An unpopular take on The Alpinist

Balewrote:

Thank God (see what I did there) for post limits.

It should be pointed out to Eric, Ywan, etc that the general public regards any type of climbing as unnecessarily dangerous and irresponsible. In other words, people view you through the same lens that you see MAL. Put that in your judgmental, hypocritical, insufferable pipe and smoke it. 

If we thought it was as safe as pickleball and golf we wouldn't go through so many steps and own so much gear to help minimize the risk we all take, I agree.  I meet thousands of folks every summer who think that a few of Acadia NP's ladder trails are unnecessarily dangerous and they certainly believe exactly what you said about what we do on the rock. Even the full time pebble wrestlers risk major injury and death for no reason besides fun. 

I've definitely gone back and forth in my head on movies like the Alpinist , Freesolo and even the short videos that are all over the internet of people doing highly dangerous stunts and have come to no solid conclusions besides I'm glad my kid isn't into this kind of regular behavior(besides cruising up the ladder trails in flip flops). 

Individual spheres of acceptable risk varies greatly across humans just as with non-humans.

Watched a documentary once that followed a group of monkeys. There was one particular youngster who was particularly care free way up in the branches compared to others, and so was unusually daring. He eventually fell and was hurt badly enough that he could no longer follow the group. On the other hand, a group always on the ground would likely have greater attrition with predators. Similar stuff runs in our collective veins and so in our forums IMO.

Anyway, not a term I coined. But something to consider when teaming for adventure activities and considering the large variances in free soloists.

nowherewrote:

Personally I would only judge someone for taking "excessive" risk if they had young children depending on them. But even then what is excessive risk? 

I don't want to be-labour this point but risk can be defined with numbers and statistics. Likelihood x Severity. 

Rock climbing has a fatality rate of about 1.5 deaths per million participants annually.

Its a pretty damn low risk activity for most people.

Then there are the alpinists. And then there are soloists. Then the hardcore alpinists. Then the hardcore soloists. Then there's the guys like MAL, way out there on another level.  A completely different level.

My question was about how long could one plausibly expect the very highest level of risk-takers to survive? No one really knows, but it would be nice if someone could take a stab at guesstimating..

Mark Pilatewrote:

I have to laugh.  I would re-read your gospels.   You missed something.   JC was all about you improving you and your own relationship with God.  Not about you judging and “improving” others.   Also, if it did not occur to you, getting into other people’s shit that doesn’t concern you, violates the golden rule.  

@Nick goldsmith, I’m a catholic. The born-agains dont emphasize free will enough for my understanding of the Bible. Very “the enemy, the devil is around every corner, be aware or you will burn.”

You’re (Mark)still using the shallowest understanding of this stuff to just say, “shut up.” Just say shut up, it’s easier but it doesn’t give me much to work with except responding “no, you shut up.” It would probably get more likes too, and generally just be hilarious.

Jesus said “Take the log out of your own eye and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s.” Which I completely agree with. I have major issue with the Bible thumping Christians who think everybody is going to burn in hell for their life choices. It is not my job to decide who burns in hell or why, and I think God’s judgment will be perfect, and I hope, in regards to myself, incredibly, incredibly, and really deeply, almost humorously merciful lol

There is judgment, which I haven’t done. That would be saying something like “Marc Andre was a total idiot and is probably burning in hell because of his life choices.”

And there is rational, reasoned discussion about what God actually wants from us. Which I have done, and is not precluded by the Bible. Saying “Marc Andre appears to be depressed. It seems like he didn’t get any help or guidance in his life, from his mother, or the people who made this film, and he died in the mountains in a way that shouldn’t be glorified.” Is not judgment.

All of the hatred toward a Christian worldview in this thread is projected and imagined from things I haven’t actually said and nobody could quote me saying. I engage in very risky and dangerous climbing myself, much like Tobin. Still don’t understand the dogpile for simply sharing a worldview. You don’t have to like it or agree with it.

So, Eric, I have to ask, given that you state that you aren't depressed and have meaning in your life, especially a family that you love, why do YOU "engage in very risky and dangerous climbing"?

Eric Marxwrote:

 “Marc Andre appears to be depressed. It seems like he didn’t get any help or guidance in his life, from his mother, or the people who made this film, and he died in the mountains in a way that shouldn’t be glorified.” Is not judgment.

I think we should separate what is being glorified and also all the various motivations. His climbing skills, lovely personality, and his love for climbing on the one hand.  His soloing on extraordinarily difficult and hazardous peaks on the other hand. 

Complex subject. Best not to judge I agree.

My thesis is that if you start soloing and become really good, then you can control and minimize the risk of falling through skill and sang froid as long as you climb with the limits of your technical and physical ability.

The thing that cannot be controlled is what the flakey rock, ice, snow and weather is going to do. But since that part is unknowable, its possible to avoid thinking about it. And thats where the real high risk comes in. Majority of alpine deaths are from the unseen and uncontrolled hazards.  

It is going to happen one day if you're in the hazardous zones enough times.

A team of scientists studied the rock fall hazards on the Gouter Route on Mont Blanc. They mapped out the frequency and likelihood across time of day and time of year.  Based on the results they can tell you its more hazardous in the afternoon. Less hazardous before 9am.

No stats will ever be done on MAL level climbs because the sample sizes are not ever going to be large enough.

I submit that the risk level of his hardest climbs was....   pffffff....  hard to fathom..  alien level stuff...

Eric Marxwrote:

Not MP Admin, I have a lurking feeling you may be some sort of Christian. 

My only religion is MP….nice try though

Ywan Cwrote:

My thesis is that if you start soloing and become really good, then you can control and minimize the risk of falling through skill and sang froid as long as you climb with the limits of your technical and physical ability.

The thing that cannot be controlled is what the flakey rock, ice, snow and weather is going to do. But since that part is unknowable, its possible to avoid thinking about it. And thats where the real high risk comes in. Majority of alpine deaths are from the unseen and uncontrolled hazards.  

I think you just need to learn more about climbing. You keep making statements about statistics and things but you also say so many things that show your very poor understanding. 

Ice and snow in the alpine are soloed far more often than rock. A tremendous amount of mountaineering is done with an axe and crampons as the only belay. It's also fairly common for ice climbers to solo ice. 

The majority of alpine deaths are NOT from unseen and uncontrolled hazards. The vast majority come from pushing on and trying to sneak past a weather window that is obviously closing, avalanche conditions that give obvious signs of instability, etc. They are not unseen or unpredictable. They were choices made that went against better evidence. Perhaps in the 1800-2000's in the alps things were unseen and uncontrollable, but since about 2010 we have had communication and weather forecasting technology available to give us updates in real time if desired. 

Your posts are so frustrating because of the ignorance they display toward alpine climbing. You act as though Marc Andre is the only soloist alpine climber and ignore the number who have been incredibly successful. You also have failed to mention or acknowledge that he didn't die soloing and didn't really have close calls while doing it. You make these statements while ingoring the fact that the most prolific rock free soloists have all died, and a good number of the most prolific alpine soloists have lived beyond their time climbing or are still at it after many many years. Many of them doing climbs that are argubly or perhaps objectively bigger and more difficult than Marc Andre. A climber of Marc Andre's caliber knew about how to put these things together to optimize conditions and minimize the objective hazards. He had YEARS of online posts in forums where he discussed these things, shared his thought process, asked questions of others to learn. 

This is why I feel that your discussion is disrespectful. You state that want to talk about risk, but you are discussing it with ignorance to the fuller picture. You're intentionally ignoring more because you want to criticize this one individual, not actually discuss risk. The guy is dead, it's really easy to criticize him post mortem and that's why you're doing it. Why don't you start a thread actually talking about risk and involve the broader picture? You don't because you can't use Marc Andre as your only example and your argument falls apart. 

Alan Rubinwrote:

So, Eric, I have to ask, given that you state that you aren't depressed and have meaning in your life, especially a family that you love, why do YOU "engage in very risky and dangerous climbing"?

filling the same void he's trying to plaster over after trying the atheism and veganism. Not unlike some of the criticisms of the subject of the film.

If this thread keeps devolving into personal attacks and "I'm right, you're wrong, here's why" style posts that often reference religion and statistics, I'll lock it. I can't be the only one here sensing diminishing returns as this thread is becoming a narrowing gyre of people arguing with each other. It's been interesting to read so many thoughts about mortality and self-determination and "why are we here?" but maybe the ride is almost over. There is no thread that people can't work their fixed notions about religion and politics and statistics into, you can carry on in the others.

PWZwrote:

filling the same void he's trying to plaster over after trying the atheism and veganism. Not unlike some of the criticisms of the subject of the film.

bryans, I agree, I think the personal attacks should stop. I’ve provided an unpopular take on this film, which is informed by a Catholic worldview. You don’t have to like it or agree, but nowhere have I said “I’m right and you’re wrong.” Hopefully, you’re referring more to the 10 people or so who have come in here attacking me for simply sharing my unpopular opinion, claiming I’ve been judgmental and hypocritical but unable to quote anything where I’ve judged anybody at all.

@PWZ I didn’t try atheism, I grew up in a godless home, and learned the hard way what true godlessness leads to. Thankfully, I found God before I killed myself, in the mountains or otherwise. The veganism I tried, quickly realized that was wrong. The plant-based eating took a bit longer. We call that learning.

Alan, thanks for asking. I would say I don’t perform anywhere near the level of risk of these actual climbing giants, though I have done risky climbing which is above average in nature. Maybe I’ll get there one day in terms of headpoint trad, I don’t see an upper limit in terms of my trad. If I was strong and confident enough to lead 14R I’d sure as hell be out there trying. But I have very many fears in regards to climbing. Massively loose rock is one of them and I’ll likely never climb on Cannon cliff for that reason, or get into mountaineering, rockaneering, or alpine type stuff. I don’t solo because I am way too much of a dumbass and fall way more often on 5.8 and under then I do on 5.12+, so soloing doesn’t seem expedient to staying alive. Imagine soloing the crux of a 5.12 and peeling off the 5.7 exit. No thanks and I’ve done that way too much protected on a rope to believe that’s meant for me.

This view is informed by my Catholicism because I do believe there are objectively better ways of living, I do believe there are more important things in life than climbing, like God’s plan for you, family, hard work, the beauty and inherent goodness of life even in tragedy, and using your free will to find God’s purpose for you. The key word there is free will, God won’t stop you from pursuing a destructive path because that would make him a tyrant. But he reaches out to everybody, coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous. 

There’s a stark difference in approach. There’s the Honnold approach, soloing as carefully as you possibly can in a celebration of life, knowing that not all risk is controllable. When he was injured and rescued he made a note in his climbing log that said something like “Do better” Like I said, I think honnolds view may be informed by the wisdom of all the great literature he’s read, which is usually steeped in Christian ideas and informed by a Christian ethos, even if it doesn’t outrightly say it. There’s the Howell approach, dying young, because you’re depressed(his words) and the dopamine hit of a hard send and a bunch of instagram likes drives the “demons” away temporarily. But you can only top out so many mountains before you realize nothing is up there, and the demons keep coming back to bite you on the way down. 

Hopefully that answers the question.

Eric Marxwrote:

bryans, I agree, I think the personal attacks should stop. I’ve provided an unpopular take on this film, which is informed by a Catholic worldview. You don’t have to like it or agree, but nowhere have I said “I’m right and you’re wrong.” Hopefully, you’re referring more to the 10 people or so who have come in here attacking me for simply sharing my unpopular opinion, claiming I’ve been judgmental and hypocritical but unable to quote anything where I’ve judged anybody at all.

@PWZ I didn’t try atheism, I grew up in a godless home, and learned the hard way what true godlessness leads to. Thankfully, I found God before I killed myself, in the mountains or otherwise. The veganism I tried, quickly realized that was wrong. The plant-based eating took a bit longer. We call that learning.

Alan, thanks for asking. I would say I don’t perform anywhere near the level of risk of these actual climbing giants, though I have done risky climbing which is above average in nature. Maybe I’ll get there one day in terms of headpoint trad, I don’t see an upper limit in terms of my trad. If I was strong and confident enough to lead 14R I’d sure as hell be out there trying. But I have very many fears in regards to climbing. Massively loose rock is one of them and I’ll likely never climb on Cannon cliff for that reason, or get into mountaineering, rockaneering, or alpine type stuff. I don’t solo because I am way too much of a dumbass and fall way more often on 5.8 and under then I do on 5.12+, so soloing doesn’t seem expedient to staying alive. Imagine soloing the crux of a 5.12 and peeling off the 5.7 exit. No thanks and I’ve done that way too much protected on a rope to believe that’s meant for me.

This view is informed by my Catholicism because I do believe there are objectively better ways of living, I do believe there are more important things in life than climbing, like God’s plan for you, family, hard work, the beauty and inherent goodness of life even in tragedy, and using your free will to find God’s purpose for you. The key word there is free will, God won’t stop you from pursuing a destructive path because that would make him a tyrant. But he reaches out to everybody, coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous. 

There’s a stark difference in approach. There’s the Honnold approach, soloing as carefully as you possibly can in a celebration of life, knowing that not all risk is controllable. When he was injured and rescued he made a note in his climbing log that said something like “Do better” Like I said, I think honnolds view may be informed by the wisdom of all the great literature he’s read, which is usually steeped in Christian ideas and informed by a Christian ethos, even if it doesn’t outrightly say it. There’s the Howell approach, dying young, because you’re depressed(his words) and the dopamine hit of a hard send and a bunch of instagram likes drives the “demons” away temporarily. But you can only top out so many mountains before you realize nothing is up there, and the demons keep coming back to bite you on the way down. 

Hopefully that answers the question.

Eric, I am at present godless, like many here. I can see you mean well, but if you take a step back maybe consider what effect, if any, your words are having on others. You're basically saying you are right and better off now because you found god, and the rest of us are still wrong and worse off, because we haven't. Let's just assume you are correct. You're right. All the same, I'm asking you to please stop proselytizing in this thread, and reflexively defending yourself and your views. I was clear up above that I didn't and don't want this thread to become what it's become. Talk about the process and mindset of headpointing thin trad routes at the Gunks all you want, we are here for that shit!

Eric Marxwrote:

bryans, I agree, I think the personal attacks should stop. I’ve provided an unpopular take on this film, which is informed by a Catholic worldview. You don’t have to like it or agree, but nowhere have I said “I’m right and you’re wrong.” Hopefully, you’re referring more to the 10 people or so who have come in here attacking me for simply sharing my unpopular opinion, claiming I’ve been judgmental and hypocritical but unable to quote anything where I’ve judged anybody at all.

I was starting to question your sincerity with these posts, and had suspicions of world class trolling…then I see this post and I don’t even know what to think anymore….  

@PWZ I didn’t try atheism, I grew up in a godless home, and learned the hard way what true godlessness leads to. Thankfully, I found God before I killed myself, in the mountains or otherwise. The veganism I tried, quickly realized that was wrong. The plant-based eating took a bit longer. We call that learning.

Comparing religion to veganism is about the only accurate part of this post

bryanswrote:

Talk about the process and mindset of headpointing thin trad routes at the Gunks all you want, we are here for that shit!

That would be awesome!! Has Eric ever done the route "Sticky Bun Power" at the Gunks? Was it it dicey af or a breeze?!!

Isn’t the original point of religion to con people out of their wealth under the guise of threatening eternal damnation from a supreme being(s) if you are a c*nt to other people/things? Then when multiple cons started competing, they utilized their marks’ fervor to kill off their competition? And when other people started calling out all the cons for being cons, they marginalized those people? Or killed them. Still a popular choice in some areas.

All hail the decentralized church of “Don’t be a dick”…or else

Sorry all for keeping the thread drifting, but just felt the desire to engage after taking the wild ride since my last post in here.... Some gems in that ride for sure.

Eric is a passionate person, seemingly more so since he "found" god.
His pontificating gets tiresome however. Do you boogaloo, but just like the health/diet stance, he is but one of many facets that are "right". The backhanded nature of his comments insinuating we are living wrong, since we do not believe in Yahweh is annoying to be sure. This tracks with the passionate protein and nutrition conversation in another thread.

I must bring up some things up to you Eric....you're now devout catholic, but believe certain things to be older than 6000ish years according to you writing on human evolution and diets. These two things are at odds with each other if you believe in genesis no?

How do you gymnastics your way out of that conundrum?
Humans eating meat for millions of years? Impossible based upon your faiths timeline.
I am genuinely curious, as this is one of my favorite points to debate with folks who have full faith in Christianity yet seemingly also believe in the scientific method and its results.
Coming in from team science is observable results and reproducible experiments that have more and more backing by the day, being dismissed by faith based claims that can never be proven from team God from a book which has been transcribed and edited by men in power over couple thousand years.

I hope you may have more to offer than the usual, "because god" or the ever ripe "god put those fossils there 6000 years ago to test our faith now".

Mr Rogerswrote:

Sorry all for keeping the thread drifting, but just felt the desire to engage after taking the wild ride since my last post in here.... Some gems in that ride for sure.

Eric is a passionate person, seemingly more so since he "found" god.
His pontificating gets tiresome however. Do you boogaloo, but just like the health/diet stance, he is but one of many facets that are "right". The backhanded nature of his comments insinuating we are living wrong, since we do not believe in Yahweh is annoying to be sure. This tracks with the passionate protein and nutrition conversation in another thread.

I must bring up some things up to you Eric....you're now devout catholic, but believe certain things to be older than 6000ish years according to you writing on human evolution and diets. These two things are at odds with each other if you believe in genesis no?

How do you gymnastics your way out of that conundrum?
Humans eating meat for millions of years? Impossible based upon your faiths timeline.
I am genuinely curious, as this is one of my favorite points to debate with folks who have full faith in Christianity yet seemingly also believe in the scientific method and its results.
Coming in from team science is observable results and reproducible experiments that have more and more backing by the day, being dismissed by faith based claims that can never be proven from team God from a book which has been transcribed and edited by men in power over couple thousand years.

I hope you may have more to offer than the usual, "because god" or the ever ripe "god put those fossils there 6000 years ago to test our faith now".

I believe you are looking for the term “Cafeteria Catholic”, Sir

John Clarkwrote:

I believe you are looking for the term “Cafeteria Catholic”, Sir

"Caflic"

Behold the holy hand grenade of "intelligent design".

I don't know why so many are engaging with this guy.   

He has shown repeatedly that his way of deciding how to live his life (and how he tells others to live) is based on cherry picked web research, gut feeling, text written 2000 yrs ago, and circular logic informed by dogmatism. Basically "it makes sense to me so it cannot be false". Light on critical thinking, evidence based conclusions and generally devoid of factual evidence.  He shares these opinions as though (and believes them to be) fact, bypasses democratic respect of differing opinions and when people call him out on it, ask him to provide facts, cite sources- he gets aggressive in the name of defending those views instead of presenting factual evidence or god forbid- doing anything resembling self reflection.  And then claims to be a victim when his anger and deliberate, self admitted trolling is met with his content being flagged so he can continue to feel like a victim to justify his heel digging.  

And repeat.

Little does he know that many of the people calling him out, including myself, also believe in the Gospel, rather than hate it. We just recognize it's a faith, without concrete evidence and not a fact that benefits from force feeding... so we maintain a tiny shred of humility and step back from the dogmatism rampant religion and keep our non-fact-based (aka irrational) beliefs to ourselves unless asked.

It's an all too common playbook in use today.  A fine powder of full spectrum logical fallacy cut with digital gas lighting.  I recommend simply ignoring so he has one less reason to claim victimhood.

ETA- there's a good chance this person has no real idea they're doing this.  It's so normal and ingrained, that no other way of thinking/acting is imaginable, let alone logical.  Remembering this might help maintain empathy in the rest of us.

On topic- I was re-listening to the Enormocast interview with Lincoln Stoller on the long drive back from City of Rocks and it touches on a lot of what's on topic in this thread.  I eventually gave up on it, but if you're curious it's very pertinant to this conversation- Ep 268 from Aug 7 2023.  I found Lincoln's dismissive views of why climbers choose to continue taking risk... bordering on cowardly and close minded. It's like he believes that either it's normal and realistic (and the only responsible choice) for individuals to give up on a passion they feel brings them the fullest depth of life because it involves mortal danger or that we climbers can somehow magically remove all objective risk and anyone who dies climbing was irresponsible and in his view, selfishly ignored objective hazards.  I finally turned it off when he repeated his line about how anyone who dies while climbing/skiing etc. also harms/kills their potential unconceived, unborn progeny.  Like anyone who's life was taken in the backcountry is responsible for countless deaths of lost ancestors.  One step removed from mass-murderers. Wild.  I was surprised Kalous didn't push back more on some of this given his lived experience with risk taking, grief and love.  Explained perhaps by how Chris did a good job of remaining a neutral interviewer instead of making it any more about him than Lincoln was already trying to make it.

Also relistened to Ep 142 with John Middendorf in light of his recent passing and goodness that's a good one.  Such stoke for adventure and for expanding the sport and just general curiousity about the world.  What a legend.