asmrz wrote:I just read the news (with sweaty palms).

Marcsoltan wrote:I seriously doubt anything is going to happen to Honnold free soloing hard stuff. Looking back at a few examples shows me that most of the soloing accidents have happened on much easier climbs, way below the climbers ability. One such case is what happened to John Bachar on the north face of Dike Wall. There are only three options there, a 5.8 hand crack, a 10a face and a 10b face. All well below Bachar's climbing grade, even after his car accident. I have written a short personal note on that, and it's featured on the front page of Summit Post at this time. Click on the small photo on the right hand side.
I wish I could remember the name of the British climbers who used to live in Colorado and was making a big name for himself soloing 5.12 routes. Unfortunately, he met his maker on "DNB" 5.9 route on Middle Cathedral Rock in Yosemite.

Hate to use myself as an example, but I nearly lost my life on a 5.6 that I had soloed dozens of times. I quit soloing after that.
What I'm saying here isn't a rule of thumb by any means, but I think it shows a trend.

RobSC wrote:

Marcsoltan wrote:I seriously doubt anything is going to happen to Honnold free soloing hard stuff. Looking back at a few examples shows me that most of the soloing accidents have happened on much easier climbs, way below the climbers ability. One such case is what happened to John Bachar on the north face of Dike Wall. There are only three options there, a 5.8 hand crack, a 10a face and a 10b face. All well below Bachar's climbing grade, even after his car accident. I have written a short personal note on that, and it's featured on the front page of Summit Post at this time. Click on the small photo on the right hand side.
I wish I could remember the name of the British climbers who used to live in Colorado and was making a big name for himself soloing 5.12 routes. Unfortunately, he met his maker on "DNB" 5.9 route on Middle Cathedral Rock in Yosemite.

Hate to use myself as an example, but I nearly lost my life on a 5.6 that I had soloed dozens of times. I quit soloing after that.
What I'm saying here isn't a rule of thumb by any means, but I think it shows a trend.

I think that you are thinking of Derek Hersey who died on the Steck-Salathe route on Sentinel Rock in 1993. From what I remember, he'd just climbed the Nose the day before, partied hard that night got up late and then got caught in a storm while climbing that next day. I had a close friend who died in 2001 on the DNB of Middle Cathedral when her partner didn't put in gear above the belay but that's another story and she didn't free solo and wasn't British...

wallspeck wrote:I certain didn't mean to imply death while soloing was some grand glory thing. Quite the opposite.

fatdad wrote:Saw the video, is which nice if you can deal with the whole Gopro helmet cam thing, which I dislike, but I digress. I don't know where the N. Arete of BCS came in, but the brief article that accompanied the video didn't say N. Arete (though it incorrectly identified the peak as being in Yosemite, so maybe the climber provided bad facts on more than one point). With the exception of a short, wide section of 5.8 about midway up, that would not be a bad solo. Having said that, all you need is a short weird section to make the whole endeavor pretty dicey. When I climbed it, someone soloed past us, and I was under the impression that it got soloed fairly often.

fatdad wrote:I did some a fair amount of soloing BITD, including things like Whitney's E. Face and Snake Dike. However, especially after the latter, I just wasn't that into it any more.