Free Solo Mode (as well as You Fall You Die) are bonus permadeath modes unlocked in late game. If you have not unlocked them yet, this guide may spoil some of the fun of discovering the game on your own.

Progress in YFYD & Free Solo modes is separate from progress in Normal mode. You will get additional 3 save slots for each, so there's no need to worry about losing the progress you have made so far.

Earning these is often mistaken for conquering peaks in Free Solo Mode.

Free Solo stamps are alternative to the regular "Summited" stamp, awarded in all modes (but only in Advanced and Expert categories) for climbing peaks without placing any ropes on your ascent.

These can't be cheated by placing ropes and removing them later. As soon as you place a rope, your ascent will no longer count as a Free Solo ascent.

Once you earn a Free Solo stamp on a particular peak, climbing it again with ropes will neither invalidate the stamp nor revert progress towards relevant achievements.

Earning Free Solo stamps counts towards the following achievements:

• Advanced Free Soloist - earn a free solo stamp on each peak in the Advanced category
  
• Expert Free Soloist - earn a free solo stamp on each peak in the Expert category

Example:

• Unlocked by unlocking the Expert category in normal mode (climb 3 Advanced peaks)
  
• It's basically Normal mode with permadeath (rules of permadeath are explained in the next section)
  
• All items (rope, chalk, crampons, etc.) are available but will need to be unlocked again.
  
  • The Safety Harness is the only piece of gear not available in YFYD.
    
• There are fewer "fluff" interactions with NPCs on your doorstep in this mode, but encounters on peaks and co-climbing opportunities remain unchanged.
  

• Unlocked by conquering The Great Bulwark of the North in Normal Mode.
  
• It's YFYD but without access to consumable items and ropes.
  
  • Available gear: Crampons (both 6-point and 10-point), Ice Axes, Monocular.
    
  • Everything else is unavailable
    
• There are no NPC interactions, encounters or co-climbs in this mode. Equipment and peak booklets will simply appear in your cabin once you fulfil the unlock criteria. It's a solo mode in every sense of the word.
  

As the name of the mode suggests, if you fall, you die and your permadeath mode save gets deleted.

Any fall hard enough to cause a blackout in normal mode, will kill you in YFYD.

• The distance limit for a non-lethal fall is 8 meters. Falling onto a hard surface from a greater height will kill you.
  
• Falling too far while attached to a rope is also lethal in YFYD. It's best to not abuse the length of your rope, and if you fall, start reeling it in as soon as you start falling.

Not every fall is deadly, however:

• Falling into water (from any height) won't kill you!
  
• Landing on an angled surface and sliding down might slow you down enough to save you, but don't count on it.
  
• Regardless of how far you have already fallen, if you manage to grab onto something before you hit the ground, you will be saved.

• <peak> (Free Solo) - 6 achievements awarded for climbing individual Advanced and Expert peaks in You Fall You Die mode without placing any ropes on your ascent.
  
• One Hold Short of Madness - conquer each and every peak in YFYD on a single save (ropes allowed!)

The following two achievements can also be unlocked in YFYD, but you might as well do them in Free Solo Mode because they forbid using ropes:

• Legendary Free Soloist - summit Solemn Tempest in YFYD without placing any ropes
  
• Death Defier - climb Solemn Tempest in YFYD but don't place any ropes OR use the bivouac (it's best to just not pick it up at the base) - speedrun strats might be your best bet here.

Because Free Solo mode is an extension of YFYD, all YFYD achievements can be unlocked while playing in Free Solo mode.

The following achievements can be unlocked only in Free Solo mode:

• Expert Cragsman - climb all Fundamental peaks in Free Solo mode without dying.
  
• Grand Master - climb all Advanced peaks in Free Solo mode without dying.
  
• Alpine Master - climb all Expert peaks in Free Solo mode without dying.
  
• Living Legend - same as "One Hold Short of Madness", but accomplished in Free Solo Mode.

All YFYD achievements that involve climbing Expert peaks are significantly easier to unlock in YFYD (rather than in Free Solo Mode) because of the availability of ropes, as well as infinite chalk and coffee.
However, collecting all the ropes and items required to unlock infinite chalk and coffee will be time-consuming and risky.

In Free Solo mode every climb can kill you, so it's best to climb as few peaks as possible to get what you need.

1. Intermediate (Boulders) - Climb any 15 Fundamental peaks
   
2. Advanced (The Great Tines)
   
   • Climb any 5 Intermediate peaks
     
   • or climb all 20 Fundamentals and 1 Intermediate peak
     
3. Expert (The Northern Range)
   
   • Climb any 3 Advanced peaks
     
   • or climb Ymir's Shadow
     

• available in Free Solo and YFYD
  
  • Crampons
    
    • 6-point - climb Old Grove Skelf
      
    • 10-point - climb any 3 peaks in the Advanced category
      
  • Ice Axes - unlock the Expert category
    
  • Monocular - climb Three Brothers (a Fundamental peak) and claim the item from Walter at the top.
    
• available only in YFYD
  
  • Coffee - climb Gray Gully and then talk to Pearse brothers at the base of The Twins. If you skip Gray Gully, they won't be there at The Twins.
    
  • Chalk - I don't remember the exact requirement, but it should unlock before completing all fundamentals (beat 18 peaks?)
    
  • Smoking Pipe - beat all time records in the Intermediate category (boulders)
    
  • Infinite chalk and coffee - collect all items from Fundamental, Intermediate and Advanced peaks (each marked with a question mark on the map in your cabin)
    
  • Double-length ropes - reassemble the Walker's family photograph (4 pieces of the photo + the frame). Refer to the Collectibles Guide for precise information on their whereabouts.
    

To lose as little time as possible in the unfortunate case of an untimely death, climb the hardest/riskiest peaks first. It's better to die early on a tough peak and restart immediately than die on a tough peak after climbing all the easier peaks.

While climbing Fundamentals, you might also consider doing some of the shortest of easy peaks as palate cleansers between the toughest ones. This way, you reduce the risk of losing your hard-earned progress on an otherwise easy, but not entirely safe peak (like "Old Mill", "Gray Gully", "Evergreen's End" or "The Lighthouse"), without risking losing too much time in case something goes terribly wrong on one of the tough peaks.

Although some speedrunning tricks, like low-risk skips, are helpful, Free Solo is not a speedrun challenge. Neither speed nor style matter here as long as you get to the top in one piece.
It's better to be slow and steady than to hail mary rush and lose progress over and over again.

Unless you are going for completion or achievements awarded for climbing particular peaks, there's no need to climb every single peak or stick your neck out on the hardest of them.

Need to unlock the Advanced category, but can't handle the hardest fundamentals? No problem, skip the 5 most difficult and climb the easiest 5 boulders instead.
Need to get to Expert peaks but Eldenhorn is killing your runs? Pick and climb 3 Advanced peaks which feel the easiest to you and go rough up that northern ice.

For the same reason, you might prefer to skip YFYD and jump straight into Free Solo mode:

• Progress in Free Solo mode also unlocks YFYD mode achievements, so you'll be killing two birds with one stone.
  
• You won't be tempted to risk your progress collecting all the items (some of them are placed in very risky spots, as you probably already know)
  
• Having earned Free Solo stamps in Normal Mode, you already possess the majority of skills required to perform a successful ropeless climb in permadeath modes.

However, some of the most difficult achievements are significantly easier in YFYD because of access to climbing gear. For instance, infinite chalk will help with the "Legendary Free Soloist", and ropes will make "One Hold Short of Madness" significantly easier.

It's better to spend an hour practising tricky sections of a difficult peak than to go unprepared, die, and lose all the time and effort put into unlocking it.

I recommend practising each of the riskier peaks with a Routing Flag. It will appear in the starting area of every peak you have successfully climbed and cleared of collectible items.
To avoid burning yourself out, don't relentlessly grind a peak from start to finish, either. No need to redo easy sections. Do them once on your way to the riskiest bits and spend extra time and effort in spots that feel the most intimidating or seem to require sheer luck. The Routing Flag is especially helpful for that kind of practice, because, once placed, it allows you to teleport back to it from anywhere on the map.
As you repeat a challenging section of the route, you might discover a more reliable way of tackling it or a new technique that lets you overcome it more safely, so don't be discouraged by the repetitiveness!

On advanced peaks, the process of practising will also help you discover routes most suited to your climbing style, and therefore less risky.

For reference, it took me about an hour to practice a single Advanced peak before I felt confident enough to attempt it in Free Solo mode (and I died twice anyway - once on Eldenhorn and once on Great Gaol).

Should you attack the peak right after completing a practice session or take a break to rest up your IRL arms?

• If the peak was short or you didn't need much time to practise, go for it! Fresh muscle memory will help a lot on the trickiest sections, like "The Nose" of St Haelga.
  
• If you've practised for a long time and feel tired, do take a break and attack the peak at a later time. We all know how physically tiring this game can be, so don't risk killing your run because of fatigue of your IRL arms. But once you do come back, I recommend doing a warmup run on the target peak right before you make a Free Solo attempt, to jog your muscle memory. Don't make it too long, either. 10-20 minutes will do. Quit the warmup midway through if it would take too long to complete the entire route. It's about honing your climbing edge, not grinding it down.

• Holds above you and slightly to the right might be easier to reach with the left hand than the right (the converse is true for holds above and to the left). This is especially relevant to Eldenhorn and St Haelga.
  
• Some holds which seem just slightly out of reach are reachable without letting go of your current hold if you swing real hard (sometimes hard enough to spin around the hold), but it's worth giving it a shot if you can avoid making a leap.
  
• When holding onto a root, never dig in with crampons to rest. As soon as you let go, the root will spring back out of your reach. Even if you held onto it right at its base, it will no longer be reachable once you let go.

Crimps are the tiny holds that trigger a timer as soon as you grab them.

• In YFYD, don't take chances with crimps and have at least one hand chalked up when coming up to a crimp-heavy section.
  
• In Free Solo, where chalk is not available, you will have to rely on planning ahead to overcome crimp sections quickly and safely:
  
  • Take a while to rest on a safe hold and plan your moves, hold-by-hold, before difficult crimp sections
    
  • Maintain muscle tension - pull up by pressing and holding spacebar the moment you grab a crimp. Doing so will reduce swinging and allow you to reach the next hold faster.
    
  • Crampon-jump over the extra-quick crimps present on some peaks (Walter's Crag, Walker's Pillar, and a few others) - these can be held onto barely long enough to pull up once and grab the next hold, leaving absolutely no room for error. Way too risky in Free Solo.
    
  • Use other types of holds to rest - crimp stamina replenishes while you hold onto slopers, pitch holds or crumbly rocks.
    
  • As last resort, you can simply jump and some crimp stamina will replenish during your time mid-air.
    
  • Holding onto a non-crimp hold with one hand will slow down crimp stamina drain on the other hand.
    
  • Holding onto two crimps (or a single crimp with both hands) will slow down stamina drain, compared to holding with one hand and leaving the other hand free. However, it will drain stamina from both hands, whereas letting one hand rest would allow it to regain stamina at the expense of fatiguing the other hand more quickly.
    

Slopers are large, slippery rocks that make your hand slide down as soon as you grab them.
Wet holds look like regular holds but behave like slopers. These are unique to Old Hagger and even more risky than normal slopers, as it's much harder to gauge how long you have until your hand slips off the hold.

• Don't grab them too close the edges or from underneath. Aim for top and center instead. At the edges, your hand will slide down at a much faster rate than elsewhere, and if you grab a sloper from underneath, the distance to the bottom edge of the sloper will be small to begin with, leaving very little time to grab something else with the other hand.
  
• If possible, test slopers before trusting them with your life: Grab them and see how long it takes until your hand slips off. If you feel like it takes long enough to get a better hold on the sloper or grab something else in the meantime, you're good to go. If not, try shifting your hands on the current hold to improve your reach.

Pitch holds are the dark, jagged rocks first encountered halfway through Eldenhorn.
They drain a separate stamina pool, displayed in the lower left corner. If it's emptied, your hands will let go.

• Once on a pitch section, take every opportunity to rest on jugs (and slopers!) and fully replenish your stamina before continuing.
  
• Pitch rock stamina also replenishes on crimps (albeit much more slowly) and mid-air.

Avoid them altogether if you can.
A bird will start attacking you if you grab the hold it's perching on.
On most peaks it's possible to leap past the holds where they perch, avoiding an attack. Just b careful not to extend your arm too soon after you jump or you might hit the bird instead.

The only two places where birds attack unprovoked are Old Skerry and "The Nesting Pass" crux on the 3rd spire of the Great Gaol. In contrast, the flock of birds at the crux of Land's End is just a harmless scare.

If a bird is attacking you:

• Run: birds in this game are territorial and, once startled, will never stop attacking until you move far enough from the hold they perched on.
  
• Don't put both of your hands on the same hold: a single bird can attack only one hold at a time. By holding onto two different holds while under attack you protect yourself from being thrown off (unless under attack by 2 or more birds)
  
• Listen for squawks: birds always squawk as they dive to attack.
  
• Count the seconds between attacks: a bird will circle behind you for a few seconds before it strikes. Counting the seconds between strikes will allow you to predict when the next attack will happen and prepare for it. That said, some birds attack more frequently than others.
  
• Fight back: you can slap the bird by grabbing it as if it were a moving hold. No need to swing your hand. Just make sure the bird collides with it as it dives. Getting slapped will make it back off for a while, but it won't yield until you leave its territory.

Below is my subjective, risk-minimising ordering of peaks. Different climbers feel differently about the difficulty of some peaks, so if are certain that some peak is easier/harder than I rated it, feel free to shuffle it up or down the list.

0. Old Grove Skelf - conquering this peak unlocks 6-point crampons, so you will definitely want to climb it first.
Death is likely.

1. Old Hagger - the dreich body-bagger. Exercise extreme caution on this peak. Wet holds are basically crimps with an invisible timer and may surprise you in the nastiest way possible. Always test them before letting go of a safer hold and pick crimps over wet holds if possible.
   
2. Ugsome Storr - falling boulders are a major threat, but certain features of this level make it less deadly than it might seem at first.
   * The initial, vertical stretch is where you are the most likely to get hit, but most of the time you will be climbing directly above the waterfall, so you have a good chance of surviving a boulder to the face.
   * As the route veers off to the right and turns into a horizontal traverse, boulders will never spawn ahead of you, only above and behind, which means that if you maintain a steady and quick pace on the traverse and throughout the entire crux, you almost certainly won't get hit.
   
3. Wuthering Crest - wind gusts seem dangerous, but they are evenly spaced out and easy to avoid with a bit of patience. If you need to make a big leap, wait for the next gust of wind, and then jump right after it passes. You will have at least 5 seconds to jump. Two gusts in rapid succession don't happen here. Once past the initial 5-10 meters, don't take the route that veers off to the left. It leads to "The Traipse" crux and that is a deathtrap. Keep going up (use crampons if needed) and eventually, to the right. Also be careful on a downward section that mixes sliding down large slopers between jugs on an adjacent wall. These large slopers are positioned in such a way that the further down you get the faster your hand will slip, so don't be lulled into a false sense of security by their size.
   
4. The Twins - some call it easy, but the "Leap of Faith" crux is located ~12m over solid rock and there are hardly any backup holds on the crux, so if you won't clear it in one, clean, upward swing-leap, you will go all the way down. I recommend practising this particular crux right before attempting it in YFYD/FS.
   

Taking a fall on any of these peaks usually means death, but at least they aren't actively trying to kill you, unlike the High Risk peaks.

1. Walter's Crag - the co-climb route is arguably the safest, but its upper half features 2-3 extremely quick crimps. It's best to skip them with a crampon jump. Other than that, it's a relatively safe climb.
   
2. Old Man of Sjor - take the rightmost route. It goes straight up to the top and there's only one seagull there. Although unavoidable, it's easy to get away from before it even launches its first attack.
   
3. Aldr Grotto - aside for losing sight of the route, the only risky bits are the narrow chimney with bats and a long, vertical sloper to the left a little ways past the chimney. Make sure to practice beforehand and memorise how the route proceeds through the grotto. The bats are scripted (they spawn once a trigger point is reached) so you can plan ahead and choose where to wait them out.
   
4. Evergreen's End - there's only one, horizontal, root-to-root leap that might kill you in the later part of the route. Up until that point (and also after) it's a safe, leap-free climb. The vertically hanging roots are so long that leaping is not necessary to traverse them. All you need to do is hold them by their tips and swing hard to get within reach of the next root.
   
5. The Lighthouse - following the speedrun route makes it a rather safe level - instead of following the path of bricks the the left, make a long, upwards crampon jump to overcome the gap between the start of the level and the final stretch of bricks. Remember to test each brick you grab by holding it for a bit and checking if it moves. Better safe than dead at this point!

The majority of these peaks stretch over water, so even if you fall, you won't lose all of your progress.

1. Land's End - all that water doesn't seem so terrible now, does it? Be careful once you get past the "Tempestous Pass" crux, though. At the very end of the route you will be leaping hold-to-hold over solid rock and missing any of these jumps will result in death.
   
2. Three Brothers - on the first spire, avoid climbing over the rock floor and take the vertical, corner route (featuring some shrubs and a sloper), right at the edge of the base of the first spire. From that point onwards, the route always leads above water, so you're safe.
   
3. Old Langr - completely safe until the final, vertical stretch, but even there the rock is peppered with crumbly holds so densely that being unable to arrest your fall is unlikely. Still, always seek out the nearest stable hold (jug) before proceeding, and use crumbly holds as backups.
   
4. Great Crevice - there's a river running under the entirety of the main route, making it one of the safest peaks in the book. The detours required to grab collectibles will take you dangerously high above solid rock, so be careful if you choose to get them in YFYD (no point taking these detours in FS, though).
   
5. Hangman's Leap - the namesake leap can be performed without rope. Once you reach the cluster of pitons where you'd normally rope in, gain some momentum by swinging sideways, leap around the corner and look below at 2 o'clock to see the set of holds you should be aiming for.
   
6. Giant's Shelf - the default route along the sunny side of this peak rises high enough (at the far end of the Shelf) to be deadly. On the shaded side of the boulder, however, there's a shorter crimp route that leads straight to the final stretch of jugs and never rises above 8 meters! It's much trickier, but it's completely safe.
   
7. Old Mill - tall enough to kill you but very easy with a bit of patience. Just grab the back-side of a wing and wait until it takes you to the top. Be careful not to land too far from the center of the roof, though! You will slide off the roof and that fall will be deadly.
   
8. Gray Gully - falling near the top will kill you, but the main route doesn't require any leaps so it's completely safe.

1. Paltry Peak - too short to be dangerous
   
2. Greenhorn's Top - too short to be dangerous

Climb the Leaning Spire first. it's the only boulder taller than 8 meters, and missing a hold near its tip is certain death. Do practice tackling those last 3 holds near the top before you attempt it in FS.

Then, the remaining boulders can be climbed in any order. They are all 8-9m tall at most, so falling on your ascent is very unlikely to kill you. Falling from the top is another story, though. If you happen to botch a jump near the top, hurling yourself over the 9 meter line, and then fall to the ground, it will be game over.
So make sure to top-out carefully and head straight for the stamp once you're there.

For each peak in this category I recommend thorough practice before any attempt in YFYD or Free Solo. Make sure you figure out how to get through the most difficult sections consistently or find alternative, less risky routes that you might not have noticed in normal mode.

The most unforgiving peak so far. It's best to practice it extensively and even then climb very deliberately and cautiously. Before every stretch of crimps (and especially before the "Passage of Furled Fingers" crux!) stop, take some time to plan your movement crimp by crimp and locate safe holds where you could safely rest up and plan your next moves.

Why climb it first? To avoid losing all the progress you would have otherwise made on other Advanced peaks, had you climbed them first and then died here (and dying here is, unfortunately, quite likely).

Why is Eldenhorn so hard?

• The first half is mostly a horizontal traverse (though it snakes around a bit), so the lack of holds beneath you will make recovery from a miscalculated jump impossible in most places.
  
• The second half is predominantly vertical, but the rock leans forward, which means that you won't be able to use crampons to jump or rest, and, in case you fall, the holds below you will be out of your reach.

How to make your climb a bit easier?

• Remember that holding onto a single crimp (or two different crimps) with both hands drains stamina more slowly than it would if you held on with just one hand and left the other hand free.
  
• On vertical sections of the overhang you may find that holds above you and slightly to the right are easier to reach with your left hand than your right hand.
  
• When the route diverges, it's best to pick the route with fewer leaps.
  
• Remember that vertical leaps are much safer than horizontal leaps.
  
• Un-learn crampons; practice leaping on swing momentum alone on other peaks.
  
• The majority of crimp holds on this peak will give you enough time to swing twice before jumping, so in places where you'll have to perform a long leap off a crimp, don't feel forced to leap away immediately. Focus on getting a solid swing first.

Short but treacherous. Features a very risky crux and a few very quick crimps scattered throughout the route. Best to take care of it early.

If you have unlocked permadeath modes, you are probably aware that Ymir is not as difficult as it seems. Once you get past the first 30 meters, the route becomes a series of vertical stretches, making it easy to recover from failed jumps (in most cases).

Risky bits:

• Several "inverted staircase" sections consisting of 3-4 rock shelves arranged like an upside-down staircase, each "step" featuring a single jug. Crampons won't help you with these, so you need to get good at using swing momentum to leap upwards. Some of these can be skipped by performing a wall-jump off a nearby wall and towards the nearest hold above the inverted staircase. It isn't that much safer than climbing the stairs one by one, but at least it's a viable alternative in case your upward swing leaps aren't consistent enough.
  
• A long jump over a chasm, towards a sloper, near the end of "The Chalk Road", right after a horizontal traverse on pitch rocks under an overhang that looks like the underside of a kitchen hood. Failing this jump is certain death. Once you reach the end of the overhang, it will seem like you are forced to make an awkward crampon jump backwards and slightly to the left (at approx. 8 o'clock, so to speak). Doing that will likely get you killed, so instead, look up and to the right - you will notice two more holds on the outer side of the overhang that will put you in a much better position to make the leap to the other side of the chasm.
  
• Vertical descents over a set of crimps - count the holds during practice and be careful not to miss the last one during your FS run!

I'm ranking it 4th only because I'm convinced 10-pt crampons are required to skip a blind jump at ~100m, and to unlock those you need to climb 3 advanced peaks. If you can consistently pull it off with 6pt crampons in normal mode, feel free to climb St Haelga earlier, because The Nose is still risky AF and the sooner it's dealt with, the better.

Challenging bits:

• A blind jump at ~100m, above a horizontal traverse over a sheer rock face. If you miss, you die, so it's best to avoid it altogether. To skip it, you will have to make a very long upward jump, from a sloper to the couloir directly above you. 10pt crampons are recommended, and it will likely take 2 additional, well-timed crampon jumps to reach it. Using ice axe swings to gain some extra momentum (if you have unlocked them already) is an option.
  
• The slopers at the very beginning of "The Nose" - extensive practice recommended. The correct jump angles are very odd and recovery from a botched jump is basically impossible.
  
• The first hold on the overhang section of "The Nose". It's a jug located directly overhead at the end of a line of crimps past the slopers from the previous point. This hold is rather tricky to reach, but can be skipped. Just make a crampon jump towards the nearest sloper instead.

The only advanced peak with a nice and cushy layer of water underneath (except for the very first vertical stretch of the route, and some places on the 2nd and 3rd spires).

Tricky spots:

• On the first spire, skip the jump onto a vertical, completely overgrown root. It's very easy to get your hands stunned by the shrubs and fall to your death. Instead, get a good swing at the base of the marked root (so that you're close to the wall) and use your crampons mid-air to get on top of the rock it's hanging from. Then crampon jump + arm-spam to reach the long sloper on the other side.
  
  
  
• Be careful on spires 2 and 3 as they tend to spread out at the base, and you might die on contact with the slope rather than safely slide down into the sea.
  
• At the base of the third spire, you will encounter overgrown holds that aren't within your arm's reach and must be leaped to. Although leaping at shrubbery is a bad idea, these particular holds can be cleared rather safely because you will have to jump straight up. So, as soon as you jump, extend one of your arms to knock down some shrubs on your way up (stunning this arm in the process). Then, as your upwards momentum runs out, extend the other arm to grab the freshly cleaned part of the hold on your way down.
  
  
• The "Nesting Pass" crux (third spire) is the only place where rushing is the best strategy. Birds will attack you anyway as soon as you enter, and the holds are placed densely enough to almost guarantee that you won't fall too far if a bird successfully strikes you.

I'm yet to attempt these in Free Solo myself, so I can't offer any advice.