On May 18, 27-year-old German alpinist Martin Feistl chose to climb a 270-meter wall without a partner. He could have also decided to do it by self-belaying using a laborious technique, but he preferred to take on the challenge of free soloing. The technical difficulty of the chosen route was no more than 6b, a modest grade, especially for someone accustomed to much greater difficulties. At some point, he fell, and having dispensed with the rope, he died when he crashed to the ground. Just a few days later, Alex Honnold broke the solo speed record on the Salathé route on El Capitan, in the Californian valley of Yosemite. The news was, in this case, that the free solo artist had climbed without a partner but with a rope, self-belaying as he ascended. “Self-belaying is a pain, a bit tedious… but I had to do it because my partners failed me and I was left alone,” explained the athlete from California. The North Face shortly after investing 11 hours and 18 minutes on the route, 9 hours less than the previous record. Days before, on his return to the valley that has made him world famous, Honnold had completed a couple of free solo ascents, while beginners and novices alike continue to wonder what drives a person to forego the rope to climb free solo. Bravery? Contempt for life? Suicidal impulse? Excessive confidence? Free soloing, however, is not a modern trend. It comes from a long way back.
In the early days of climbing and mountaineering, anyone who climbed, whether with or without a rope, did so virtually free solo: since there were no rock pitons or self-protection measures, any fall could end in the death of the leader of the rope team and his companions. In practice, the rope served only to help the second climber up and down. The life of the leader of the rope team always depended on him never slipping and falling. The need to explore could explain the assumption of such risks. In 1924, the Austrian Paul Preuss was barely 24 years old when he revealed himself as a gifted climber with a revolutionary philosophical proposition: climbing with a rope was more dangerous than doing it without one. Three years later, his body was found at the base of the north face of the Mandlkogel, a dark peak of dubious limestone.
Before his death, Preuss made amazing ropeless ascents and got on the nerves of all the climbers who at that time confused climbing with ascending. The latter used ropes and rock pitons to hold on to and achieve a certain illusion of safety. But at the beginning of the 20th century, the pitons were of poor quality, the rock of the Dolomites is always suspiciously weak and the ropes broke with frightening ease. Many roped parties perished then. It was not until the 1950s that harnesses and nylon ropes, much more reliable than hemp ropes, arrived. Now, falling did not mean killing yourself. But Preuss had managed to sow a seed of authenticity that earned the respect of many and inspired others such as Reinhold Messner himself.
Many climbers, professional or not, say that climbing without a rope is pointless these days, and recall that Preuss’s precepts were delusional. The Austrian argued that a climber should challenge himself to challenges that he could climb and descend without a rope. But the rock breaks, the grips get wet and slippery… and when this happens, the climber loses everything. “I have fallen so many times in places where I would never have thought I could fall, that I know for a fact that I will never climb without a rope,” says Adam Ondra, the strongest climber of the present century. Even so, history offers numerous examples of amazing ascents without a rope… and also terrible tragedies.
Adi Mayr (1961), Adolf Derungs (1962) and Dieter Machard (1963) killed themselves trying to achieve the first solo on the north side of the Eiger. Because soloing confers prestige. It is the sublimation of climbing, absolute freedom, lightness, speed, simplicity, communion with an environment that attracts and repels. It means being wild in a wild space. But free soloing is not within the reach of almost anyone, which is why, with each ascent without a rope, the climbing community asks itself what kind of psychology drives men and women to do without a life insurance such as a rope.
Josep Font, a psychologist at the CAR in Sant Cugat, sighs and wonders what those who choose to solo freestyle have in mind. “For this type of person, the challenge is not a sporting one, but rather to face fear and overcome it. Marc Márquez’s goal is to win races even if he has to face the fear of an accident. On the other hand, the solo freestyle climber does not have a sporting challenge, but a psychological one, which is to face fear and manage to climb without anything happening to him. The challenge is to overcome the same dangerous situation. In 1979, the American psychologist Marvin Zuckerman, a personality researcher, established that there is a series of people who can be defined as sensation seekers: they pursue new and exciting experiences even if they involve risks. Those who climb without a rope need strong stimulation regarding danger, that is, they need to be stimulated by the danger. places putting themselves in terrifying situations.”
Historically, soloists choose challenges that are several steps below their abilities, a decision that allows them to climb with a wide margin of safety. Then, the choice of rock is critical. “In the granite fissures where you climb with the technique of wedging your hands, fingers, and feet into the cracks in the rock, I find it impossible to fall,” Alex Honnold often explains to justify his challenges on El Capitan. But Honnold has made hair-raising climbs on tiny limestone holds, where his fingers cling to holds just a few millimeters wide and the tips of his climbing shoes seek pressure and grip on tiny rock reliefs. Until the Oscar-winning documentary Free Solo picked up Honnold’s climb on the route Freerider In 2007, Austrian Hansjorg Aüer climbed the Attraverso il Pesce (7b+) route on the Marmolada face in the Dolomites, an extremely technical and demanding route with extraordinarily small holds. The Austrian, who had reconnoitered the route with a rope, fell several times in the key section… which did not stop him from taking on the challenge without a rope. Aüer died in an avalanche in 2019.
In 2022, the 25-year-old Italian Jonas Hainz, son of the famous mountaineer Christopher Hainz, died after falling on Monte Magro. He was climbing without a rope. Just a few months earlier he had completed an amazing solo on the Moulin Rouge route (7b/+, 400 m, Dolomites), opened by his father in 2002. However, most of the great free solo aces do not die during one of their climbs. performancesDean Potter, the man who climbed without a rope and sometimes with a small parachute on his back, lost his life after a failed jump with wingsuit. Dan Osman died after jumping into the void with a rope when it snapped. Kurt Albert died on a via ferrata… but John Bachar, the free solo ace who inspired Honnold, died in 2009 when he fell during one of his routines on a route of low difficulty. In Europe, climbing without a rope is perceived by the climbing community as an exercise that is difficult to understand and justify. However, the United States offers a great tradition of soloists and its community respects the decision to do without a rope.
If most of the solos take place without light or stenographers, the performance of documentaries has extracted from its relative anonymity a practice that engages all types of viewers: the scenes of Free Solo The memories will remain forever in our memories, just like Ueli Steck’s wild runs on the north face of the Eiger. The issue is not limited to men: American Steph Davis and Frenchwoman Catherine Destivelle have had some harrowing solo ascents on their CVs. “It may sound harsh, but ultimately there is a certain psychopathic personality disorder among those who climb without a rope. They are people who are not very sensitive to either reward or punishment, even though they may be very intelligent. They know they can lose everything, but it doesn’t affect them much,” recalls Josep Font.
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