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Moonarie - Worth bringing a Sat phone? 16-Mar-2009 At 12:37:48 AM prb

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On 13/03/2009 Wendy wrote:
>I haven't looked into the stats but I reckon the proportion of deaths of soloists to the number of soloists is way greater than that of leaders.

Intentional, hardish free soloing is a personal thing that lies way beyond reasoning or rationalisation. It's certainly a very selfish thing to do if you feel at all close to other members of our species. But I'm sure the proportion of deaths of leaders is way greater than that of topropers, hence should we all be toproping?!

I think soloing is the most pure form of climbing, like the joy of scooting up a tree when you're a kid, and roped ascents are mere derivatives of that simple pleasure. But I'm glad that most climbers don't do it. I agree with Wendy that it's not pleasant to watch and I also prefer to leave the area. I also don't like to inflict the sight of me soloing on too many people. I suspect there's a gender difference in attitudes to soloing with men being the risk-takers and women being more sensible, very broadly speaking.

I've always regarded soloing as a perfectly legitimate, albeit serious, aspect of our sport. I'm not sure the "stats" exist, or would mean anything, because comparing soloing and lead climbing is like comparing apples and oranges. But I can offer my stats. I've soloed about 740 climbs from grade 1 (Sunny Gully!) to 22, mainly in SA, Victoria and France, on rock ranging from great to rubbish. I've had about 6 "moments" of insecurity (or worse): one at Morialta when an arete I was laybacking broke (I landed on a ledge), another at Morialta when I discovered the top section of a route to be in a particularly gritty state, a hold breaking in Cleland (I managed to hold on one-handed with the feet skating), and 3 climbs in France - one ended in no man's land, another was a low grade climb super polished up high, and the other had some extremely tough moves for a 4c!

I've also done a deadpoint to a horizontal and felt cold reptilian skin, but luckily it was only a sleepy lizard!

I've probably led a similar number of climbs and broke some bones on one occasion as a result of, ironically, trying to place protection.