10-year-old girl climbs El Capitan. Are her parents Nuts???

someone think of the children wrote:

Why do you hate excellence? The mere fact that your first reaction is the parents are nuts is what is wrong with society today.

If "excellence" is what we are after, then let her free climb El Capitan. Yes? She is roped in and has little danger. Let her lose the ropes and free climb it and then we would have "excellence!"

LoneStarXC wrote:

She’s on a rope and not in any danger. I don’t see the problem.

I wouldn’t say there is NO danger. Someone still has to be reading the rock, placing pro properly, etc.

BUT, I assume that’s she’s fairly experienced and therefore accomplished this feat with fairly low levels of risk, just as almost anyone else who climbs El Cap with ropes would.

Come back to me when she climbs Everest. El Capitan is slightly lower than Aspen. I can casually jog around Aspen and go for coffee there. The altitude won't hurt. Everest is over 6000m higher

CoachO wrote:

LoneStarXC wrote:

She’s on a rope and not in any danger. I don’t see the problem.

I wouldn’t say there is NO danger. Someone still has to be reading the rock, placing pro properly, etc.

BUT, I assume that’s she’s fairly experienced and therefore accomplished this feat with fairly low levels of risk, just as almost anyone else who climbs El Cap with ropes would.

You don't get that kind of experience by the age of 10. On a big wall, if a piece of protection pops out in the wrong place on a fall, you can swing out into space and be left dangling in your harness. Your belay partner can't just haul you up, because even a 60-pound 10-year old requires a lot more force to lift, since there's friction from the rest of the carabiners at the other anchor points. If she's carrying an ascent device and knows how to use it, has she practiced it enough to set it up correctly and get herself to the next placement? Especially with her belay partner too far away to talk her through it? If she drops the ascent device, does she know how to tie a prussik knot with her shoelaces and get herself to safety that way? Or will the belay partner have to tie her off, repel along the route and help her out? What if the weather turns bad?

This is not the kind of situation you want to put a 10-year old in. All my multi-pitch routes ended safely, but there were unexpected complications about half of the time. You have to be able to rely on the skills (and not just the climbing skill) of your climbing partners, and it's not an environment where you can haul a kid along for the ride and be sure everything will be fine.

This is not "climbing El Cap" in a meaningful sense. It's just a new form of irresponsible tourism for the Instagram-by-proxy generation.

Meanwhile at my house wrote:

Meanwhile my kid still refuses to tie his shoes and spent an hour crying because his tooth fell out because an adult tooth was coming in.

I’d rather have him climb a mountain

This is by far the hardest I have ever laughed at a LR post

Wow she will be better than katelyn tuohy in no time!

Sally Vix wrote:

someone think of the children wrote:

Why do you hate excellence? The mere fact that your first reaction is the parents are nuts is what is wrong with society today.

If "excellence" is what we are after, then let her free climb El Capitan. Yes? She is roped in and has little danger. Let her lose the ropes and free climb it and then we would have "excellence!"

Sally....you're such a hater. Are you THAT unhappy and insecure?

I thought she actually climbed El Capitan before I saw the video and was duly amazed; but at least in parts recorded by the video she isn't rock climbing she's using the rope to walk up the rock. This is radically different then rock climbing in difficulty. I think its a little crazy to have your child spend 5 days on exposed rock with danger attendant to do something that is an inherent "cheat". I'm more bothered by all the attention and calling it "rock climbing" than by risk involved. I am nonetheless impressed by her mental fortitude. 5 days on the rock is massive mental challenge-- irrespective of how she moved up the wall.

Alex Honnold wrote:

As a hobby climber myself who follows the sport extensively, I think it's a shame that Selah won't set any PRs this year but free soloing El Cap. It is clear she had put on some extra weight in the off-season but I don't think anyone had a clue how much it affected her.

Hopefully her coach or dad steps in before this gets out of hand.

+1, so good

Adulthood is all about performing a never-ending, mind-numbing maze of tasks. Pay the mortgage, pay the taxes, do the laundry, fix the house, go to work, sit in traffic, go to Wichita on a business trip and hide in the airport restroom during a tornado warning, go to the dentist, go to the doctor, get a colonoscopy while fully conscious just to spice things up, lose your phone, get an ear infection, fill up the car ... on and on and on and on.

What other reason is there to have kids, other than to have a compliant subject to boss around and force into all kinds of crazy situations in order to diffuse your pent-up frustration at being life's show pony?

Banana Bread wrote:

Come back to me when she climbs Everest. El Capitan is slightly lower than Aspen. I can casually jog around Aspen and go for coffee there. The altitude won't hurt. Everest is over 6000m higher

Climbing isn't a sport, it's a bourgeois trophy collecting contest. Even Everest wouldn't mean anything.

Bad Wigins wrote:

Banana Bread wrote:

Come back to me when she climbs Everest. El Capitan is slightly lower than Aspen. I can casually jog around Aspen and go for coffee there. The altitude won't hurt. Everest is over 6000m higher

Climbing isn't a sport, it's a bourgeois trophy collecting contest. Even Everest wouldn't mean anything.

Couldn't you say the same about running. We are just collecting medals.

team Unruly Bush wrote:

Meanwhile at my house wrote:

Meanwhile my kid still refuses to tie his shoes and spent an hour crying because his tooth fell out because an adult tooth was coming in.

I’d rather have him climb a mountain

This is by far the hardest I have ever laughed at a LR post

+2. I almost spit water on the screen.

Grenio wrote:

+1, so good

Adulthood is all about performing a never-ending, mind-numbing maze of tasks. Pay the mortgage, pay the taxes, do the laundry, fix the house, go to work, sit in traffic, go to Wichita on a business trip and hide in the airport restroom during a tornado warning, go to the dentist, go to the doctor, get a colonoscopy while fully conscious just to spice things up, lose your phone, get an ear infection, fill up the car ... on and on and on and on.

What other reason is there to have kids, other than to have a compliant subject to boss around and force into all kinds of crazy situations in order to diffuse your pent-up frustration at being life's show pony?

Hilarious! Love the parts about being stuck in Wichita during a tornado warning and the full conscious colonoscopy. Being a responsible adult isn't very exciting unless you make it exciting, that's for sure.

Viva la vida locas wrote:

Can't believe parents would allow this.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/travel/2019/06/17/10-year-old-girl-climbs-el-capitan-newsource-orig-vpx.cnn

ropes bro.

she's not alex honnold free-soloing it, she's attached.

Banana Bread wrote:

Bad Wigins wrote:

Climbing isn't a sport, it's a bourgeois trophy collecting contest. Even Everest wouldn't mean anything.

Couldn't you say the same about running. We are just collecting medals.

Good ol' trolls trolling trolls. Wigins is at least better at it than B-Bread.

Sally Vix wrote:

If "excellence" is what we are after, then let her free climb El Capitan. Yes? She is roped in and has little danger. Let her lose the ropes and free climb it and then we would have "excellence!"

I don't think you know what free climbing is.

Hint: It involves ropes.

Precious Roy wrote:

On the other hand, it certainly seems like the dad was pushing this girl to do this possibly for self promoting purposes. No 10 year old kid would look at El Capitan and think "hey dad, can we take 5 days to climb that?"

I don't think her dad was pushing her, I truly think she really wanted to do it herself. She mentions in some article how she has wanted to climb El Cap for a while. Kids can have crazy dreams. My friend and I have wanted to hike all 2600 miles of the PCT and climb El Cap since we were 8. Kudos to her for going out and doing it. And to all saying that it was easy for her, she was on ropes, etc etc, how about you go and try climbing it? I'll wait. Oh, you quit because it's actually hard to climb a 3000 foot wall? But you had ropes, no excuses!

Meanwhile at my house wrote:

Meanwhile my kid still refuses to tie his shoes and spent an hour crying because his tooth fell out because an adult tooth was coming in.

I’d rather have him climb a mountain

It must suck being Jamin's parent

I thought this was funny too. Like if a kid wants to go on a hike with their father and the father carries them in his backpack part of the way, are you going to say they didn't do the hike together?