What an amazing story and life in general - kudos to your dad to living it to the full
Gotta say that I’m with you on the fear of heights thing. Does it just not bother your dad or is fear part of the thrill of doing it in the first place?
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Thank you so much!
I think a bit of both - far less scared of heights than someone like me but I know he felt fear in those moments where he'd climbed past his last piece of protection he'd clipped the rope into and was needing to place more protection. When you are leading the rope up the climb... You would then fall twice as far as the last place you'd placed protection. Following the leader is much less scary because the rope is now above you and can protect your fall more gently at all times.
I think my father learnt how to control that fear. Mountaineering aside, if we are just talking technical climbing there are three levels of how scary it is:
Following: the rope has been set up above you and tightens as you climb so you will never fall far.
Leading a "sport climb" - you lead the rope up, but it is a prepared route with bolts to clip the rope into (look carefully at the picture of me) - here you would fall about twice as far as a bolt below you.
Leading a traditional climb - there are no bolts. You have to place your own protection by jamming nuts or camming devices into cracks and then clip the rope into that (the follower will then remove that protection).
A normal person can follow a much more technically difficult sport climb than he could dare to lead. I never had the courage to learn how to lead traditional climbs and trust my own protection rather than a bolt.
My father pretty much climbed at the same technical grade either way, which showed that he was controlling his fear even at his limit... I think he loved that feeling!
To make matters worse for a normal person like me... You can't claim to have "sent" a climb unless you've led it. You can't rest on the bolts or protection either... You have to climb all the moves in one go as if the rope isn't there at all (it's there to catch your fall, not rest on). A "flash" means you got it first try, with no following first or resting on the rope to work the hard moves out... There's an honour code to climbing!
Most people work out the moves on a hard climb and then go back down to lead and "send" it... But they don't get the "flash" then.
Thanks for that insight. Yes, I can imagine that honour code being big in climbing. Other than the heights, it sounds like a great sport!