On the morning of June 30, Austin Howell, of Lombard, Illinois, was climbing without a rope in Linville Gorge, North Carolina. The 31-year-old first free-soloed a 350-foot swath of vertical sandstone. Next, he soloed a 130-foot route rated 5.11. Then, at around 11:30 a.m., according to a report on climbing.com, a nearby climber heard Howell cry, “No!”

He fell 80 feet to the ground.

It remains unclear how or why he fell. Many assume a hold broke. In any case, sadly, he died.

“Climbing, to me, has been a path towards peace,” Howell wrote on his website, thefreesoloist.com. “Soloing isn’t just a rare occurrence for me, it’s my way of life.”

Last year, the fringe practice of climbing without a rope garnered worldwide attention via Free Solo, the Academy Award-winning documentary featuring Alex Honnold, who made the first ropeless ascent of El Capitan in Yosemite Valley. Critics worried the film would encourage climbers to risk their lives trying to emulate Honnold. Recent deaths, like Howell’s, would seem to support this view.

In reality, free soloing remains obscure — a practice of the few willing to risk the ultimate consequence for whatever soloing gives them. Anyone who climbs 15 feet off the deck without a rope knows what I mean: every move higher carries a visceral reminder of one’s mortality, flashing like a neon warning sign as one’s mind screams, “No!”

All but the rarest souls will scurry back down to safety as quickly as possible. Honnold agrees. “Free-soloing is not that popular because it’s fundamentally dangerous,” he told me. “I don’t think any film is going to change that.”

With more people being introduced to climbing through indoor gyms, climbing routes without a rope is even less popular today, per capita, than ever before. “Twenty years ago free soloing was a much more common and accepted part of climbing,” said Honnold.

With rudimentary gear, climbing used to be far more dangerous than it is now — though, with disproportionate media coverage of climbing accidents and free solo deaths, that’s not at all obvious. In fact, free soloing was just one of several disciplines that any all-around climber would practice.

“Soloing used to be a prerequisite for trad climbing,” said James Lucas, Senior Associate editor of Climbing magazine. In part, that’s because soloing wasn’t necessarily a giant leap, in terms of risk, from climbing with a rope.

Even as free soloing has become less relevant to today’s route climbers, bouldering — which also happens to be ropeless climbing — has become our sport’s most popular genre. Of course, bouldering can all too easily blur the line into free soloing.

Earlier this year, Nick Muelhausen sustained injuries including a broken back when he fell from the top of Ambrosia, a 45-foot tall “boulder” in Bishop, California. So what exactly was he doing: bouldering or free soloing?

“Once you’re no longer willing to fall to the ground, you’re free soloing,” said Matt Samet, author of Colorado Bouldering and Editor of Climbing magazine. However you define it, climbing — with and without a rope — is both freeing and perilous. It can give us indescribable joy, yet take everything away in an instant. Honnold said, “I’ve had a few near misses with breaking holds and really unforeseen things happening. And then, you hear about other people having accidents that way and it certainly gives you pause.”

So why do the few climbers like Howell, Honnold and Muelhausen risk it all and eschew the safety of a rope? For Honnold, it’s simple: “Soloing big routes makes me feel small,” he said. “I’m just a tiny, insignificant dot, moving along with self-determined purpose. It puts me in the proper place in the world.”

Howell’s poignant answer can be found in one of his Instagram posts from back in April, when he wrote, “Freesoloing isn’t a death wish, it’s a life wish.”

Contact Chris Weidner at cweidner8@gmail.com. Follow him on Instagram @christopherweidner and Twitter @cweidner8.