Czech climber Adam Ondra climbing El Capitán in Yosemite National Park

More pixels:
Rope and anchor much easier to see here.
- I'm so pleased to discover he's smart
  
  "smart" being a relative term here...
- Ah, thank you
- Thank Jebus he has a rope. Original picture made me feel bad and nervous.
- But still 😵‍💫
- When I first looked at the OP I thought someone had photoshopped out the rope and quick draw and was mad at them. Then I looked more closely and saw that it was just shitty quality and they blended in really well.
- I still couldn't see it, till I realised it's underneath, not above, the climber!

Fyi Adam is free climbing here but not free soloing; there's a big difference. The rope in this photo has either been edited out or is hard to see. Free climbing means climbing without aid, like ladders or ascenders attached to the rope. If youve climed at your local gym, you have free climed.
Edit: it's just hard to see but it's there. It's yellow and coming down beneath him.
- Yeah what we see here is called "trad climbing" and specifically it seems like he's lead climbing here (first one up and putting in the rope as he goes along).
  Adam is a fucking beast btw for those that don't know him he's one of the best in the world.
  
  Nah; it's actually sport climbing, not trad. You can see in the higher definition photo that he's got a quick draw attached to a bolt below him. Trad (traditional) climbing means climbing without prebolted routes where you place pro(tection) as you climb, like cams, nuts and hexes to name a few. If he were climbing trad, you would see a bunch of pro hanging off his belt because he'd need to place it as he climbs. Also pretty sure there's not even enough going on on the dawn wall to climb trad which is why it's generally looked down upon to bolt a wall if pro can be placed. Trad climbing the same wall would be much harder than sport climbing the same wall because placing pro is so more more involved than placing a quickdraw. Also you have to carry it up. Also if you place pro incorrectly and you fall you can die. Sport climbing in practice is much safer.
  To clarify further, the quickdraws are already placed for him. This is likely because the dawn wall is just that hard that you really don't have a chance if you have to spend the energy placing quickdraws as you climb.

A what point does it change from unique hobby to death wish?
- It's hard to see from the shrunken picture, but he has a rope to catch him if he falls. The likelihood of an injury is very low.
- When you stop caring about safety.
- https://brainasap.com/adrenaline-addiction-rock-climbers-thrill-seeking-behavior/
  I'm all for letting people have the hobbies they want, but adrenaline junkies are literally wired differently. Kind of weird that they get put on a pedestal for being the "right" kind of neurodivergent.
  
  I don't think any of the climbers I know would call it an adrenaline sport. It's slow, considered, thoughtful. It certainly gets a high sometimes, pun intended, but it's much more akin to a runners high or the elation of finishing a difficult task well.
  
  Halfway through reading this I realized I'm addicted to mountain biking lmao
- A what point does it change from unique hobby to death wish?
  100% when you remove the safety gear.
  The mountain, you see, is in nature; and Nature doesn't give a fuck about your inability to fly once you pop off that flake.
- When the likelihood of death is knowingly greater than the safety precautions taken to avoid death.
- When they go from this to free solo. Especially on such a hard route.

“Good morning, Captain.”
- Beat me to it by one minute, goddamnit!

- If that scares you, do not look up Alex Honnold freeclimbing yosemite several times now. And he's taken some gnarly routes.

I watched a video about a person with a rare condition that makes him not have a fear response and now, everytime I see people doing stupid shit like this, I think "bet it's not so fucking rare"
- Don't be do quick to judge: He's secured by a rope that passes through a series of bolts that are drilled into solid granite. You could lift a car with the gear he's using to secure himself.
  You're less in control of your fate when passing someone on the highway than he is here. The only way he dies in this situation is first slipping off (first layer of protection is your hands and feet), and then having several layers of ridiculously redundant protection fail.
  
  Belaying a lead climber is much less straightforward than belaying a top roper, so that's all true assuming he has an excellent belayer, which I'm sure Adam does. That being said mistakes still happen; just look at Sara Al Qunaibet's recentish fall. Alex Honnold was also dropped by his (at the time) girlfriend and suffered injury. He was lucky to be on the first pitch of a multi pitch climb at the time.

This is a lot less impressive when you rotate the image to the right.
- I dunno, that background tho. Becomes something out of scifi.

Does anyone know of any active climbing community on Lemmy?
- Not very active, but !climbing@lemmy.ml sees some posts every now and then. Only way to make it more active is to join :)

Great pic.
Fuck that.
These freesolo guys are crazy impressive.
Is he wearing jeans?
- Is that not a rope right under his butt?
  
  Yeah, it's there, just hard to see
  
  Yep I missed that.

I understand, hey go climb a big rock. cool.
i don't understand doing it without a basic life line attached to you to ...ya know, prevent .... rapid inertia.
- Is the rope hanging off him not a life line?
  
  Honestly, I'm not sure. I actually didn't even notice it until you said something. It blends in very well. Looks like it only goes below him but I don't see an anchor point and you really don't want them too far apart. The more distance between them, then more force it's got to hold if you fall.
  I'm not sure what else you'd use a rope for here. Just saying it's also weird to not see an anchor point since it looks looks to be over 10ft of rope we can see.
  
  ~~I see no rope.~~
  Better picture given in another post shows a fall rope plain as day.
  
  According to the article it was free solo.

The wall after you finally got that mosquito

Article: https://hasanjasim.online/czech-climber-adam-ondra-conquers-el-capitan-in-yosemite-national-park/
- Here is a much better article written by a legitimate climbing publication that actually knows anything at all about climbing:
  https://gripped.com/news/adam-ondra-makes-second-free-ascent-of-dawn-wall-in-yosemite/
- The article says that he was the first person to free solo the Dawn Wall, which is false. He wasn't the first to climb it, and he didn't free solo it either.
  Tommy Caldwell was the first person to climb it, and nobody has free soloed it, and the likelihood of anyone ever doing that is basically zero.

Ooh, energy of the gods, adrenaline surge
Won't stop 'til I hit the ground, I'm on my way for sure
Up here in the air, this will never hurt
I'm on my way to impact, taste the high-speed dirt