Chris Weidner Wicked Gravity
Alex Honnold and I shared a table at the Trident Cafe on Pearl Street. I ordered a double espresso. He had water.
"Soloing goes with being a total loser," he told me at the time, back in 2007. "I have no social skills. You show up at a crag with no friends and you do your thing."
Free-soloing climbing alone, no ropes, no gear made sense to Alex from the beginning. He was 19 when his father (and sole belayer) died from a heart attack. "All of a sudden I had the opportunity," he said.
"Do you think you'll free-solo El Cap?" I asked (I recorded our conversation for a climbing magazine profile).
"No," he replied. But then a smile betrayed him, and his eyes grew wide. "I mean, I think I'd love to someday because like, how rad would that be?" He sounded giddy. "I mean, that would be so cool! You could probably climb it in four hours."
A decade later, on June 3, he did exactly that. Well ... just about.
It took precisely three hours and 56 minutes for Alex to free-solo Freerider (5.12d, 3,000 feet) on El Capitan an ascent that has been called not only the greatest achievement in rock climbing, but a mental performance that transcends climbing, sports and even our imagination.
That he predicted his time within four minutes 10 years ago astounds me. It also reminds me that Alex has been fantasizing about and, later, obsessively planning, the world's boldest climb for a long time.
Free-soloing is simple, minimal. It's like an extension of Alex's personality. He shuns caffeine and alcohol. He eats a vegetarian diet. He owns relatively few possessions. He donates a full third of his income to humanitarian and environmental causes.
And he's critical of anyone who doesn't share his uncompromising views. For Alex, it's all or nothing. Just like he climbs.
Filmmaker Jimmy Chin embraces Alex Honnold moments after he safely topped out El Capitan. (Sam Crossley / Courtesy photo)
In mid-November 2016 he left the ground on Freerider, intending to free-solo the entire route. A few hundred feet up, on an insecure move, he hesitated. Five seconds passed they must have felt like minutes then he grabbed a bolt. I'm not into this, he thought, before retreating down fixed lines.
The next day he told me his foot had "felt weird" from a recent ankle sprain (when, roped, he had slipped off near where he had bailed.). The camera crews had added unwanted pressure, distracting him. "It needs to be more my thing instead of such a f***ing junk show, you know?"
For as much flak as Alex gets for having a so-called "death wish," he's the most calculated climber I've known. He broods over details of an important ascent to the point of infatuation. He admits to being "somewhere on the autism spectrum."
In a June 5 article for outsideonline.com, Tommy Caldwell wrote, "I don't claim to understand the inner workings of Alex's mind, but I know one thing for certain: Alex climbs to live, not to cheat death."
At 5:32 a.m. on June 3, Alex, again, set off by himself up Freerider wearing pants and a T-shirt with a light hoody tied around his waist. In his pockets he carried a chocolate chip Zbar and his iPhone, which shuffled "gnarly hate rock tracks" from bands like Sum 41 and Godsmack.
By all accounts, Alex locked into his signature headspace: poised, unflappable. He climbed as if his toes and fingertips were magnetically attracted to El Cap's smooth granite.
Two thousand feet up the wall he flowed through Freerider's hardest moves a tenuous section he had rehearsed ad nauseam. He said he felt "slightly tense" but "surprisingly good."
Above this, his pace exploded. He practically ran up vertical cracks and corners, oblivious to the paralyzing exposure, and into the limelight.
"What's next?" people always ask him.
The short answer is: solitude. He has already escaped to the Ruth Glacier in central Alaska to attempt a major first free (not free-solo) ascent. Though, for once, he's more psyched to relax than to climb.
"I hope the weather's bad the whole time," he said, only half-joking. "I'm stoked to read my books and just disappear."
Contact Chris Weidner at cweidner8@gmail.com
Read more here:
Chris Weidner: The outrageous simplicity of Alex Honnold, the world's boldest climber - Boulder Daily Camera
