this post was submitted on 06 May 2025
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Mildly Interesting
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I though this was the "Mildly terrifying" forum for a sec.
I will never ever ever be impressed by this shit. All I see is a very stupid person taking an unnecessary risk for clout.
Rope or not this is terrifying! It's a no from me
This is a lot less impressive when you rotate the image to the right.
I dunno, that background tho. Becomes something out of scifi.
Why?
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.
He is free climbing. He’s not using things like a ladder to climb.
He’s not free soloing, which is done without a rope.
There’s also rope soloing where you use a rope but you don’t have a belayer and have to catch yourself on falls.
I think the only climber that did it free solo is Alex Honnold. He took a less deadly route I believe. The documentation is fear inducing though.
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, one of the best climbers in the world is not 'smart' when climbing with the proper security setup.
one of the "best climbers" just means "hasn't yet had a catastrophe". even 'with precautions' one mistake and it'd hurt like hell getting smacked and scraped against the front of that rock face, while flailing and trying to control the situation, recover...
its kinda like jumping out of a plane with a parachute. yeah sure 'precautions' but you're still deciding 'yes I should leave a perfectly capable vehicle to plunge towards the earth with comparatively minimal control over the situation'. and in both situations, your safety gear isn't guaranteed...
so yes, very "smart" indeed
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.
On less than vertical terrain like this, you don't smash into the wall so much as skid down it. On easier routes, this can be more dangerous, since there can be more ledges to hit. But on this route, there are very few features on the wall at all, so the danger is small. Also, with pro so close, total fall distance would be minimal, further decreasing the odds of hitting something.
On steeper terrain, falls are even safer - assuming you are given a proper belay. With a good belay, you simply fall into empty space with nothing at all to hit. But with an inexperienced and nervous belayer, they might take in slack when you are falling, which is bad, since it turns the rope into a pendulum, resulting in you "spiking" the wall with significant force. Another danger is getting your foot tangled up in front of the lead line, causing the rope to flip you upside down when it comes taught, which has a significant chance of putting your head where you don't want it to be.
Adam Ondra has been climbing since he was a kid and has likely taken many thousands of lead falls over the years. His belayer is someone with lots of experience who he knows and trusts. If he thinks the helmet is unnecessary, I'm inclined to trust him to make his own judgements about safety.
Usually climbers who do lead climbing have a lot of experience indoors and on safer routes before moving onto ones like "El Capitan", so their reflexes are properly trained.
Also a lot of the impact is absorbed by the belayer and by your feet. The way your center of mass is situated and the fact that you're almost always facing the wall helps guide you feet first. There is a limited distance between the points where you clip in, so the distance isn't too big.
The only injury I ever got while lead roping* is a strained finger, so its not as dangerous as it seems If you have proper training and user the proper equipment.
Top roping has almost no impact forces. For lead/sport climbing that he’s doing there are quite a bit more forces. But it’s still safe if you handle it correctly and don’t swing too far.
I believe the route might also be partly trad, where you have to place your own safety into the rock itself without the help of bolts.
lead roping*** misstyped :p
You never smash into the wall while climbing like this. The elasticity od the rope is enough for the fall to he easy to catch with your feet.
Every single manner of objectively rating or quantifying intelligence has disappointed me
I still couldn't see it, till I realised it's underneath, not above, the climber!
But still 😵💫
Ah, thank you
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.
But the route is The Dawn Wall which is a trad route with some bolts.
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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 :)
If that scares you, do not look up Alex Honnold freeclimbing yosemite several times now. And he's taken some gnarly routes.
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