Soloing

Don't slap rude and sail if you're shaky at the grade.

Locker wrote:John Bacher quote on soloing in an old video I have. "The dumb one's die"."

The dumb ones misuse apostrophes.

RIP John.

It's the end of the day and I decide to do one more lap. My wife says no way but I'll belay you. At this point I plan to climb up then rap back down cleaning everything on the way back down. After I get about half way up I have thoughts of wallking off the top and not placing any gear. I end up getting to the top without placing any pro. I untie my doubles and let them fall to the bottom. When I get back to my wife she has a look of amazement and says "awesome" then giggles. I'm not much of a climber so when I get back to a phone I tell all my buddies. Some say the word solo but I'm not so sure. Is it soloing if you're carrying screws, draws and a rope? Either way It was super fun and felt good to able to control my fear.

Ben Beckerich wrote: To me, soloing is solo- out there on your own, self sufficient. No one to belay you, no one to save you, no one to hear your last curdling scream. I've gotten through roped pitches without placing gear- that's not soloing, to me. That's just running it all out. Just as dangerous? I guess it can be, depending. But not "soloing." The word is obviously super subjective.

That's what I said!! My feeling was if anything went wrong (dropped tool or crampon fell off) I could just fire in a screw, build a v thread and be lowered or rap.

I agree with Ben. Real soloing means you are truly alone, no audience, no photographers. Otherwise I just consider it a circus stunt.

I only free solo when I'm bouldering.

climbon101 wrote:What are some of your opinions on soloing?

Usually not a good idea to fall.

advice

Matt N wrote: advice

he checks out.

The risks we take in climbing are not our own. If you die soloing (or get crippled or brained into a vegetative state), the group of people who get hurt is the exact group of people you never want to hurt: the people who give a s*** about you. Had a friend die soloing this year... The hardest part about it was not the loss of the friend, but the thought of his wife he left behind.

But if that's your true calling, and the benefits of following this calling outweigh the costs of the pain it'll cause your friends and family if you bite the dust doing it, then go for it. The ones who mind don't matter and the ones who matter won't mind.

Alex Washburne wrote:If you die soloing (or get crippled or brained into a vegetative state), the group of people who get hurt is the exact group of people you never want to hurt: the people who give a s*** about you.

This is very true, important to think about often -- and I do.

But it applies to lots more things than soloing. I suspect that in most years more people die (or get very seriously hurt) in roped climbing than in solo climbing.
I feel very sure that more people die each year in unnecessary car-driving or car-passengering than die soloing.

Are people supposed to turn down a friend's offer to drive them to a Saturday-evening string-quartet concert because of the grief they would cause family + friends if they got killed by a drunk driver?
Especially since driving to a concert is an obviously unnecessary risk.

If string-quartet-concert drivers and roped climbers are permitted to take unnecessary risks, why is it especially important to give a special warning to soloists?

Roped climbers also take on two additional sources of hazard which soloists do not: (1) mis-communication and (2) failure to exactly follow anchor and belay set-up procedures.
For sure many roped climbers die or get disabled-for-life as a result of either one of those two additional hazards - many times with sad impact on family and close friends. Almost no soloists ever die that way.

Roped climbers are taking on well-known additional fatal risks -- to achieve a socially unnecessary goal (and arguably with less reward than from soloing).

So why not rather deliver a special warning about grief-impact-on-family to those who choose to climb roped?

never solo and eat a ham sandwich without an axe

A ham sandwich with Swiss is easier to digest

I think the best answer is who gives a f*ck. The best argument is it selfish, if you die you effect many others. But if you talk to many famous mountaineers wives & family they will tell you they knew it would end them, but they could never try to stop them. we do what we want & that is how boundaries are pushed, danger is a part of everything but it is generally the smarter individuals that conquer fear & push the envelope. people care to much about others opinions to much obligatory courtesy.

Soloing just is. I'm not really cut out for it, but more power to those who are.

Always let a soloist pass you on a trad route and never say "be careful"

Bachar used to call it "souloing"

"soloing is a gift reserved for the best climbers, on their best days"-John Bouchard

If somebody feels the risk is worth is to them then fuck the rest.....
Climbing is dangerous no matter how you go about it, some forms being far more dangerous than the others soloing being one of them. If you don't want to take risk don't climb, and sure as hell don't judge somebody else for taking more risk than you are willing too.

kenr wrote: So why not rather deliver a special warning about grief-impact-on-family to those who choose to climb roped?

I'm not trying to say people shouldn't solo; I'm trying to say that people should be aware of the more subtle risks they take when they do. I know many soloists and few are explicitly aware of the pain and suffering their preventable death would cause their loved ones, and as such their decision to solo, a decision made by weighing costs and benefits, is based on an incomplete assessment of the risks. If the benefits you gain from soloing outweigh the costs of your death (which won't matter to you in retrospect) and the grief of your loved ones, and if you can't find anything else that has greater net benefits (i.e. walking your dog? spending the evening with your significant other? trail running?) then sure, go for it.

I, personally, try not to solo (though runouts, 4th class approaches/downclimbs, and other effectively unroped adventures happen, I try to avoid). I do this because, for me, an expected 70 year life with intermediate adventure is far superior to an expected 80 year life with none and an expected 40 year life with too much. Do what you want, I just recommend that you don't fall on me, that you keep your loved ones in mind when making the decision, and that you be compassionate for the mountain rescuers and their families you might recklessly endanger in the event you push it too far and want help, or you might traumatize in the event of a body recovery.

As a side-note, the claim that roped climbers take on greater risk is just silly - roped climbers can mitigate the risk a great deal by ensuring clear communication about lowering/rappelling, cross-checking belay devices & tie-in points, tying stopper knots, finding trustworthy partners, and climbing within their abilities. If the (false) dichotomy is between soloing and naïve, reckless roped climbing then, sure, roped climbers have more components of the system (but even then whether or not their net risk is greater than soloists depends on the degree of recklessness).

The driving-to-string-quartet analogy, which I interpret as saying "you can die doing anything, therefore it's irrelevant if you choose to do things that make you more likely to die," fails to incorporate a premise of my own (and, I suspect, many others') reasoning that time spent living is good and the tradeoff comes from time spent doing fun yet risky things is better than time spent doing nothing (though I, personally, think time spent doing nothing isn't too bad - after all, that's why I'm sitting here writing on MP ;-D).