Alex Honnold’s free solo of El Capitan has got to be one of the greatest human achievements ever. The movie did take some artistic license… it mentions four soloists who were killed (John Bachar, Dan Osman, Dean Potter, and Sean Leary). Out of these:
- John Bachar died when he was 52 and fell on a mild route
- Dan Osman (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wy3SuhEQHVg) was killed rope jumping when he affixed a rope illegally during the winter, got arrested and went to jail, then went back and tried the rope jump in the spring (rope damaged by frost)
- Dean Potter was killed BASE jumping with a wingsuit
- Sean Leary was killed BASE jumping with a wingsuit
With regular roped climbing, there is a whole bunch of safety built into the activity in order to address the types of errors that can occur:
Operator error: two of the moest famous climbers from the 80s and 90s, John Long and Lynn Hill, both had accidents in a climbing gym from not checking the knot they were tied in with (although they were also tying a traditional type of knot that is easier to tie incorrectly). During rappelling, letting go of the rope will cause an uncontrolled descent. A type of hitch where the knot can move, but has to be manually slid along the length of the rope (called a Prusik) can be attached below the rappel device, so that a fall would be stopped at the Prusik.
Equipment failure: almost every piece of gear can be backed up, and it’s also important to do it in a way where the primary and backup are isolated. For example,
- The device used to attach a climber to the wall when not climbing is called a PAS (personal anchor system), and is typically constructed using a piece of webbing called a daisy chain and an attached carabiner (the other end is attached to the climbing harness). This can be done in a way such that if the webbing is cut, the carabiner will not slide off (which would result in a fall).
- Most people will carry two PAS’s, so there is a backup at that level as well.
- If you look at a climbing harness you will see that every part of it is constructed such that the harness can fail at that point and the integrity of the harness isn’t compromised.
- For trad climbers (the type of climber Alex Honnold is, besides free solo’ing), you will always try to put three or four pieces of protection into the rock when building an anchor.
- When placing protective gear while climbing, you’re also supposed to make the placements cognizant of what would happen in the event of a fall, IE which way the rope will swing, whether you will be swung into a ledge or just fall in space (which is safe).
To give you an idea of how climbing grades go, class 5 (vertical terrain) is divided into degrees of difficulty:
5.0
5.1
5.2
5.3
5.4 ← grade I have solo’d… kind of, I climbed a pitch without placing any gear until building the anchor
5.5
5.6
5.7
5.8 ← most difficult trad route I have climbed (on lead)
5.9
5.10a
5.10b
5.10c
5.10d
5.11a
5.11b ← most difficult sport route I have climbed
5.11c
5.11d
5.12a ← sport climbing goal for me
5.12b
5.12c
5.12d ← Freerider, the El Capitan route Honnold solo’d
5.13a ← “boulder problem” section of Honnold’s free solo (bouldering grade: v7)
5.13b
5.13c
5.13d
5.14a
5.14b
5.14c
5.14d ← The Dawn Wall
5.15a
5.15b
5.15c
5.15d ← hardest sport route ever climbed (Adam Ondra, the favorite to win in the 2020 Olympics)
