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Tito Traversa Killed in a Fall 22-May-2018 At 11:41:10 AM One Day Hero

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On 21-May-2018 Karl Bromelow wrote:
>And young children have been climbing to higher levels than you or I could
>dream of for many, many years now.

This brings up another couple of points for my parental responsibility rant. I know the Vertical Life dudes troll chocky for article ideas, this might be a good one for you guys to expand on.

1) Having gotten into climbing as a teenager in the mid 90s, I consider myself as being on the tail end of the first campus board and woody generation (at least the first ones who started using these tools in their teens). Now that generation is hitting their mid to late 40s, and the rates of debilitating elbow and shoulder injuries are somewhat alarming. A comical number of the "magazine guys" from my youth are having ruined joints operated on, with terms such as "worst elbows I've ever seen" and "hamburger mince" apparently being thrown around by surgeons. And this is people who started at age 16 or 18 and topped out at 8b or 8c. It's frankly making me rather nervous.
So, what do you reckon the long term health outcomes will be for the current generation of kids who are starting at age 5 and will no doubt go on to 9a and 9b?

2) Estey's point about teaching kids to manage risks. I reckon this can go the wrong way. You expose kids to risk so often that they become ice cold hardnuts, and then dial the risk way up beyond long term survivability as a result. I guess this has always existed in mountaineering, but it seems to have crept into rock climbing and pretty much every other "extreme sport".
For example, the Huber bros called bullshit on Nose speed records a decade ago because they thought things were getting too dangerous. Take a second to think about that. The "solo 8b on Cima Grande/first ascent of alpine testpieces in the Himalayas" dudes said something was getting too dangerous!?! And last year a young woman ate shit going for the record and is now in a wheelchair.....running it out and climbing fast to shave a few minutes off a stupid record. What a fuching waste. A couple of weeks ago Hans Florine (on his hundred and somethingth lap of the Nose) pulled a piece of gear and fuched his ankles to bits. No more speed climbing or running or probably walking normally for Hollywood Hans. I reckon the Hubers called it correctly, and the pigeons are coming home to roost for a bunch of people who have normalised some unreasonable risks.