August 8, 2022
Outdoor adventure writer and photographer Smoot (Hangdog Days) lauds the transcendent experience of free soloing—climbing often hazardous rock faces without ropes or equipment—but is unlikely to convince skeptics to give the sport a shot. Practitioners, he writes, “feel part of a great cosmic unity of man and stone, grooving on the authentic experience realized only in that moment between life and death when all ego disappears.” He covers the history of societies and cultures where climbing without ropes was routine, such as the Bedouins of Jordan and the “bird snatchers” of the Scottish island of St. Kilda (though he fails to consider that these groups were driven to climb by necessity of terrain rather than recreation). Multiple anecdotes detail the fatal falls of free soloists, and the bereaved they leave behind. Smoot in fact ends the work with an account of an experience he had climbing in the central Cascades, reflecting that if he fell, his corpse would never be found and he would leave behind a widow and fatherless children. Despite a voice in his head telling him that he shouldn’t proceed to the summit, Smoot persisted, because clinging to a ledge by his fingers was where he “was meant to be, for better or for worse.” This one’s for the already converted.