The Most Dangerous Sport!
Isabel Branam 12//09//23
Have you ever heard of the world's most dangerous sport? Well once you read this article you will! This sport is life threatening . . . would you dare to do it?
The most dangerous sport in the world is Free Solo Mountain Climbing better known as Free Soloing. Based off of the sport Trad Mountain Climbing, a sport where you climb great heights with multiple safety features in your way to make sure you stay safe, because most sports revolve around safety and fun! But if the most dangerous sport in the world revolves around that it wouldn’t be that dangerous anymore would it? Hoosier Heights says “It’s Because of the lack of education and training people get on this but it can become much safer if you take time to learn the skills you need to.”
Free soloing is where only the craziest daredevils try to mountain climb, but with no ropes or gears as safety features using only their hands and feet, climbing shoes and a chalk bag. 30 people die from this a year, and while the deaths may seem small for such a dangerous sport this is because most people don’t dare to do it. Runnersathletics.com says “In free soloing, athletes climb mountains without any ropes, harnesses, or anything else that could be remotely construed as a safety device. All they use is their strength, flexibility, focus, and courage.”
This is confusing because there are at least three basic types of mountain climbing. First is Trad mountain climbing, to get better at this sport first try aid climbing. Second is Free climbing not to get confused with free soloing, free climbing is where you have protection but no features that will help your upward progress along the rock wall or mountain. Free soloing is very similar to all this except for the safety.
The idea of this sport had all the rage when the film Free Solo was released on September 28 of 2018. This national geographic PG-13 Documentary/Sport film directed by Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi revealed Americans to a new sport. This film is about famous free soloist Alex Honnold on his journey to be first-ever free solo climber to free solo El Capitan.
El Capitan is considered the most dangerous mountain to free solo with an estimated guess (since it’s not clear) of 15-25 people Honnold being the first. El Capitan is located in Yosemite National Park of Yosemite Valley in California.
To conclude, Free Soloing is a very dangerous sport. And it is not recommended to others unless you’re a daredevil and willing to do what Honnold did. But if you did it’d be a pretty cool thing to talk about!