As a climber, I’m inevitably asked this question: “Have you seen Free Solo?” Alex Honnold vaulted climbing—specifically, ascending without protection—into the public consciousness. What the average Janet or Joseph doesn’t know, is that some of the hardest, most technical climbing routes in the world are no more than fifteen-feet high.
While not as edge-of-your-seat, palm-sweating dramatic as hanging sans-rope from El Capitan, there is risk and pain and consequences from a bouldering fall, even if it is a short one. Don’t believe me? Roll off your bed and land on a can of peas.
The ground is hard. Rocks are sharp. Ankles break. Heads crack. Hence, the bouldering pads—stacked like pancakes, positioned strategically to lessen the blow. Which reminds me of Romm Jackson, a freshman in my dorm that cannonballed off the Taylor Hall second-story study room balcony, eyes closed, toward a small mountain of sofa cushions. Except he missed the pile and landed coccyx first on the quarter-inch, pad-less industrial carpet. He walked away, barely. But that’s another story.