Just finished watching that video this morning. My hands were sweating through most of it haha.
But I can’t even imagine a future me that seriously entertains even an ‘easy’ free solo like in this video! (I would be – at least – as scared, and thus, hopefully, as focused, as Magnus clearly appears to be in this video.)
Magnus did say in the video that he would not have been able to do the route without Alex there guiding and encouraging him. I think that says something about just how psychologically challenging free soloing is.
I’ve been climbing for awhile now, but I still experience pretty significant levels of fear. There are of course risks and dangers that can’t be entirely mitigated/avoided, even in the safest scenarios.
But yeah – a free solo climb above 30-40 feet is extremely dangerous! And, thankfully, we’ve been bequeathed with fairly sensible instincts about those kinds of risks :)
Just finished watching that video this morning. My hands were sweating through most of it haha.
Magnus did say in the video that he would not have been able to do the route without Alex there guiding and encouraging him. I think that says something about just how psychologically challenging free soloing is.
I’ve been climbing for awhile now, but I still experience pretty significant levels of fear. There are of course risks and dangers that can’t be entirely mitigated/avoided, even in the safest scenarios.
But yeah – a free solo climb above 30-40 feet is extremely dangerous! And, thankfully, we’ve been bequeathed with fairly sensible instincts about those kinds of risks :)