I don't think your analogy is on point here. This is more akin to playing football without a helmet, or driving a race car without a roll cage. Playing the sport is one thing, but I agree with the parent; what reason aside from tempting fate is there to climb without safety gear?
You are still racing cars, you are still playing football with the safety gear on (although football players in Australia do not wear helmets, and F1 cars don't have roll cages nor even roofs). Perhaps your analogies are off also ;)
However, you can climb mountains in different ways and people want to explore the possibilities. Some climbers think bolts are OK, some don't. It's their personal philosophy. They don't get the satisfaction they want if they use bolts, and think they desecrate the climb. So they don't use them. Not because they want to tempt fate, but because they would prefer not to climb things in that way.
The reason you ask for is: It's what they want to do. Reinhold Messner climbed mountains without oxygen, without seige tactics, because that's how he thought mountains should be climbed. Not because he wanted to tempt fate by eschewing "safety gear".
Wingsuit BASE is much more dangerous than regular BASE. Putting on a wingsuit is the opposite of safety gear - it's dangerous gear. However, it's not done to tempt fate, it's done to gain a different experience. That's what I think Honnold is doing here. He thinks it can be done, he thinks he can do it, and he turns out to be right. Same as Messner.
>You are still racing cars, you are still playing football with the safety gear on (although football players in Australia do not wear helmets, and F1 cars don't have roll cages nor even roofs). Perhaps your analogies are off also ;)
Sure... I wasn't implying that taking part in dangerous sports is something only adrenaline junkies do; I meant to say that doing so _without taking simple safety precautions_ puts you into that category.
I am trying to explain that there are different classes of climbing philosophically, not just one activity with or without certain safety related items.
"Motor racing without a helmet" = "stupid and pointless", we can probably agree on that.
"Climbing Everest without oxygen" != "Climbing Everest as an adrenaline junkie as I have deliberately foregone a safety related item".
"Free solo" != "Free climbing as an adrenaline junkie as I have deliberately foregone a safety related item".
My family have different risk tolerances and desires than me, but they know me and don't consider me an "adrenaline junkie".
>"Free solo" != "Free climbing as an adrenaline junkie as I have deliberately foregone a safety related item".
That's the part I don't get though. That said, I'm not a climber and I'm trying to logic my way through it as an outsider with zero experience, so I fully admit I may be wrong.
