“Every great and deep difficulty bears in itself its own solution.
It forces us to change our thinking in order to find it.”
-Niels Bohr

Leaning back into space, weight shifted slowly from my feet onto the rope that would keep me from falling. Finally, pushing off from the rock, I loosened my grip on its connection to the earth and allowed my body to fall… just a little. It was a moment of faith, balanced by reason.

“Reason” is that characteristic of mind through which we come to rational conclusions. “Faith” is merely an acceptance of that not empirically provable. A combination of both is the source of all foundations upon which we build our lives, whether functional, intellectual, moral, or religious. And once established, they become the beliefs, or the set of rules from which trusted expectations are drawn. So it’s no small thing when those foundations fail.

Constructing a reliable climbing or rappel anchor requires a fair amount of informed consideration. And among the first things learned is not to place much faith in those structures relied upon by others. Rusted bolts and sun-rotted nylon webbing are but crumbling invitations to disaster. That worthy of trust requires knowledge, understanding, and the effort to create and to verify for one’s self. But in science, this defines the trade-off in avoiding “Type II” error; minimizing the risk of bad ideas comes at the cost of overlooking potentially good ones.

“Cognitive Dissonance” is what we feel when established expectations suddenly fail to describe reality. Opening the front door of my old house one morning, the snow-covered tree that had fallen across the front porch during the night’s blizzard resulted in a moment of startled confusion. The rational expectation of a familiar world was suddenly replaced by a profoundly disturbing experience.  It was as the unexpected sensation of falling in a dream.

There are two ways to avoid such moments. The first is to plan carefully, and to prepare backups for those times when things fall apart anyway. Likewise, a good climbing anchor is not only sturdily constructed, but it’s also built with no single point-of-failure. Regardless, there will always be risks beyond our ability to control.

But the alternative is merely not to climb.

In the mountains, acceptable risk is understood to be subjective; and it’s usually assessed by looking at four factors: probability, consequence, exposure, and tolerance. The first three multiply to increase actual risk. And this is where things like building a good anchor, or tying knots at the ends of a rope can make a difference.

Still, there are always risks in the approach to a summit. Some are physical. Others are the consequence of a clear view, the experience of nearing the boundaries of both reason and faith, and peering into the abyss. Plato called them the “beautiful dangers”. Heidegger called it “metaphysical vertigo”.  And the degree of willingness to accept such risk can only be determined by an individual.

Tolerance is consequently founded in something deeply personal. It represents a threshold for an acceptance of risk in exchange for what it promises in return. For the honest and informed, it’s a belief in one’s self grounded in experience, ability, fortitude, and goals.

But there’s always some aspect of a Kierkegaardian-like leap as one leans back, trusting in the thin strand that holds a spirit to the mountain.

Todd Skinner leaned back into space, just as he had thousands of times before. This particular day in October of 2006, he and his climbing partner, Jim Hewett, had been exploring a route for a first free-climb of the 3,000-foot, “Leaning Tower” in Yosemite. Deciding to call-it-a-day in the heat of the afternoon, they ate a lunch and then began a series of easy rappels back down.

As Skinner neared the end of his second rappel, Hewett heard a strange sound. “I looked down really quickly and just saw him falling… and I knew he was dead.” Skinner had experienced an almost unheard of equipment failure of the “belay loop” on his harness, the sturdy and utterly reliable nylon ring through which climbers secure themselves to their ropes.