Alex Honnold Scales El Capitan Without Ropes, and the Climbing World Reels

Re:Alex Honnold Scales El Capitan Without Ropes, and the Cli... by tomsthumb on Tuesday June 06, 2017 @04:02PM (#14500776)

The Dawn Wall is the hardest rated route on El Cap in Yosemite, and additionally the most difficult big wall route ever done (when considered on the basis of the moves alone).

Honnold free-solo'ed a (different) route called Freerider (also on El Cap), which is still stupidly difficult and would be a career highlight for most people to climb at all, likely over the period of several days.

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Re:Alex Honnold Scales El Capitan Without Ropes, and the Cli... by zzalpha on Tuesday June 06, 2017 @04:42PM (#14501134)

The BBC buggered this up in an article when they covered it.

Comparing it to the Dawn Wall climb completely misses the point and illustrates how misunderstood the sport is. Freeing a previously seemingly impossible-to-climb route is not the same kind of achievement as solo'ing an established route that, in the case of Honnold, he'd already climbed a dozen times or more.

They're both astounding, but for different reasons. It's a shame the media is comparing the two, as it would seem to diminish Jorgeson and Caldwell's achievement.

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