Solo? Have you or do you?

[willstrickland]

There are probably as many reasons that people solo as there are soloists.

 

My motivations for soloing easy stuff is usually a convenience thing...no hassling with gear or partners, the abililty to do a lot of pitches in a short amount of time. But the motivations for things close to my limit are much different. I don't really understand those reasons myself.

 

I just feel compelled to do it and try not to get too psychoanalytical about it. I don't feel like it's coming from a destructive or reckless place. I'm not out soloing after breakups or emotional trauma. If the calm mind + relaxed movement isn't happening, I bail.

 

It does seem like we're muddling the discussion with the various aspects of "soloing". When I hear or say "soloing" I'm talking about ropeless climbing on technical terrain. I've done plenty of roped soloing whether single pitch stuff on lead, tr minitraxion, aid walls, etc. But when the rope is in play, I don't consider it "soloing" I consider it "roped soloing". One is reasonably forgiving, the other not at all.

 

[Raindawg]

I've done loads of soloing....alpine, rock and aid...and I started it early on beginning when I moved to the Pacific Northwest and didn't know anyone.

And that still remains a motivation: no climbing partners available when I want/need to go? Go it alone.

I find it a greater mental challenge, and vastly more satisfying as one doesn't have the crutch of a partner and it requires a great deal of mental, physical and technical self-reliance. I

still usually tail a rope from my harness and carry a few items of gear should I get nervous. I've taken a few tumbles, but overall, I've found it not necessarily unsafe.

 

I also got used to it while guiding, because while leading climbs with a client, I would mentally assume (at least as a working concept) that even though we trained them well, their belay was useless, or at least untrustworthy. I'd still place the gear, but the professional expectations, and the lack of trust in the novice climber, meant that there would be no falling.

 

One of my guide buddies, the late, great Dave Stutzman, was a sincere purist, and would solo rock and alpine routes with a minimum of gear (often zero, not even a pack), and sometimes bare-foot (at least on the rock sections). He'd hike into our climbing seminar basecamps without shoes (yes, he'd put his boots on for the class) and used to entertain us with stories about how he hoped to grow his toe-nails out so he could use them as crampons. He'd didn't really care if you knew he was soloing, liked it or disliked, or whatever...he considered it the ultimate expression of climbing and a personal challenge to do it minimalist as possible.

I tend to agree.

 

I've toned down alot of the scarier stuff in the last few years for personal reasons but I still find going alone to be a very special experience.

 

[Raindawg]

And then there was the time the Mountaineers sent a "rescue party" for me as I sat on a ledge having a snack after soloing a little alpine ridge. When these hefty bumblers finally reached me, they told me that I was in good hands now and they were going to help me down. I packed up and continued climbing.

 

Another time, I was soloing rock routes at Castle Rock or Peshastin or one of those places and noticed a group of Mounties having a conference. When I reached the ground, they sent a spokesman over to me wearing a helmet with a red cross on the front. "I'm the chairman of the Mountaineer's First Aid Committee and for a moment there, I thought we were going to get a little practice!" Whatever!

 

I've also had Mountaineers tell me that I'm a "bad example" for climbing unroped on "Spire Rock" in Tacoma.

[RuMR]

:lmao:

[dmuja]

 

I've also had Mountaineers tell me that I'm a "bad example" for climbing unroped on "Spire Rock" in Tacoma.

 

Now that's funny

 

Dane, Ok 99% maybe too high, lets say 90 % if you include all the 5.4-5.6 unrehearsed "approach scrambles"...

[JosephH]

In Southern Illinois I once soloed half way up the [standard] short face in Giant City and sat on this particular spot I liked in the sun. It was a beautiful day, absolutely no one was around, and it felt great to just hang out and catch buzz and some rays. Unfortunately I hadn't had much sleep and I eventually found a way to go from sitting, to lounging, to laying down sleeping on the small top of that broad, rounded arete-like feature I was climbing.

 

It was also a part of a time, summer, and environment where lakes near the campus would feature joined flotillas of 200 hundred innertubes and rafts of naked bodies and floating kegs; main street with all the bars would spontaneously erupt on friday nights into a mass streaking exhibition; and all our daily hours long down-and-back swims of Cedar Lake were done nude. So before finally going to a deep, deep sleep on my little perch, I stripped off everything and hung it on the rock in sort of a circle around me.

 

About two hours later I wake up to full-on pandemonium. The park - which is a lawn up to the base of the cliff - is now packed with people and a rescue is well underway. In my groggy state attempting to come out of my haze I hear someone below explaining how, "he must have landed so hard it blew all his clothes off of him!". Everyone I think, including myself, was a bit surprised when I finally managed to get up, collect my wits and bits and top out as quickly as possible. I'm not shy, but I was about three shades of scarlet between the embarassment and sunburn...

[pink]

who say's weed is stronger these days. you didn't wake up with a hardon did you.

[JosephH]

Thankfully no! Now that would have been some explaining - though there were a few babes in the crowd - who knows how it might have gone. As it was, I just disappeared pretty damn fast...

[Bug]

OK you guys.

Take it offline.

[Dane]

Joseph, that is a hilarious!

 

Reminds me of other good times.

 

Dating a really fun and dangerious young lady years ago. She tells me she and a girl friend were going to be on a route and I should come over, meet them and of course climb.

 

Next morning I catch up to them on a nice ledge 500' up the route. Her partner takes off and is out of sight on the next long pitch and is taking her time. One thing leads to another on the ledge and we decide that it is close enough for us to join the mile high club. As I mentioned, she was dangerious but fun.

 

I was a true hero that morning. That was only because all I could think about was the morning paper's headline "Friends whitness soloist die in fall"......pants found around ankles. Took a bit to get my head back into soloing the rest of the climb.

 

 

 

 

 

[JosephH]

I like your story better - it has a way happier ending...

[sobo]

So Dane's a clucker after all

[Cairns]

Think more John Bachar, Peter Croft or Mark Twight sort of antics

 

 

Those are antics?

 

 

I remember Mark Twight at UW Rock telling Dan Lapesca and me that soloman had done N. Ridge of Stuart and realizing he was using 3rd person.

 

 

If you can see into someone else's head you are a better person than I, and if you think you know your own mind, well maybe you have done some serious soloing. Personally, I don't want to get to know myself that well.

 

 

Way way back we deferred to Richard Goldstone as he chalked up (didn't know what he was putting on his hands until a couple years later) to solo Hawk, 5.4, at the Gunks. Didn't know who he was at the time, either, but from his climbing it was obvious he knew what he was doing, and he was an adult, so we didn't try to re-direct his play to a safer outlet.

 

 

 

A couple years after that I was living in Poughkeepsie and an actual 'soloist community' did appear with people in it not very different from myself. Most of the people I knew started soloing just for the novelty of it and some found it more attractive than others. I did some 5.2s and towards the top of one of those near the Uberfall a girl on an adjacent route (about 5 feet over) looked at me with an unusual look, let's just say not an indifferent look.

 

 

 

Up in the Adirondacks one winter on the way in to practice building an igloo I noticed a short cliff off the trail with a steep but doable-looking corner. 2/3s of the way up it I looked down and noticed an unpleasant sensation on not seeing the usual rope running through biners.

 

 

 

My bread-and-butter climbing reward is going up a ways, getting nervous, putting in gear, feeling much much better, and repeat. Or is that meat-and-potatos?

 

 

 

However, there are far superior delights to partake of, for a price.

 

 

 

Like Dean Potter, Derek Hershey was said to have said, "If you don't let go of the rock, it won't let go of you."

 

 

 

 

George H. of Squamish soloed past us on Dierdre a few years ago. He slipped briefly as he went by the bulge about halfway up where we were parked on the Passing Lane anchors. It did not seem to bother him.

 

 

 

If I lived in Squamish I know I would be strongly tempted to solo because of the ease of it and the lack of hassle coordinating with a partner, but my brain loses track of what it is doing too easily to make soloing a frequent activity.

 

 

 

Fortunately I live in West Van where I can climb frequently ropeless and mindless. There is still a small chance of getting smashed on rocks at low tide, but I have the rehearsal thing down tight and the fact that nothing bad has happened the last 200 or so times.

 

 

 

A curious thing I've noticed more than once: when another climber is around when I'm in don't-fall territory my mind can be more relaxed than when solo solo. A climbing photographer came out to Lighthouse Park once and I did stuff I hadn't done before and felt perfectly safe doing it. LHP has poorer landings than the other place.

 

 

 

Although the shots of me came out well, I was told that there wasn't enough detail in the watery backdrop. No crashing waves.

 

 

 

Soloing is weird in that it might be totally irrational yet take a highly rational mind to do well.

 

 

 

Talk to Richard Goldstone about it on gunks.com

 

[sirwoofalot]

On my first epic up Snow Creek Wall in ~ 1994 this red haired guy came cruising by us unroped. That blew my fucking mind!

 

Was that Doug?

[Bill_Simpkins]

It is scary and yet strangely satifiying, even on an easy climb when you have a section without really any positive holds and just friction or something. I don't do it to show off or anything. I usually do it because I don't have a partner or I don't want to spend 30 minutes messing with all the gear to do a 1 minute route. I mean, you can get up the route before the rope is flaked out.

[Dane]

 

Those are antics?

I remember Mark Twight....was using 3rd person.

 

When Mark started describing a climb to me that we'd both done, and got to the part he wasn't climbing the ice but had actually become part of the mtn....part of the ice... I took another swig of beer and just smiled. I think there are times even he actually believes some of that Me? I'd like to see the pictures.

 

Mark has done some rediculiously hard Alpine solos, more than any American I can think of. He has more than paid his share of dues.

 

I got to reread "Confessions of a Serial Climber" while laid out in bed over the last month enjoyed it even more the second time through.

 

So I guess my "antics" comment comes from being inspired by any of the three over the years but not quite awestruck. They have all done some amazing climbs but there are things I draw a line at....drinking my own piss....is one of them

 

 

[sobo]

...but there are things I draw a line at....drinking my own piss....is one of them

clearly, clucking isn't one of them.

 

[pope]

Hey Dmurja! Who gives a flying falk what you're impressed by (or not impressed by)? Everybody who climbs solo to impress Dmurja stand up and be counted. Anybody?

 

You play music and you compare the "raw ability" to play something you've never played, music not "corrected" to soloing something one has never climbed. BFD. When you play the wrong note, you get another chance. When you miscalculate just about ANYTHING without a rope, you don't. Contemplating this, weighed against my current obligations, convinced me that all of the exhilerating freedom solo climbing offers isn't worth the down side of the game. I've found similar satisfaction and freedom in riding mountain bikes, without having to spend hours and hours with my life hanging in the balance.

[pink]

 

 

but it's so tempting

Edited June 21, 2008 by pink

[Dane]

Hey Pope, it isn't worth the time. The comparison he made says it all...no clue.

 

My take was the guy was more jealous of what others could do and his rational was "of course, repeat it a gazillion times and anyone could do it." Your point about the comparison of a mistake is well taken. Starting over can be a little tough after grounding out. Not so much when you miss a note.

 

Never found that the "repeats mentality" all that easy myself. I could my own solos into, anytime solos, some time solos, seldom solos and one time solos. Then there is my biggest list, "never to be soloed by me". How many times I have climbed the route has little or nothing to do with it.

[Cairns]

Those are antics?

I remember Mark Twight....was using 3rd person.

When Mark started describing a climb to me that we'd both done, and got to the part he wasn't climbing the ice but had actually become part of the mtn....part of the ice... I took another swig of beer and just smiled. I think there are times even he actually believes some of that Me? I'd like to see the pictures.

 

Mark has done some ridiculously hard Alpine solos [snip]. He has more than paid his share of dues.

 

 

I thought he founded his own club.

 

 

I would like to see a picture of my camera having an out-of-body experience.

 

 

 

 

[denalidave]

I was trying to dig up the thread(s) on rope-soloing and came across this.

 

Funny, soloing is such a loaded word (IMO). As soon as some/most folks hear the term solo or free solo, it instantly conjures up ideas of danger, death, stupid, selfish, etc. I think it is all relative though. I don't solo much, and only well below my trad limits, on routes I know well. However, I feel so much safer than when encumbered with the whole rope-solo set up. When you go up on the roof to clean the gutters, I'd bet most people do it "free solo", yet most people don't believe that is so dangerous, stupid, selfish, etc. Nothing like being able to do a 1,000 of climbing and be back home in an hour, for me anyway. Also good training for longer alpine routes, which I don't get the chance to do often. At least you can keep fit, both mentally and physically by doing some easy free solos between alpine getaways. Can be an excellent cardio/full body workout too. Much more fun than running. I kind of liken it to driving without a seatbelt... Sure, it COULD be very dangerous if you are on a crowded freeway doing 80 MPH. Then again, I drive to the post office in my small town all the time and never wear my seatbelt as I DON'T NEED IT then. Just my two-cents on the subject.

[ivan]

wives don't like the word "solo" much

[kukuzka1]

its like skiing. its funner and better with a partner, but sometimes you just have to go do it. like jeff lowe said, it almost feels to good. so i dont do it to much

[denalidave]

wives don't like the word "solo" much

 

WORD. Just throw a 30m rope in yer sack and a few nuts and then you can say you have all the gear you need, IF you NEED it...

 

OK, side note. I just went and did my first rope-solo attempt of the year and got spanked. Mainly due to my head not being fully committed, even though I've led this easy climb many times and never felt insecure or gripped on lead. As a consolation prize, I ran the usual solo lap, which was an entirely refreshing and worthwhile way to spend 40 minutes covering about 1,000 ft (a few sunset breaks along the way). Yeah, a bit of butterflies on the ground, as usual, but soooo much more comfortable and easy than the rope solo. No heavy rack, no cumbersome roped up set up, just easy, fast and safe climbing. So glad I took option A instead of of Option B, trail running to the top...