God. my stomach is churning.

Russ Keane wrote: God. my stomach is churning.

Careful what you wish for Russ. ;) Yeah, 7 years ago, I was a pretty stupid newbie and did everything wrong, except tie my knots right, at first. It took some recovery and a social stranger who's climbed Denali twice and Aconcaqua to get back up on the wall after decking. My now best friend and "climbing mentor" just struck up a conversation with me when getting some new gear at REI to relearn how to do everything correctly. It was pretty cool how it all worked out though. The climbing community is cool like that. I just hope the OP can check himself early on in his pursuit of gravity before something more worse than my accident happens this early in his climbing endeavors.

Oh look, it's this thread again.
I've FS-OS a lot of routes (and non-routes, got to love those 500ft down-solos) and here's my 2¢:
2) I enjoy it and don't have people wholly dependent on me earning a living. The only life distraction I've ever contemplated was the fact there was some weird porn on my laptop in the van which I had purely for comedic purposes (not into that shit anymore), but could have been misunderstood postmortem.
3) Push it enough you're going to end up in a hairy situation. I don't care how careful you think you're being; you're always rolling the dice (although honestly this happens often just trad climbing, so I consider it part in parcel of the sport). You have to know yourself and be in tune with yourself. I very rarely make plans to solo beyond a day out, and am always willing to back off if I'm not feeling it. I often make the decision to commit subconsciously, and then consciously realize I'm going for it shortly thereafter.
4) Please don't be that a-hole who gets stuck on the snake in a rainstorm. Now you're f-ing up everyone else's day.
5) Learn to downclimb and do it often. I once down-soloed a legit 5.8 offwidth to get on a 5.6 route (which made the route boring AF). No problem since I was used to down soloing 5.9 at the time, but what if I wasn't?
6) Learn to read the weather. Being spritzed on a granite slab turns 5.8 into 10c really quickly (yes, another story behind that one).
7) Don't call yourself a 5.10 climber unless you've mastered all forms of 5.10 climbing Don't fall into the habit of calling routes you find hard 'sandbagged'. Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.

ColinW wrote:

Cheers Pat! I'm not saying this be a dick to you kid. But, don't be f---ing stupid and go free solo after only leading your first route. Go run it out on a 5.10 or 11. . Check your ego young grasshopper. I didn't and look what happened. ;) It changed my life.

Brutal! Thanks for sharing. 

caughtinside wrote: Your ticks say you did your first trad lead 2 days ago. I think you’re pretty inexperienced to be soloing. Not a knock on you, it’s great you’re psyched, but I think you could get in over your head very easily. 

In reference to TR Soloing though....

I don't lead trad at all and I started to TR solo....its all about what you want to learn and how to learn it. Placing gear in rock for instance has nothing to do with setting good anchors and having a good redundant TR solo setup if you ask me. Plus you're on TR so the head game isn't as bad so you can focus on other things and most places people TR solo they've been before and climbed before so they are familiar.....imho (subjective)

Just trying to offer a safer option for you if you don't have a partner but like myself, love a nice rope connected to me