobody is doing big-wall climbing with a grigri (although in Sara Al Qunaibets case there was even a grigri that the coach was able to misuse...). I still feel safer taking a fall with a belayer I trust than I do driving behind some stranger that's driving erratically. The most dangerous part of any climb on pre-bolted route is likely the drive to the crag.
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