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.

Royal Robbins (1935-2017)

One of the great pioneers in rock climbing has gone: Royal Robbins died yesterday in Modesto, California after a long illness at the age of 82 years. “My father faced challenges in his climbing, his writing, his business, his role as a father and husband, and later in life in his debilitating illness,” said his daughter Tamara Robbins. “Through it all, he rose to the occasion, taking the challenges on with grace and humility. For that, he’s my hero.” In the late 1950s and 1960s, Robbins had set standards in bigwall climbing.

Legendary routes

Robbins in the “Salathé” in 1961

Robbins opened numerous routes on the granite walls of the Yosemite National Park, among others, along with Tom Frost and Chuck Pratt, the legendary 1,000-meter-high “Salathé Wall” on El Capitan, which was then considered to be the most difficult rock climbing route through a big wall. Robbins fought for a clean climbing style. In 1995, Alexander Huber, the younger of the Huber brothers, managed the first red-point ascent of the route, means free and lead climbing, in a single push. The “American Direct” on the west side of the Petit Dru in the Mont Blanc region, which Robbins opened in 1962 with Gary Hemming, is nothing more than history. After several rockfalls, the legendary original route no longer exists in the upper part.

Hunger for adventure

In the 1970s, Robbins increasingly suffered from arthritis. He then turned to extreme kayaking. Here, too, he managed numerous first descends. “I love it very much, and it is very rewarding, but I am first, last, and always a climber,” Robbins once said. “I will climb until I drop, and it would be the last thing I would give up.” Later, Robbins also led a very successful company for outdoor textiles bearing his name. In the heart, however, the entrepreneur always remained an adventurer: “We need adventure. It’s in our blood. It will not go away,” wrote Robbins. “The mountains will continue to call because they uniquely fulfill our need for communion with nature, as well as our hunger for adventure.”

Adam Ondra cheered after his success

What a hotshot! The 23-year-old Czech Adam Ondra succeeded his free climb through the mostly vertical, partly overhanging “Dawn Wall” in the granite of El Capitan within only eight days. It was the only second free ascent of the rock route, which is regarded as the most difficult in the world. At the beginning of 2015, the Americans Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson had “freed” the “Dawn Wall” after 19 days in the approximately 900-meter-high wall, a milestone of climbing history. They had been preparing for it for more than seven years. Ondra spent just two and a half weeks on El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. Kevin Jorgeson finds the success of the young Czech “totally badass”, as he wrote to the magazine “Rock and Ice”: “For Tommy and I, the question was whether it was even possible. We left lots of room to improve the style and Adam did just that! Super impressive that he was able to adapt to the Dawn Wall’s unique style and sort out so many complex sequences so quickly.” The German climbing scene is also thrilled.

“As if Bolt had won the marathon”

Climbing also in the night

Alexander Huber, aged 47, the younger of the Huber brothers, writes to me, that Ondra’s performance “equates to his ability: masterly, brilliant”. Alexander’s older brother values Adam’s success in a similar way. “This is the statement of the new generation per se,” tells me Thomas Huber (who, by the way, celebrated his 50th birthday on Friday last week): “For me it is the greatest achievement in climbing of our times. Now the bar is high!” Stefan Glowacz is also blown away. “I’ve been climbing for more than 40 years, but this performance is simply unbelievable,” writes the 51-year-old on Facebook. “It is amazing to see how the young generation catapult climbing into ever new dimensions that were hardly thought possible hitherto.” Ondra’s performance is “a kind of fusion of passion, obsession and extraordinary ability, but above all, an unprecedented mental performance,” says Glowacz, pointing out that it was Adam Ondra’s first big wall experience: “Somewhere I read this comparison: It is as if Usain Bolt had won the marathon race too.”

“Dawn Wall” within in 24 hours?

For years already, experts believe Adam Ondra to be the world’s best sports climber. During his climb of the “Dawn Wall” on El Capitan, he was accompanied by his countryman Pavel Blazek and the Austrian photographer Heinz Zak. Ondra led all 32 pitches ofthe route. “The first two days I was as nervous as a cat,” Adam said in an interview with the Czech climbing website emontana. In his words climbing the two key pitches (No. 14 and 15) was “like holding razor blades. But apart from them there are the pitches which I consider to belong among the best ones I have ever climbed.” It is quite possible that Ondra will soon be back on the route. “I would love to climb it a lot faster than this time”, says Adam, putting the bar high: “I think climbing ‘Dawn Wall’ in 24 hours is a nice challenge. It won´t be my ambition for the next year, that´s what I am sure of. I would like to take a mental rest for a few seasons but it would be interesting as a dream for life.” As absurd as this dream may sound, this hotshot could really do it.

They did it: Caldwell (l.) and Jorgeson

A milestone in the granite of El Capitan in Yosemite! After 19 days the US climbers Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson reached the top of the extremely difficult, about 900-meter-high Dawn Wall after having climbed it free for the first time. They made climbing history. “I hope it inspires people to find their own Dawn Wall, if you will. We’ve been working on this thing a long time, slowly and surely”, 30-year-old Jorgesan said according to the New York Times. “I think everyone has their own secret Dawn Wall to complete one day, and maybe they can put this project in their own context.” As reported, it had taken Kevin seven days alone to master the extremely difficult 15th of 32 pitches of the route. “I think the larger audience’s conception is that we’re thrill seekers out there for an adrenaline rush. We really aren’t at all. It’s about spending our lives in these beautiful places and forming these incredible bonds”, 36-year-old Caldwell said. “For me, I love to dream big, and I love to find ways to be a bit of an explorer.” Tommy is climbing with only nine full fingers. In 2001 while working with a table saw, he accidentally cut off a part of his left index finger.

Alexander Huber: “Great performance!”

Alexander Huber

“The press tends to use terms like ‘the climb of the century’”, the German top climber Alexander Huber points out, whom I asked to assess the performance of the two US climbers in the Dawn Wall. “Of course we can not know what else will happen in the remaining 85 years of the century. So, if you look at it objectively, the term is exaggerated.” Nevertheless, the younger of the two Huber brothers is delighted. “The route is definitely the most difficult alpine rock climbing route in the world. In this regard, all I can say is: Hats off! Great performance!”, says the 46-year-old.

In 1970, the legendary Warren Harding and Dean Caldwell (no relation to Tommy) had opened the route via the Dawn Wall in 27 days. They used more than 300 bolts, what led to some criticism in the climbing community at that time.

Tommy Caldwell (l.) in the Dawn Wall

It’s easy to jump on a train that is already standing in the station. However, the climbing train of Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson is still rolling. Pull by pull by pull towards the summit of the legendary granite rock El Capitan in Yosemite Valley. Since 27 December, for two weeks and a half now, the two Americans climb and hang in the 900-meter-high, mostly vertical, partly overhanging “Dawn Wall” – so named, because the South-East face of El Cap catches the first sunrays in the morning. Caldwell and Jorgeson are well on the way to free climbing the extremely challenging big wall for the first time. Means: They only use ropes, bolts, nuts or friends to avoid falling, not for climbing. Actually, don’t count your chickens before they hatch. But in this special case I do it and and take my hat off to Tommy and Kevin by now.

Without falling after eleven attempts

Most experts indicate that 36-year-old Caldwell and 30-year-old Jorgeson overcame the biggest difficulties of the wall. It took Jorgeson seven days alone to get past the challenges of pitch 15 (of 32) of the route. After eleven attempts he was finally able to climb that passage without falling. Caldwell had done it a few days earlier and waited patiently until his buddy mastered the extremely challenging part of the route too.

“It was such an intense and incredible thing to witness”, Tommy wrote on Facebook. Kevin was on the limit: “It took everything in my power to stay positive and resolved that I would succeed.” Now the happy end is within reach: Caldwell and Jorgeson are expected to climb up to the top of the wall at some point between Thursday and Sunday.

Thomas Huber:  “Crazy”

Thomas Huber

“I hope they are lucky with the weather”, German top climber Thomas Huber writes to me. He and his brother Alexander added many highlights to climbing in Yosemite. Thomas is following enthusiastically the progress of the two Americans: “Really crazy! I would be so pleased if they are able to complete their life project. Eight years!!!!! This is motivation!” That is how long Caldwell and Jorgeson worked for their dream to “free” the Dawn Wall. It was first climbed in 1970: The legendary Warren Harding and Dean Caldwell (no relation to Tommy) needed 28 days to succeed by aid climbing. It says everything about the difficulty of the route.

User joins climbing

Kevin Jorgeson (l.) is happy – and is filmed

This act of pioneering work on El Capitan already caused a sensation in the USA at that time, not only in the climbing scene. Today the whole world can visit Yosemite digitally. Almost daily Caldwell and Jorgeson post pictures and short texts on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, in addition videos of their climb (see above) are published on YouTube. “That’s up to you”, Thomas Huber replies to my question, what he thinks about the intense media coverage of the project. “I’m on Facebook too, but I wouldn’t blog continually during an adventure such as this. In this regard I prefer old fashion.  I think, for marketing  it is even better to make people curious and to edit everything perfectly when it’s done. And then … Boooom!”

P.S.: If you want to follow the Dawn Wall Live Stream of gripped.com, here is the link.