“When the rope is off, you can’t afford to slip,” explains free solo climber Austin Howell. Austin Howell was a rock climber for 12 years, 10 of which had been primarily as a free-soloist. He was the kid that climbed the tallest tree in hide and seek never to be found. He took up rock climbing at an indoor gym in college. After college, he worked day jobs that called for him to climb 300-foot cell towers, often in harsh weather. He became a proficient lead climber, requiring him to go long stretches between safe points.

Unhooking the rope for the first time for Austin was not an epiphany; it was practical. He was half-way up a steep rock face, felt weighed down by the heavy bag of bolts and the ropes on his back, and simply unhooked himself and passed the gear to his climbing partner.

“Soloing in one way is the most obvious way in the universe,” he explained, speaking proudly of John Muir in 1888 climbing Cathedral Peak. “Essentially he free-soloed that cliff to the top of it, and free-soloed it back down.” For centuries, Pueblo people had built houses into the sides of tall cliffs without any safety devices. Carabiner and belays didn’t arrive until 1933.

“Subjectively there’s nothing safe about it. There’s risk and there’s consequence. The consequence is very obvious,” he said.

One month after talking with Blue Ridge Outdoors, Howell, age 31, fell 80 feet to his death on a free solo climb at Linville Gorge.