Alex Honnold Lowered Off Rope: "Free Solo" Star's Climbing Accident || Climbing Gold Podcast

[@IronJohn755]

Thank you to Pete Takeda and the AAC for cataloging these accidents. It's a very important service for climbers of any level to be able to take account of what can go wrong and why, and try to be prepared mentally and skills-wise to make sure it doesn't happen to you.

[@thomasdrew1159]

Glad you wrote it up so people could learn

[@NPC-fl3gq]

15ft isn't exactly a small fall, you can get pretty badly injured depending on terrain and how you fall etc. 30ft kills 99% of the time.

[@Ericxnugz]

100% especially sense you usually aren’t in control of the fall and never will be landing on any forgiving ground..

[@claycracknell5237]

Your right but relatively its survivable have fallen nearly 30 ft myself and was only saved by luck and a very soft landing

[@bcwbcw3741]

Because people don't want to die, almost all accidents require several things to happen at the same time like the accident Alex describes.

[@thomasgilson6206]

I heard their marriage was on the rocks and that Alex was basically at the end of his rope.

[@Bluemountainbowls]

Some gumby 😂

[@Biamondos982]

There was only 1 reason he fell, because he was complacent and didn't put a stopper knot in the end of the rope. Everything else are just excuses for not spending two seconds tying a stopper knot.

[@twinmike1]

I disagree Alex fell because his wife lower him off the end of the rope. You only need a stopper knot in the end of the rope if the person belaying or rappelling makes a mistake. If you don't get lower off the the end of the rope, you don't need the knot. Need to pay more attention when belaying.

[@Shipitontimepls]

what if you get knocked out by a rock and you can no longer pay attention? What if your belayer has a medical emergency? Seems there can be a lot of reasons a knot is a handy backup.@@twinmike1

[@petroffma]

100% agree. Glad to hear him taking responsibility (after several iterations of the story where he blamed her). He's the experienced climber, he's responsible for setting the safety culture and best practices, and he's responsible for making sure the end has a safety knot.

[@Deeds_of_Love]

The key word is redundancy. Sure you're okay if you pay attention 100% of the time, but we're all humans and mistakes happen. This knot could save your life. I don't know the exact numbers but lowering off the end of the rope must a major cause for death in climbing, I hear about it so often. Brad Gobright is one of the more famous cases, but it happens to all kinds of people - my uncle's climbing partner died this way about 40 years ago. I once went climbing outdoors with the local climbing group (I went only 2 times, I'm an outdoor noob), and this guy wasn't using stopper knots. When I asked him about it, he told me "Well if you then forget to remove the knot, your rope could get stuck when trying to pull it through the top anchor." - Like Dude if you don't trust yourself to remember to remove the stopper knot, how can you trust yourself to keep an eye on how much rope you have left? Sure it would be fine if you know exactly how long the pitch is vs. how long your rope is, but this just adds another layer of complexity where mistakes can happen. Having the knot should be totally ingrained in your head, like green=go and red=stop on a crossing. Just always do the knot, then you'll be fine. @@twinmike1

[@thenayancat8802]

"just don't make mistakes" lol @@twinmike1

[@JOEARLOPO]

Wtf does he mean about swiss cheese, that made zero sense

[@tested123]

note to self.....dont trust alex.

[@NPC-fl3gq]

Or his in-laws.

[@davidofoakland2363]

It's never ONE thing....