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> If you do sport climbing with bolts drilled and glued in rock or in gyms, the chances of bad injury are super tiny, and sprained ankle would be the worst possible outcome. It never happened to me, and I overshot my level by mistake few times. The more you gain experience, the less the risk. I've just started to do sport climbing (like within the past 2 weeks), and my biggest fear is a screwup (equipment, amount of slack given out, belay device, etc) that results in me not getting caught. My mother likes to remind me that her friend's son was paralyzed from falling in a climbing gym (but unfortunately I do not have the details), which certainly doesn't help my fear. This fear isn't stopping me from doing anything, so to some extent I do think it's helpful / healthy since it's reminding me to be careful and limit my risks as much as possible. That said, even just top rope climbing has significantly helped my fear of heights. Went hiking this past weekend, and I'm definitely more comfortable near cliff edges, etc (still fearful of falling, but not in a debilitating way). > At one point, its your choice - push things always to the max for whatever reason, or just enjoy good climb that can be challenging (or not) but not scary. Progress happens on both, usually a bit less on latter. This is a really good point, and something I do try and adjust for in both climbing and skiing. I like to improve, and push myself, but this is something I'd prefer to do for a long time, so I lean on the side of not pushing to hard and limiting risk whenever possible. |