EXTREME DANGER!
READ THE FOLLOWING
WARNING BEFORE PROCEEDING!
Rostrum gap, Yosemite Valley,California.
Photo courtesy of Robi Borchard
EXTREME DANGER!
YOU MUST READ ALL OF
THE FOLLOWING WARNING BEFORE PROCEEDING!
RETURN TO THE SAFETY OF THE HOME PAGE
BE WARNED!
ROCK CLIMBING AND TIGHTROPE WALKING ON A NYLON
STRAP, NAMELY, SLACKLINING OR HIGHLINING, ARE ALL VERY DANGEROUS SPORTS THAT CAN
RESULT IN SERIOUS INJURY OR DEATH, NOT ONLY FOR YOU, BUT FOR OTHERS, AS WELL.
There are no warranties, whether
expressed or implied, that any book sold or distributed by, from, or through
chongonation.com is accurate or that the information contained within any such
material is, in any way, reliable or complete.
There are no warranties of fitness for a particular purpose or that any
book or other material offered is merchantable.
Use of any book, or text, or illustrations,
or diagrams, or, art, or any other
graphic representations, or any other material
or information made available through chongonation.com
indicates that you the user of
this information assumes any and all risks
taken and acknowledges you the user’s
sole responsibility (meaning yours alone!)
for ANY and ALL outcomes.
First and foremost, there is one very
important thing that you and anyone else that your decisions may affect should
consider before considering anything else, which is this: how bitchin you might be (or better stated, how bitchin you might imagine yourself being, however
accurate or inaccurate your conclusion) has nothing whatsoever to do with
whether you will be the unfortunate fool who dies, or spends the rest of his
life in a wheelchair, or worst, simply ends up ‘existing’, drooling in a bed
all day long, staring blankly into space (or into wherever). Nature does not
care in the least whether you are bitchin or you are
not, any more than it cares if you or anyone else lives or dies, or is maimed for the rest of their life (because
the bitchin die and get maimed, no less than the unbitchin do – nature is absolutely fair in questions of
death and maiming). Understand this:
it’s hard to be bitchin when you’re dead, permanently
crippled, or hopelessly trapped, lying in a bed drooling, staring blankly into
space (or again, into wherever), which are all very, very real possibilities,
when you choose to tightrope walk (slackline or
highline) on a nylon strap, or choose to climb a rock – or climb anything else
– in order to do so, or simply find yourself in the company of others who
fool-heartedly entertain ideas of actually doing any of these very things.
The books and other material offered
through chongonation.com, any text, illustrations, diagrams, art, pictures, or
any other graphically represented information, any associated or related
companion volumes and corresponding material, any associated or related
workbook, checklist, or log, any assertions made or conclusions drawn anywhere
in this material or any contained within the web pages of chongonation.com or
any associated or related material, or any implications that they may infer,
have the very real potential for creating situations that can result in serious
injury and/or death at any given moment to yourself and/or to others.
Even if you are a practiced, expert rock
climber, an extreme outdoor sports professional, or an extremely skilled slackliner, highliner, or
tightrope walker, even if you have extensive experience climbing big walls,
rigging, slacklining, or tightrope walking (highlining), even if you follow the instructions contained
in the appropriate corresponding material precisely, and regardless of any
precautions at all that you may take or however safe you might be, you may
still seriously injure or kill yourself as well as seriously injure or kill
other individuals too. Rockclimbing can be just as dangerous, if not more
dangerous, for spectators as for active participants (which includes all
belayers).
Climbing big walls
and/or tightrope walking on a nylon strap (slacklining
or highlining) require a very advanced understanding
of the tools used to most safely do either, unquestionably rates among the most
dangerous activities one could ever choose to engage in, and flatly is the most
complicated forms of adventure sports there are. Acquiring the skill and experience necessary
to climb big walls with safety actually being something more than an illusion,
flatly takes years – and the good fortune of getting there intact.
Climbing a rock cliff and, in particular,
climbing a big and difficult rock cliff (big wall climbing) are activities with
decades of recent history punctuated by countless tragic accidents. You can be certain that there is a very real
potential for serious or fatal injury, regardless of any and all precautions or
safety measures taken, and regardless of any level of skill applied.
Walking a stretched and elevated nylon
strap has only the briefest history, and a history that includes very little
actual testing. So far, there have been
no fatal failures, only a few injuries from falls, but the possibility remains,
and with each new highline that spans any gap the probability increases, that a
highline, for reasons yet imagined, fail completely someday, and someone on it
fall. This introduces yet another
consideration: those things falling from high above the ground can land on
those below, causing injury or death to individuals otherwise uninvolved.
Rockclimbing accidents, and
certainly slacklining or highlining
accidents too, can involve innocent bystanders, just as they can involve the
actual participants, just as they can involve those who are only indirectly
involved in the activity (as support, for example). Dangerous activities can be particularly
hazardous for those who are just casually involved (e.g. the spectators), just
as much or more as for those creating the hazardous spectacle, because
spectators might very mistakenly believe that they are spared being in harms
way, by virtue of believing – again, very mistakenly – that spectators
observing dangerous events are never harmed or killed as a consequence of these
events; both harm and death can befall spectators too.
Any authors and any publishers of any text that is
distributed through chongonation.com make no assurances whatsoever that
anything at all that is either explained, described, illustrated, or in any way
presented is either true, safe, accurate, or complete, regardless of any
representations, either overt or implied, appearing anywhere in any material
stating or suggesting the contrary.
Everything in any book listed at chongonation.com as well as anything
that might appear anywhere in the web pages of chongonation.com is only opinion
and nothing more, regardless of any statement, assertion, suggestion, or
inference whatsoever otherwise, anywhere.
No book or any other form of recorded media can replace real experience
or proper tutelage for activities as dangerous as climbing rocks or walking a
tensioned nylon strap (slacklining or highlining), and all those other activities related to that
pursuit (like the rigging and tensioning of slacklines
or highlines, for example, or descending from a climb
by rappelling). Do not expect to be able
to safely climb big walls or walk tightened nylon, or do any activity involving
or related to either, by simply reading a book, regardless of the thoroughness
of the material, and regardless of any implications otherwise that might be
inferred by any successes so achieved.
A great deal of the material in the books offered by
chongonation.com deals with the subject of climbing alone and unassisted, and
perhaps, by implication, even tightrope walking a nylon strap high above the
ground alone and unassisted. Be advised and forewarned that undertaking
any of the extreme activities described by any of the material made available
by chongonnation.com greatly increases the chances for injury or death in an
activity that is dangerous enough to do in a team or do with a companion. Undertaking any activity as dangerous as
climbing or tightrope walking on a narrow nylon strap (slacklining
and highlining) alone and unassisted can and usually
does involve very, very, very grave risks, sometimes for even more than just
the individual participant, and regardless of how elementary and easy the
particular endeavor might be when compared to the advanced understanding,
extensive experience, and well-tested capability of the participant. Even those with great skill and physical
capacity die climbing rocks, often “easy” ones, and certainly expose themselves
to the risk of death or serious injury by walking narrow nylon straps suspended
under tension over antyhing, high or low, even when
the climbing is easy or the narrow strap being walked is located very low,
close to a soft, forgiving surface.
Risks that can have very serious outcomes must be taken
in order to climb walls or tightrope walk on a
stretched nylon strap, alone, without assistance. The consequences of the risks involved with
these activities can create grim tragedy.
The user – meaning you, the person who will obtain and use and
probably share with others whom you very well may
include in your clearly risky activities, the material distributed through
chongonation.com – MUST be willing to accept and take responsibility for every
possible outcome, regardless of how horrible that outcome might be and
regardless of the devastation that such an outcome might have upon the rest of
your life of someone else’s, because that is the inescapably dangerous nature
of both rock climbing and tightrope walking, even low to the ground.
If you are not willing to run the enormous and very real
risks involved nor are ready to accept the consequences that they may render,
then you, or anyone else contemplating such risks along with you, should stay
safely in the security of their cozy home and simply never go big wall climbing
(or, for that matter, ever consider climbing anything again), and likewise
never even consider the proposition of either highline or lowline
tightrope walking. In
this way, neither you, nor anyone affected by your decision to risk human life,
can lay blame on a web site providing information to those individuals who
clearly understand the risks that they take, who are fully willing to run those
risks despite the tragedy that their actions can bring, and who are willing to
take responsibility for these risks that they choose, most willingly (though
however foolishly), to run, as well as accept the consequences that such
indulgences might bring.
© 2006 Chongo
All rights
reserved.