Bloefeld from the James Bond movie "Thunderball"?

I don't have to tell you that you can do a lot of damage just losing your handhold when trying it from the third or fourth floor...

It's one of the points that Ueli Steck kept on mentioning, "safety this, safety that, best equipment, perfect weather etc." and then he proceeds to climb about 4'000 feet up a mountain without using any rope or safety harness. That's a lot to do with his physical abilities, understanding of the relief and his gear, but safety? Nah, not really. He wouldn't keep public interest and sold out halls going if he shackled himself every 10 feet and had a safety line. I admire him, but safety? Not present in my opinion.

I suppose you guys are referring to free-soloing, not free climbing.

Some forms of roped free climbing, such as indoor walls and bolted routes on good rock are pretty safe today; not much riskier than forms of skiing and other sports...but of course that can become a big debate in itself

As an aside, there is now a growing market for indoor bouldering where the wall is built in your bedroom so you can maximise your climbing in safety. Crazy, yes, but not much crazier than some other sports like rowing machine and treadmills (just picked this up from another thread).

I would say, if you have dreams, try things in bits and pieces, in relative safety, and find your correct answers, you might drop out yourself unless you are a really hard core guy. You don't remain celibate just because you learned that having unprotected s*ks with strange women (or men) is risky?

WIKIPEDIA
An umbrella term, "free climbing" spans four subsets of climbing styles: traditional, sport, free soloing and bouldering.


Chris Bonington once said it was weird that the 'old guys' like himself, who had most of their life behind them, double checked, triple checked everything whereas the younger guys and gals who had everything to live for and (almost) their whole life ahead of them, were not actually careless, but just that little bit less 'fussy' about things in their climbing.

I couldn't attend his talk but there are some interviews of his on internet where is expressly says it is extremely dangerous; that as a pro at that stage of career he felt it was worth for him (no job, no steady income etc), but he won't do it again.

No, but I heard that one of the best women climbers decided against having children because one of her climbing colleagues died leaving very young children without a mother.