I'm scared of heights but I'm attracted to rock climbing, so I climb anyway and just deal with it. Caves also have a certain attraction, but those stories terrify me far more than the prospect of a serious fall. The idea of dying trapped in a tight space underground makes dying on a rock climb sound downright comforting.

It's kinda related to something I always try to drill into people about going outdoors in my country (NZ) "never descend something you can't ascend" and "never climb up something you can't climb down".

I know it sounds stupidly repetitive but both are true in related manners.

1) Downclimbing is far harder than climbing up.

2) If you made a mistake, you need to be able to turn back.

When it comes to descending, it's primarily when you have options other than downclimbing, like jumping into a small waterfall's plunge pool.

Are you jumping into the pool because it's fun, or easy? Or are you jumping down because you can't climb down.

If you can't climb down, then how do you know you can climb back up if you made a mistake?

Jumping into plunge pools in a canyon is a good way to get bluffed, that is, trapped by cliffs and waterfalls, you hit a waterfall too high to jump down, and you can't climb out of the gorge you're in.

But goes the same when ascending, it is easy to climb up something, harder to climb down it, what's your exit strategy if you made a mistake.

So yeah, anything that involves compressing my ribs and immobilising an arm feels like it's far too committed, no ctrl-Z on this.

Injun Joe’s death in Tom Sawyer comes to mind. He actually found the exit but it had been sealed shut to prevent more kids from getting lost inside the cave. Starved to death 3cm from freedom. (Apologies for the spoiler if anyone reading this had not read Tom Sawyer!)