Acceptable Risk Management and Culture in Climbing

Outsideonline has presented an interesting article by Tommy Caldwell, Why Alex Honnold’s Free Solo of El Cap Scared Me". Here is the most interesting quote. "Alex once told me that he had never fallen completely unexpectedly—meaning without at least some prior inclination that it could happen." Although most have saluted Honnold's achievement some have been critical. The 8a policy is that we do not want to report dead dangerous ascents as we do not want to encourage this type of climbing. During the last 15 years we have broken the policy a couple of times when it is anyhow all over the place. The problem with judging Honnold and the media doing it, is that we are all going for the same acceptable risk when we lead and it is part of the climbing history. If you fall on the worst spot on most 6a sport routes, even on Kalymnos, you will injure yourself. Historically, dangerous run-outs have been considered cool and many consider them fun. The E-grading in UK gives the most credit if you can die. Personally, I climb top-rope as much as possible and I have since I first started bolting been criticized for making the routes too safe. My point here is that if you think it is ok with dangerous run-outs on sport routes, we should only salute Honnold. If you on the other hand think that it should not be possible to hurt yourself with good practice on sport routes, you might very well be critical towards Honnold and the media reporting his ascents. I stay in between, I think it is OK with dangerous bolting on hard routes and I am mostly amazed in regards Honnold's free solos.