Alex Honnold

At the latest since today, Alex Honnold knows what is the opposite of free solo: The “Press Walk” of the International Mountain Summit. The 32-year-old can neither move freely nor is he alone. On the Plose, the home mountain of Bressanone in South Tyrol, about sixty reporters, camera men and photographers are bustling around the American top climber. “Crazy,” says the 32-year-old with a smile in his face. Since 3 June, his name resounds not only throughout insiders of the climbing scene but worldwide. On that day he pushed into a new dimension. Alex succeeded the first free solo – means climbing alone and without any rope – through the legendary 900-meter-high granite wall of El Capitan in the Yosemite Valley. He climbed via the route “Freerider”, which had been opened by Alexander Huber in 1995 and had been free climbed for the first time by Alexander and his brother Thomas in 1998. For comparison, the ascent with ropes for belaying had taken the Huber brothers more than 15 hours.

Modern nomad

Up for every fun

Alex Honnold does not correspond to the stereotype of an extreme climber. He wears his hair short, does not drink alcohol, does not smoke and is a vegetarian. For many years he has been living as a modern nomad, quite modest in a mobile home which he uses to drive from rock wall to rock wall. For five years, he has been supporting with his foundation environmental projects around the world. Despite his coup on the El Capitan, he does not show any airs and graces.

Already during the ascent to the mountain restaurant Rossalm, where the organizers of the IMS have scheduled a press conference with Honnold, I manage to ask Alex some questions – according to the motto “walk and talk”.

Alexander and Thomas Huber as well as Tommy Caldwell compared your free solo on El Capitan with the first moon landing. How did you personally feel after having completed your project?

I found it similar. As a younger person I dreamt that would be the craziest thing I’ve ever done. But then, as I actually did it, I felt relatively normal because I spent so much time preparing that it felt like reasonable. I mean it was really special to me, but did feel like relatively normal. Anyway it’s complicated. I wouldn’t have been able to do something like that if I didn’t make it feel normal. But at the same time climbing El Cap without rope feels pretty crazy.

Alex Honnold: Pretty crazy

Was there any moment of doubt during your climb?

No, I was just 100 percent climbing. I wouldn’t have started without being totally committed. I spent a lot of time working on it. I spent nine years actually dreaming about it.

Many people wonder whether free solo climbs are responsible, especially this one in a 900-meter-high, extremely steep wall. What do yo answer them?

I thought it was responsible. I was going to make good decisions, doing my best. I think I’m pretty intentional about the risks that I’m going to take.

Alex Honnold: Intentional about the risks

Was it for you a kind of life project?

For me, it was very much like a life dream, definitely the biggest inspiration in my whole life.

Climbers on El Capitan

After having fulfilled this long dream, did you have to go through a mental valley?

I don’t know. If so, I am in the valley right now, because it was only a couple of months ago and I am still a sort of processing and looking for my next inspiration, what my next project is. There is a film about it coming next year. I am still talking about El Cap all the time. It doesn’t feel like the past.

You did a lot of amazing climbs before this free solo, for example the Fitz Traverse along with Tommy Caldwell. For this climb in Patagonia in February 2014, you were later awarded the Piolet d’Or, the “Oscar of the climbers”. How do you value the free solo on El Capitan if you compare it with the Fitz Traverse.

I mean, the Fitz Traverse was an amazing climbing experience, because it was with Tommy. He is a great friend, a great partner. The Fitz Traverse has never been like my big lifetime dream whereas freerider was something I was thinking about for years and years. Freerider was my personal private dream, the Fitz Traverse was more Tommy’s idea, because I had never been in Patagonia so I didn’t have any special agenda. Tommy said, we should do this. Then we did and it was an amazing experience, but I hadn’t built it up ahead that time.

What exactly did you to prepare for your free solo on El Capitan?

For many years beforehand it was more the mental, the imagining, the dreaming, the thinking about whether it was possible. And the last year beforehand, it was more the physical preparation, memorizing the moves, the rehearsal, and the actual training to get fit.

So you had every step of this climb in your mind before you started into the wall?

I had definitely every step that matters. Not the easy stuff, but the hard stuff I had fully memorized.

What was mentally the most difficult part of the climb?

Probably the biggest step was just believing that it’s possible. Because for years I thought how amazing it would be to do it but never really thought that I could. So I think the biggest mental step was like believing that I actually could and then starting the actual work.

Alex Honnold: The biggest step

And when you set off into the wall, you left everything behind?

I wouldn’t have started unless I was ready. By the time I got into the wall everything was in order.

“Compared with El Cap, the Dolomites look like pieces of garbage”, says Alex

Why did you choose “Freerider” and not another route?

It’s the easiest route on El Cap. (laughs) It’s not that easy but the other ones would have been harder.

Thomas Huber told me, he hoped that you would now stop free soloing because you probably die if you continue to push your limits.

I agree, if you constantly push, it gets more and more dangerous. But Alex (Huber), for example, was constantly pushing himself in different ways but staying safe. I think it’s possible to continue the challenge yourself without going to far.

Alex Honnold: Not going too far

So it was not your last free solo?

No, I did some in the Dolomites a couple of days ago, (laughs) but very easy ones. I think in my mind the free solo on El Cap was the hardest thing ever, because I can’t really think about anything more inspiring. But in the past, like in the last ten years, when I thought of things that were hard and I was proud of, I always had six months or a year between things that I was excited on. So we’ll see.

Peter Habeler

Even aged 75, he appears to be a rascal. Good-humored, always good for a joke, the laugh lines on his face – and fit as a fiddle. “Climbing is my fountain of youth,” says Peter Habeler. The Tyrolean from the Zillertal is still climbing through steep walls. Shortly before his big birthday even through the Eiger North Face, along with David Lama, in winter. “It was something very special for me,” Peter tells me as we hike below the peaks of the Geisler group in the Villnöss Valley in the South Tyrolean Dolomites. “Many years ago, I discovered David’s talent when he did his first climbing as a little boy in my alpine school in the Zillertal. I saw that he would become a great climber.” Today Lama is one of the best climbers in the world. “When I climbed behind him in the Eiger North Face and watched how easily and smoothly he mastered even the most difficult passages, I felt like I was back in time when I myself was still young,” says Peter.

“I did not want to die at Everest”

The Villnöss Valley with the Geisler group

The hike with Habeler is part of the program of the International Mountain Summit in Bressanone. The fact that we are en route in the Villnöss Valley fits: Finally Reinhold Messner grew up there, and the South Tyrolean gained his initial experiences as a climber on the peaks of the Geisler group. Along with Messner, Habeler celebrated his most famous successes. In 1975, they scaled for the first time an eigth-thousander in Alpine style – without bottled oxygen, high camps, fixed ropes and Sherpa support: Gasherbrum I in Pakistan. Three years later, in 1978, they succeeded their greatest coup, the first ascent of Mount Everest without breathing mask. Next year marks the 40th anniversary of this pioneering achievement. At that time he was temporarily doubtful, admits Habeler, especially when Messner and two Sherpas had just barely survived a heavy storm on the South Col: “I really didn’t want to die on Everest. I wanted to stay healthy and get home.” After all, his first son, Christian, had just been born.

Restlessness before the descent

Habeler (r.) and Messner (in 1975)

When he and Messner finally reached the summit at 8,850 meters on 8 May 1978, it was “a very emotional moment,” Habeler recalls, “even though I no longer know what exactly I felt at the time. I only know that I was afraid. I was very restless because I wanted to go down. I thought: Oops, how can I get down the Hillary Step, without belaying? We had noticed on the ascent that the snow was there in a bad condition. I feared a step could break off and I would fall into the depth. But somehow it worked.”

Highlight Kangchenjunga

“We were lucky”

After returning home, he was surprised by the enormous media response, says Habeler: “It was a real hype.” For him, however, Everest without breathing mask was not the highlight of his career on the eight-thousanders, due to his doubts, says Peter. “My personal highlight was definitely the ascent of Kangchenjunga in Alpine style with Carlos Buhler and Martin Zabaleta in 1988. At that time I was in my best shape. On the summit day, I climbed ahead to the highest point because I was faster than the other two and the weather was getting worse and worse.” The descent turned to be dramatic, says Habeler: “We were lucky to survive.” His success on the third-highest mountain on earth (8,586 meters) was his fifth and last on an eight-thousander.

Like a via ferrata

“We will have fun”

The 75-year-old shakes his head about what is currently happening on the highest mountains in the world. “No mountain can stand too many people. If there are a thousand people in the base camp and 540 of them want to set off during a single good weather window, I feel uneasy about it. That’s not my way of climbing mountains. Today Everest is a chained mountain – even K 2 too. It’s almost like a via ferrata.” Next spring, Habeler will return to Mount Everest, along with his companions of 1978 who are still alive. “There will be quite a hustle and bustle on Everest. But we will definitely have a lot of fun,” the eternal rascal rejoices and grins from ear to ear.