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El Sendero Luminoso: 500-meter free climb (video)

I kept looking for the Red Bull helicopter or banner on the side of the mountain. That guy is insane.
 
DrPizza said:
I kept looking for the Red Bull helicopter or banner on the side of the mountain. That guy is insane.
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I really want to see a BTS on the cliff climb one...that has to be some kind of crazy octocopter they're using to film!
 
Most extreme sports things I watch I can just barely see myself attempting, even though I know I'm too old for that crap now, and I never would in a million years go rock climbing again the way I did in my twenties. But I look at that guy and it's just so completely freaking out there I can't even comprehend it. It's terrifying even to try and comprehend it, and I am not afraid of heights at all. I think that might be the single most insanely impressive human physical accomplishment in history. I can't think of another feat where there was so little margin of error. Flying to the moon in the Apollo command module was a walk in the park compared to free climbing that rock. Absolutely nothing could go wrong, or he died. It might be comparable to one of those super deep free dives, I suppose. Just amazing.
 
Markbnj said:
Most extreme sports things I watch I can just barely see myself attempting, even though I know I'm too old for that crap now, and I never would in a million years go rock climbing again the way I did in my twenties. But I look at that guy and it's just so completely freaking out there I can't even comprehend it. It's terrifying even to try and comprehend it, and I am not afraid of heights at all. I think that might be the single most insanely impressive human physical accomplishment in history. I can't think of another feat where there was so little margin of error. Flying to the moon in the Apollo command module was a walk in the park compared to free climbing that rock. Absolutely nothing could go wrong, or he died. It might be comparable to one of those super deep free dives, I suppose. Just amazing.
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and he did it in 3 fucking hours

O_O
 
That was awesome. While impressive, he's nowhere near the best free climber in the world. Probably the best who did it way before Alex Honnold was the guy on Stan Lee's Superhumans show - the Indian guy Jyothi Raj. His grip strength is something like 3X an ordinary man's and he's almost monkey-like in his amazing ability to stick to walls.

In 2013, the guy was doing unassisted climbs up through waterfalls. He actually even fell 20 feet on this climb due to the slippery rocks:
http://www.sportskeeda.com/2013/04/07/jyothi-raj-scales-jog-falls-hurt-but-unshaken/
Jyothi Raj, the self-taught rock-climber from Chitradurga, performed another astonishing feat on Saturday, climbing the 830-foot Jog Falls unassisted. The Jog Falls is Karnataka’s prime tourist attraction, featuring four columns of water that barrel down a cliff on to the rocks 830 feet below.

No other climber has attempted the feat. Although he has climbed up the Falls a few times earlier along different routes (he was called thrice to retrieve dead bodies lodged on the rocks), he had never attempted an ascent under the water. In climbing terms, what he did was a ‘free solo’, that is, without the use of any safety equipment.
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Here is dailymail's article on him in 2009. Guy's grip strength is insane.
article-1201624-05CFEA90000005DC-281_634x418.jpg


Here was the Stan Lee Superhumans clip on him:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCpu-vU-Kjo

He actually fell last year while performing, and fractured his leg. Video of his fall from about 30 feet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJCBNWjD27w

You do it long enough and that .01% will play out.
 
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Those people are f'ing stupid. Yeah, I said it. Do they not care what it would do their families when they're a stain on the rocks? There's absolutely no reason not to use safety equipment other than to be able to brag to your idiot buddies "ooh, I'm teh l33t!"

Tards.
 
dainthomas said:
Those people are f'ing stupid. Yeah, I said it. Do they not care what it would do their families when they're a stain on the rocks? There's absolutely no reason not to use safety equipment other than to be able to brag to your idiot buddies "ooh, I'm teh l33t!"

Tards.
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I saw a quote somewhere that went something like, "You can go hiking and a bear can eat you and you could die. You could go surfing and a shark could eat you and you could die. You could go skydiving and your parachute might not work and you can die. Or you can sit on the couch, eat potato chips, have a heart attack, and die." :biggrin:

I think some people are just driven to do things, regardless of the consequences. Look at the wingsuit guys - they fly down mountains like flying squirrels and sometimes die if they hit a twig that throws them off-course. I had a roommate who's instructor got blown by the wind onto the freeway, straight into a semi-truck going 80 MPH. Instant death. And yet my roommate still felt the need to go out & skydive all the time.

On the flip side, these types of videos look great on my HDTV :awe:
 
Kaido said:
I saw a quote somewhere that went something like, "You can go hiking and a bear can eat you and you could die. You could go surfing and a shark could eat you and you could die. You could go skydiving and your parachute might not work and you can die. Or you can sit on the couch, eat potato chips, have a heart attack, and die." :biggrin:
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I hear what you're saying. But does adding a safety line make it that much less thrilling and exciting? Even a lot of hard core rock climbers have reservations about free soloing.
 
I have to admire the courage, skill and athletic ability to do this but no f'n way could I even imagine doing this. In fact, I can not even watch it as heights scare the snot out of me.

There are guys that free climb El Capitan in only a few hours while the average time is a couple days. Again, they are among the most fit people on the planet but they often have less than normal lifespans.

Years ago, a buddy of mine in the USAF got into parachuting and tried to talk me into it. He subscribed to a magazine called, Parachutist if I remember correctly and in every issue that had an obituary section for jumping deaths. The descriptions of the accidents were very informative and they attempted to do it in a way that others could learn from them, but in the end somebody died in most cases. They'd start with a description of the group that jumped, the weather, the equipment and then went on to describe the failure and its cause. The final words though were:

Cause of death: Impact
Cause of death: Impact
Cause of death: Impact
Cause of death: Electrocution
Cause of death: Impact

But even this wasn't the thing that got me most, it was, in fact, the age and experience of the jumpers that died. Yes, many were young with few jumps but some were older with many jumps, even thousands of jumps.

I'd use a parachute if I had to but only if I had to -- no frickin way I'm going to do so for "fun". And no chance in hell I'm free climbing El Capitan!


Brian
 
dainthomas said:
I hear what you're saying. But does adding a safety line make it that much less thrilling and exciting? Even a lot of hard core rock climbers have reservations about free soloing.
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I'd imagine it does, because it's "cooler". Darwin awards have no rules 😉
 
Markbnj said:
Most extreme sports things I watch I can just barely see myself attempting, even though I know I'm too old for that crap now, and I never would in a million years go rock climbing again the way I did in my twenties. But I look at that guy and it's just so completely freaking out there I can't even comprehend it. It's terrifying even to try and comprehend it, and I am not afraid of heights at all. I think that might be the single most insanely impressive human physical accomplishment in history. I can't think of another feat where there was so little margin of error. Flying to the moon in the Apollo command module was a walk in the park compared to free climbing that rock. Absolutely nothing could go wrong, or he died. It might be comparable to one of those super deep free dives, I suppose. Just amazing.
Click to expand...

watch this
http://www.wimp.com/eigerrecord/
 
Kaido said:
I saw a quote somewhere that went something like, "You can go hiking and a bear can eat you and you could die. You could go surfing and a shark could eat you and you could die. You could go skydiving and your parachute might not work and you can die. Or you can sit on the couch, eat potato chips, have a heart attack, and die." :biggrin:

I think some people are just driven to do things, regardless of the consequences. Look at the wingsuit guys - they fly down mountains like flying squirrels and sometimes die if they hit a twig that throws them off-course. I had a roommate who's instructor got blown by the wind onto the freeway, straight into a semi-truck going 80 MPH. Instant death. And yet my roommate still felt the need to go out & skydive all the time.

On the flip side, these types of videos look great on my HDTV :awe:
Click to expand...

You're absolutely right that there are risks for everything, and everyone has a different threshold for where their limit is, but free soloing is so far beyond my limit as to be unimaginable. I don't care how much faith you have in your own skill, I've had way too much rock crumble under me to ever trust my life to a single failure point.

Then again, I'm also someone that has decided to hang up my trad rack now that I've got a kid on the way. There are certain risks I'll take as an individual that I won't take as a parent.
 
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