The Strange Brain of the World’s Greatest Solo Climber (2016)
He's not the first to come along to receive this kind of attention and even accolades from the general public, and naturally from other climbers who sometimes do this, or would like to...including, I suppose, me.Most of the ones that did receive a degree of fame from this activity, and got filmed, on TV, and whatnot are now dead.As a climber myself who sometimes freesolos even up to 400 meters "off the deck" I don't see it as bad.  What is stupid as fuck, however, is doing this 'on demand' for TV and film crews, and otherwise making a thing out of it at all.Sure, go out and do your thing quietly, why not?  But the only way he can continue to garner publicity (and let's be clear: money) is to push the limits more and more each time.  There is only one way that can go...Will National Geographic put that on TV, when he 'craters' (as we say) and blood, brains, and chips of bone splatter across the rocks?  If they are responsible they will, because by doing this stuff on TV he and they are publicizing only the "glory" side of it, never mind all the people, some quite famous, that did fucking crater...So, while I do think he has achieved some great feats, I don't like what he is doing for the reasons I just spelled out.  And I don't think he will last long.  Those "chewing gum" edges do snap off, bats and birds do shit slimy shits on required small edges, thunderstorms and hail storms and even snowstorms in the middle of the summer can come out of the blue sky in minutes in the mountains, and many other things can go wrong, including human error...and needless to say, human error is very frequently preceded by ego and pride....it would be very hard for someone to stay absolutely humble when the whole world is cheering him on and calling him "World's Greatest"....