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Careless Torque 12-Mar-2013 At 4:25:56 PM Dave J

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On 12/03/2013 One Day Hero wrote:
>I was ribbing the fact that they are using inferior technology owing to
>??? cultural/scientific ideas about the best way to pad a long fall. Doesn't
>look like the approach is a death march through scratchy bush, so why not
>carry in a couple of foamies for the bottom of the stack? Without much
>extra effort, they could have built a DIY pole vault mat to land on.

I its more laziness driven than any sort of ethics thing. Its a balancing act between what is the minimum number of pads they'd be prepared to lob onto from the highest point they're realistically likely to fall off vs the maximum number of pads they could lug in there without giving themselves a cardiac arrest (Like bolting was in the 80s where the amount of work required to add a bolt maybe people to that whole balancing act thing where they were weighing up the likelihood of breaking ankles vs an hour or two of hard work). I suspect if the crux of the problem had been at the top of the boulder...or the boulder had been right next to the road...there would have been more pads at the bottom. To me going ground up with a bunch of pads is a step forwards from roped rehearsal and a solo. Ground up with no pads would be another step forward again but that hasnt happened yet and its unlikely to in the near future. All that aside, Its a great effort. Id be happy to have done it even with twice as many pads.

And what about that problem where Alex Honnold dragged in something 36 pads??? Perhaps he should have borrowed Glowazc's net?