See this For the Madness..Lol..If a climber wants to risk his life, that's his decision, but to encourage anyone to solo is to reserve a place in hell. Consequently, talking about free soloing makes me a little edgy. It also makes my palms sweat. I've soloed just enough to know both the beauty and the horrors of the venture, and am leery of over- or understating either side.
Scrambling unroped over easy terrain is a required part of climbing. 'Third classing" routes approaching your technical limit is not. Yet climbers do solo, and will continue to solo. So to ignore the topic altogether, to withhold information that possibly could save a person's life, seems recklessly mean and narrow-minded. Instead, I will pass on all that I can, hoping to limit the genuine risks.
No one argues that soloing is climbing in its purest form. That so few soloists fall suggests that sober, calculated judgement prevails over the naive notion of the foolish daredevil going off half-cocked. Herman Buhl, Reinhold Messner, Royal Robbins, and more recently, John Bachar and Peter Croftsome of the true legends of our sport-all have reputations fashioned, in part, from soloing. Still, while we laud these climbers, a definite taboo shrouds their exploits. Certainly, difficult soloing is reserved for the full-blown expert, for those who eat, sleep, and drink climbing. But even for accomplished soloists the practice is a minefield full of clear and subtle dangers. The likelihood is much overstated, but one should never get lured into soloing through peer pressure or dubious ambitions, like achieving fame. It's undeniable that many active climbers routinely solo easy, or even moderate, routes. A few solo desperate routes (5.11 and up). But I've also known plenty of world-class climbers who never solo, no matter how easy the terrainand if anything, their reputations have grown from their forbearance. The point is, soloing is one aspect of the sport where you cannot, or should not, emulate other climbers.
What then, is the lure? By dint of the frank jeopardy involved, soloing evokes feelings of mastery and command, plus a raw intensity that even a million-dollar-a-year ball player will never experience: not in the Super Bowl; not in the World Series; not on center court at Wimbledon. And therein lies the snare. Following a particularly rewarding solo, when everything has clicked, the climber feels like a magician. These feelings can actually foster a sham sense of invincibility. Hence, it's not unheard-of that a narrow escape is followed by an eagerness to push things just a tiny bit further, and so on, until the soloist is courting doom. And he'll most assuredly find it if he doesn't quickly back off. The whole insidious business is closely tied to anything that is exhilarating, deadly, and fiendishly addictive. Whenever desire overrides judgement, bad things happen. If the soloing fool is fortunate, he'll have a harrowing close call, and he won't be the first to swear, "Never again!"
On the other hand, soloing has provided me with some of the sharpest, and greatest, experiences of my climbing career. Particularly on longer routes, the charged mix of fear and focus strips away any masks, exposing the most fundamental self. It's one way of finding out, once and for all, who you really are. It's also a sure way to die if so much as a single toehold pops. Understand this: The potential penalties simply are too high to rationalize risking your life to scale a section of stone. Wrap your reasoning in rarefied language, and maybe you'll touch on a vague truth. It's also true that my friend Tobin Sorrensona talented, beautiful, and outrageous young mandied while soloing the North Face of Mount Alberta. His death, at age 24, showed me the unforgiving side of the game, minus all the poetry and shimmering sunsets. It was a personal revelation of another, perhaps more significant kind. You just want to slog home and hug your child, kiss your wife, call your momtell someone you care about how much you love them. So when you're at the base, gazing up at the rock, review the soloist's code: "If there is any doubt about it, forget it!" If you do cast off, make certain you're doing so for your own good reasons.
How To Rock Climb: Sport Climbing by John Long. 1997. Falcon Guide
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