Alex Honnold: A Soul Freed

so it's uh it's a privilege to be here it's a privilege to share the stage with with Alex I just want to begin by saying this is actually a historic occasion although most of you don't know this and you certainly don't know this Alex obviously is like one of the most badass climbers in the world and and I'm a hypochondriac so on stage for the one and only time the world's most fearless man and the world's most fearful man so it's a good pairing I hope so I just want to very quickly get a sense of the audience just so that we know who were who were who we're talking to raise your hands if you've seen from solo or read alone on the wall okay so you're you're you're in a room full of fans raise your hands if you are rock climbers okay raise your hands if you have free soloed one two okay awesome now but but raise your hand if you ski because that's way more dangerous I'm just the sign so this is what I was gonna ask raise your hands if you consider yourself in some aspect of your life no matter what you do you consider yourself a risk taker okay that's cuz they all ski oh yeah I just don't know they're risk takers right alright so so what I wanted to do was really sort of think about you know questions of risk questions about youryour process and in preparation I know when I was reading alone on the wall you were describing your climb of moonlight buttress here first I guess it was 2008 your first your first free soul of what you did by yourself kind of not telling anyone right yeah the most solace have been by myself except for the notable exception of making a movie about free soloing but for the most part free soloing is totally by yourself but you just didn't tell you didn't tell a soul you were gonna do it no the whole my whole experience I mean that but just moonlight was one of the first big free soul is that I didn't there's sort of at the beginning of becoming a professional climber and getting you know sponsored by companies and things like that but um but the whole process took me less than a week I mean I basically showed up in Zion National Park spent a couple days working the route then it rained a little bit so I had to rest and then I did the climb and so it's pretty you know it's a pretty contained experience so one of the things you wrote it what and and to be fair I mean it's pre smartphone I didn't have that many friends you know there's nobody really to tell about it you know it didn't like there's no you know I mean I was living in car by myself and I just you know you don't have great cell service and you don't many friends it's like it's just like do you have like dog tags in case you fall and just people cannot figure people will find my flip phone and figure it out no it's just uh yeah just I don't know yeah I didn't really think about it so one of the things you read about the climb is I was very struck by this right I was 100% certain I would not fall off and that certainty is what kept me from falling off can you just talk about that sense of certainty that you need to decline like that yeah I mean I think that the sentence kind of gets to the heart of resoling in some ways which is that at the base of it there has to be a self-confidence there has to be a real confidence that you can't do the thing that you're setting out to do and I think that you know the only way that it really works out is if you can maintain that confidence throughout I mean you know basically if you get scared while free soloing it all starts to crumble a little bit you start to not trust your feet you don't wait them as well they're much more likely to slip I mean basically everything can kind of spiral negatively whereas if you can you know if you're 100 percent confident you can do the thing and then you go up and you climb at your best then you know then you do actually do it so though actually the that still needs to be based upon I mean you do actually have to be able to do the climb and that's why I had and that's why I had practiced ahead of time the thing is basically I had done it on a rope many times you know over the preceding couple days I'd gone up and down it by myself on a rope several times I knew that I could do it and so with the same kind of confidence that they you know you know that you can walk across that table without falling off you're like I know that I can walk down a sidewalk without falling and and then you just go and execute it so that's what does it mean you were confident or had you memorized the route how much preparation did that that's 800 feet right how much did that take well so that particular route is a very straightforward style it's basically a one-inch crack that just runs forever so so it's the kind of thing that if you have the fitness for it you know if you don't get too fatigued your muscles don't get too tired then it feels pretty safe the whole way and so I didn't exactly memorize all the moves cuz you don't really have to because you just put your fingers in the crack and just crank on them but but I knew that I could do it so a few months later you do your first free solo of Half Dome which is like more than twice the height it's it's 2,000 feet or so yeah correct and you're 150 feet from the summit and you you kind of freaked out so what happened there that hadn't happened on moonlight was that that's yeah sad sad story everybody settle in for a sad long story so I mean in a lot of ways it was the opposite experience from moonlight and the thing about moonlight is that there's had many of you guys been to Zion not from Park I mean have you guys all hiked up angels landing or hiked up moonlight it's one of the most beautiful hikes in the country but um but there's a paved trail that goes all the way to the summit of moonlight buttress so it's you know takes maybe 40 minutes to stroll to the summit with a bunch of ropes to rappel down and work on the climb so it's really straightforward to work by yourself Half Dome is the opposite end of the spectrum because it's it's a 2,000 face but it's also 2500 feet above the valley floor so you're doing almost 5,000 feet of vertical to get to the top and then because it's 2,000 foot wall it's not really that you know I didn't know I don't own that much rope you know especially back then you know I didn't really know how you prepare something of that scale because it's just so big and then you know as some of my friends would be willing to climb the route with me but but not really more than one so I don't have that many friends and it's you don't want to burn through partners climbing the route over and over do you have friends I have more friends now it's business would you like friends no you know anyone want to be Alex's friend no I'm good I'm good with partners now but the the intervening 10 years have been good to me but but at the time I was you know it was all a little more grim but so but so the point with Half Dome was that it really because I didn't quite know how to do the prep prep work for it I didn't really know how to how to practice so I sort of intentionally and actually so the physical rating on Half Dome technically it's easier than than moonlight the climb we were talking about before so the combination not really knowing how to prepare for it but then also thinking that well technically you know physically it is easier so this should be fine I decided to take a different approach which was to keep it a little more adventurous and just sort of rise to the occasion you know go up there and do my best and see how it goes and and you know that's obviously it didn't didn't go that well but you know I thought that it would be you know can go that well because you got a little lost on the route well yeah I got a little lost on the route I mean so so I've done the bare minimum prep work which is climbing climbing the whole face with a friend of mine two days before with the rope so I knew that I knew roughly where to go and I knew that I could do it and then I took a rest ass out my Carl there thinking about it trying to you know get psyched and then the next I hiked up there by myself did the climb but didn't totally know where to go at the last second kind of made an impromptu decision to bypass one of the sections that I found with the rope before so that involved climbing this whole section of the wall that I'd actually never been on so you know you're a thousand feet off the ground kind of wondering if you're out for being like oh this is this seems unfamiliar like I hope I can find my way back you know and so and the the climb wound up taking me almost three hours I think was 250 and so at the time especially I mean that's still a long time but it's she then that was a really long time for me to be fully focused and you know out there like that it was much but can I interrupt you for small question how important is speed for free soloing it's saying seems to me that speed aids because concentration wanes is that right yeah I mean that's sort of true but I actually never intentionally try to go quickly I mean I always keep track of my time because I I care about that kind of thing I like setting speed records I think it's fun and you know it's cool but um but I'm never trying to climb fast mostly when I've done big free SOLAS they've wound up being speed records sort of as a byproduct of the fact that I don't have a partner I don't have to wait for you know I mean typically when you find one person goes waits for the other and you kind of take turns the whole way so it's relatively slow you know so I mean the timing when you're free soloing just winds up being a lot faster just because you're not waiting for your partner you don't have the way to the rope hanging off you you don't have all the gear on you it just winds up being a little bit quicker but I'm but I'm never trying to go fast and I think that overall it's safer to take your time and let your concentration I don't know I mean it's a balance because yeah obviously your concentration starts to fade over time but you definitely don't want be hurrying up there either because then you make a careless mistake and fall to your death so when you have those five minutes of of panic like how do you work your way out of that yes tell me what what Brett's mentioning is that the whole half term that means to bring up your most disgraceful moment as a climber that's far from my worst we here we can get to my worst moments later but no so uh yet towards the top of Half Dome is the actual physical crux of the route and by then you know I was two and a half hours into this whole experience my mind was starting to fray it was all kind of going south and and then yeah I got to a part that was actually quite scary and I didn't know what to do and so then I spend it probably isn't five minutes though it's probably 30 seconds you know but it feels like a lifetime of saying there's think you know my god I'm about to die I don't know what to do my foots gonna slip I know you know oh no it's all coming apart but the reality is I mean you're standing on these tiny tiny little edges and your calves are slowly getting pumped and so you know what feels like a long time is probably probably 30 seconds and then you make of a decision and keep moving since you know I kind of had to since you can't just stand there and so your climb of Half Dome I think was what started to make you well known outside of the climbing community there was a famous picture of you on what's it called think that yeah thank God led you on thank God ledge on the cover of National Geographic endorsements started rolling and money started rolling people wanted to make films about you money didn't quite start them okay but but eventually I started to make a living yeah well at least sponsorships right yeah I know that's true but actually most of my main sponsors had sort of happened right before then yeah and then that kind of solidified the fact that I could now well let's get to I mean let's get to the part where where people start filming you one of the things you write which crack me up in the book is I think you're in Borneo or Indonesia somewhere and someone's filming you and you say the experience is like being told you know dance monkey like all of a sudden like you've got a you've got to perform so now you're not just climbing for the sake of the climb for the sake of speed or whatever it is you're climbing for a whole team that has a set of expectations just how does that but what do you have to do to prepare mentally and physically for the fact that you're now not just a climber or an athlete or a performer yes interesting I mean so so that kind of crept up over the years I mean there definitely wasn't a point where I went from feeling like a climber to suddenly feeling like a performer it's more like you know one day every couple months you have a day where you have to go out and perform and then you know and that never really bothered me because you know I mean we all have to to work somehow to support ourselves and I'm like I don't mind working on the rock sometimes I mean I'd much rather work while climbing then then I'm now you know I don't really have an education or any other skills I'm like I'd much rather be climbing and like land brick or like roofing or something you know like I don't you know and so I mean from that perspective I'm like this is this is not a bad gig you know like I mean I like I like climbing so but I mean you're right though that it does sort of change the experience a little bit I mean particularly with the free soloing I mean it's a little bit of a weird area because you know if you're risking your life for a camera like a bit of a weird thing though typically I mean if we really feel like diving into if we're having a chat let's have a chat oh this is all recorded though huh oh yeah yeah yeah that guy just to give it thumbs up in the back yeah but this is recorded yeah but so I mean most most filming is posed after the fact anyway and so the filming on half dome the photos thank God ledge things like that those were all taken later you know when you just come back to the same climb you rappel into position yuri climb certain sections is that true free soul oh no no that's not true free soloing that's why i wanted to cut him e work yeah what no honestly but that was a huge distinction for me personally was because you know i had done a lot of filming and a lot of photography up to them i mean so I've also done a lot of work for brands you know I'm sponsored by by many different companies and and it's totally common in the outdoor world to go out and do a photo shoot you know you choose some interesting-looking a piece of rock you climb it over and over you take nice pictures you get the you know beautiful body positions the the photographer tells you you know the best way to look on the rock and you just do it you just go out and like shoot for the day you know free solo is sort of my first experience where they were actually just filming what I did for two years and and in some ways it was actually slightly annoying to me because I would have prefered having more guidance more direction because not that I'm calling Jimmy chin a bad director but but um you know where it's rife joy but the thing about it is that are there any scenes in the movie that you're embarrassed by oh yeah there are plenty of unflattering seasons in the film yeah I mean you've seen it right three times yeah yeah yeah no no I mean wait hang on does anyone think there's a single unflattering scene in the entire movie no are you guys no have you seen the film no I mean there are whole sections that I find horrifying but for example well the I mean my whole relationship you're just like oh that's [Applause] though I mean it's it's hard we're like wandering into it in the interesting terrain I mean the the tough thing with that was because we started dating basically right when the film we're right when they started filming with me so a lot of the the lines in the film where I'm talking about my girlfriend and we're still together things are gray it's not Sunny's great yeah I'll tell her you applauded a show a show I did their recordings oh yeah oh yeah perfect I hope she's not watching no but so many of the things that I say about her in the beginning of the film were things that I said about a woman that I just started dating were a couple weeks into a relationship where like two months into relationship she hadn't really started climbing at that point she was climbing you know very casually so I have a lot of lines in the film where like oh she's not really a climber like we'll see how this plays out you know I'm not really that invested you know but it's like oh it's like casually dating somebody new you know now fast forward three and a half years later you're like it's slightly embarrassing to see that stuff it's all I'm saying did you like I could I could have phrased things a little nicer a little more nicely but you must have felt you always had an option to just leave your personal life out of the film why did you choose to keep it in I don't know I mean I I never really felt that was an option I mean basically from the beginning I sort of just committed 100% of the project and you know I trusted the filmmakers that trusted and Chester chai Vasarely and Jimmy Chen the co directors you know I've worked with worked with and climbed with Jimmy for years you know I know them I trust them and I believed in their process and I sort of if this is what you guys need I'll just you know and in some ways it's easier not to try to draw a line between that because I just did my thing for two years I just did exactly what I wanted to do and they hung out and filmed parts of it and then and I had no editorial control over the film at all I didn't you know I didn't I didn't even see it till the final draft and then you know I thought at the end I was like oh oh geez I guess you know but at the same time it's a totally honest film I mean I think they did actually did an incredible job of showing just the full picture are you surprised by what a mega-hit it's become yeah well I mean you know I don't know I'm partial to climbing foam so I was like I think it's pretty good but but no it is uh yeah it is surprising how well it's resonated with audiences things yeah but you've gone from being just simply like really admired in the climbing community in the world that knows it to being like famous and talked a little bit about sort of what it means to sort of just be well-known to be recognized and I'm guessing you're recognized all the time and airports restaurants how does it change you what does it improve and what does it take away yeah I mean we're in Aspen I feel like at least 15 people in this audience could come up and give the same answer you know you're like well you know I wear Paris to know yours oh yeah well why do the same things everybody else I pull my hoodie down I keep my no no it's just it's just one of those things I mean the way I look at it and yeah it has actually been crazy with the film being in public spaces is definitely a little little different being in airport it's like being in the subway in New York is gives me a lot of anxiety now because you get I mean as it is it's really kind of claustrophobic but then you wind up with like seven people staring at you like you feel like a hunted animal and you're like oh no and then you know you like to pull your hood a little deeper and you're like maybe I should exit you know maybe I'll connect the El train right now you know you're like it's all sort of yeah it's not ideal but at the same time you know I mean I made a bunch of choices that led to this you know I mean I agreed to pick a freaking film about myself obvious I'm not gonna complain that it wound up being too successful I'm like well you know I mean basically if you're gonna if you're gonna make a film I mean you want it to be the best possible film and I'm like well they did a good job so on that does it limit or expand your freedom I mean I mean a little bit of both you know in some ways that limits my freedom for sure I mean so I was just in you 70 this last month for for a few days on an off sort of in-between I've still been doing a lot of travel and events around the film and just a lot of work-related things you know obligation of sponsors and things and so I had basically for climbing of three climbing days in Yosemite with one day of hiking and so spread throughout a couple weeks which which in some ways is a little sad for me because I'm used to spending two months two and a half months just living in Yosemite with with nothing else going on and so the timer just came on and that does seem extremely distracting I feel like they're trying to hook us off the stage this is like the biggest numbers I've ever seen don't worry don't worry ignore the numbers we're going all night so so so the thing about about being in the valley this season was that all the places that I used to hang out all the trails that I don't know I mean it just it was a little too too crazy like I couldn't just like public spaces are you still free soloing I mean yeah from time to time I don't know nothing I haven't done any serious free soloing since the film I don't think but um but it's kind of where you draw that line I mean today I went bouldering and independence pass for those that live here no no the climbing I did a couple high ball Boulder problems that uh and one of them was pretty freakin high and getting to the top of the actual boulder is probably 25 feet off the ground it's all sort of mossy they were like like any I guess but slightly crumbly rock with lichen and now I've just like oh I haven't done this in a while it's kind of scary I was like I don't really want to fall 25 feet so so actually that brings me to my next question for me I don't know if this is true for most people but for me the single most moving moment in the film is your first free solo attempt I guess like October November 2016 and you start before dawn you're somewhere on one of the free blast slabs and you just stop and that and you decide you're not continuing you you write the fear I felt on the thin moves on free blast was telling me something I needed to heed the warning so what was that warning I mean you're gonna die I mean you know basically overwhelming fear just like oh no but I mean so that was so there's a specific move on the free bus laughs where you have to trust your full bodyweight to a right foot and I'd sprained that ankle pretty severely earlier in the season and my foot was still kind of swollen and my climbing shoes were really tight and you know it was early November so it's kind of cold out and it was dark just because of the way the timing is for that time of year and so you know I was like oh it's dark it's cold I can't feel my toe and I'm about to trust my life to standing on to the right toe or the big toe of my right foot and I can't feel it and it was just this obvious like this is like I should not be here like this is not for me but one aspect which after that you go back down and with obviously probably mixed emotions but then you really prepared the route and you learn things about the route that you didn't know before like variations yeah so and you also have like an insight which was that you were there to free solo El Cap not free solo free rider so tell us about how like that changes the experience yeah so Bret's referencing is sort of I had always felt like I was trying to free solo at the route that I had climbed with the rope because you know in some ways I felt slightly constrained in my vision of it because I'd climbed El Cap you know there many different routes on El Cap and there there's something like a hundred different routes and of those maybe fifteen or twenty of them can be free climbed which means climbing with just your hands and your feet like not using any artificial gear to pull your way upward free climbing is an important distinction from free soloing which means not using a rope and you're still using your bare hands and feet type deal but no rope either so of the 20 routes of El Cap or 15 routes of El Cap that can be free climbed the easiest one is is the free rider which is the one that the film is focused around and so I sort of felt like I had to free soul of that route and then over the years I sort of realized I don't really care which Redux resole I just want a free solo cap you know and so all of a sudden I started broadening my search quite a bit and swinging out far to the side of where you would normally climb with the rope and where you climbed the wall with the rope is sort of dictated by where the people did the first ascent and where they originally drilled the protection bolts so they're basically metal bolts in the wall that you normally clip your rope and do to protect you if you fall and so when the people you know basically row robbing sea monster gnar did the first ascent of that section of the wall in 1961 or 3 or something like basically early 1960s they chose a certain path and everyone else has kind of taken that path since then and it suddenly occurred to me that I don't really have to take that path I was like I'm not gonna be clipping a rope in anything anyway I'm gonna go wherever the heck I can find good holds and so I started searching with a much broader eye swinging all over the wall looking for other variations and so I wound up finding a couple ways to go around sections of the normal route that I felt safer doing maybe the best just felt like more secure and and yeah and so ultimately the route that I wound up climbing you know isn't exactly for your honor but it's it's pretty freakin close but you know few variations before your climb you had to debate with your friend Tommy Caldwell and who is opposed to free soloing and described it as ear spy in his own case irresponsible and disrespectful to his family and you said I understood his point of view but disagreed so why well yeah the thing about Tommy so Tommy and I it's not like one-one conversation we've had about this I mean we've talked about this all the time and Tommy and I have spent probably hundreds of hours hiking together hiking down from the top of El Cap hiking to other mountains you know we spent four days here on a sleeping bag together while climbing a thing in Patagonia so we've had a lot of cozy time to chat together and so and the thing is I mean he always he loves just to kind of play in the office like oh this bad influence and you know I'm the one free soloing and Tommy is all safe but Tommy and I basically do the same climbing I mean he doesn't explicitly free solo but we do the same things in the mountains we do the same thing speed climbing we basically climb and totally the same style except that you know except that he doesn't explicitly free solo but so we take roughly the same risks and in every other aspect of climbing you know we climb in very much the same way like when we're engaging in alpinism together when we're climbing big snowy mountains together we make the same decisions and we have the same threshold of safety and so and and while we've been climbing mountains together I mean he has done quite a bit of free soloing with a rope on meaning you know he technically is tied to a rope but he's just you know but I'm not belaying and let's say because I'm dealing with something else I'm like pulling the rappel line down I'm coiling things up I'm packing up our tent like whatever I'm dealing with other things and he's just going up the next section of the wall with the rope and so you know technically he's not free soloing but I'm he's not you know no one's gonna catch him if he falls it you know it's it's all a bit of a gray area sort of like well I don't know basically I just think that we all sort of make intentional decisions about how we manage risk in our climbing and I think it's I'm not gonna call it Tommy's my personal hero since I was a little kid I mean he's the man and you know and he's from Colorado he's awesome but you know it's slightly disingenuous to to say that you know like oh he's not taking a risk in his climbing but I am cuz I'm like you know in many a cyclists of her climbing we're taking all the same risks I'm just choosing to pursue this one style of climbing that he's not into and you know and I think that within free soloing specifically I try to minimize my risk as much as possible the same way that when when we're climbing mountains together we try to minimize our risk as much as possible I mean basically I think that we kind of have a very similar risk profile but mine is just extended into another aspect of climate me he's not understood so that's a very long convoluted way to say that you know I mean I think we're all just trying to make the best decisions that we can so you you well I have to ask this question is a stupid curiosity you listen to music on when you're climbing right yeah sometimes and and is it John Denver it's definitely not gender I don't even know no I don't know what that is I mean I've heard of John Denver it's I think it's before my dime who do you listen to unlike modern rock like punk type like it's just to pump you up yeah that's all I've listened to in general really is it sort of like to just blare out the noise of your own no no and that's actually the key thing is I only listen to music when I'm climbing a really easy train when when I don't need to be fully focused I actually prefer silence if I if what I'm doing matters you you you get to the top of El Cap June 5th 2017 you actually look happy 3rd June 13 3rd writing the record for the recording its oh thanks for the correction remember you're on the phone with the sana you're saying I'm so delighted how long does that sense of satisfaction actually last I mean pretty pretty long actually I mean I was I was smiling a lot for the whole week afterward and then even now if I watch the end of the film if we if I get to talking about it I mean it's pretty satisfying like I am very proud of the effort I put into it and and of the climb itself but part of it I mean one thing that that is tough about a climb like that is it's such a life ambition it's it's it's unprecedented it's not likely well I don't know maybe it is likely to be repeated sometime soon but what then becomes your next free solo of El Cap what is an ambition if there's any that kind of equals it for you I honestly don't know yeah yeah no I mean I've been thinking about it but and honestly that's been one of the biggest challenges of being on the film tour for the last six months and promoting the film and everything is that every single movie screening something like what's next like when's free solo - what are you working on and you're like man I don't know you know I mean okay all the sequels are always worse except for the Godfather - that's the only good sequel yes yeah yeah I don't think there's definitely no free soul it - that's that's for sure yeah no I honestly don't know I mean so I don't know but you're arguing like talking to people like what would be something that's really like well I don't think talking in people would be the way anyway I mean it has to be something from the heart to some extent something that inspires you inspires me from within I mean I've been working on um physically improving as a climber you know training just trying to climb harder you know improve as a climber do you think you could break - on L cup yeah yeah we did we did last summer you did yes up two hours uh no cap oh my actually there'll be a whole 45-minute film about that oh there you go yeah so but it's not free so it - it's I don't know what it's gonna be called but but so for those here who are real climbers the real rock tour this year which is a climbing film tour the travels all over the world to help this 45min a film about me and Tommy climbing El Cap and in sub 2hours which was our big goal last year but that's kind of so that's actually been the really interesting things ever and ask what's next post I'll cap but so this would be a long ramble here so so settle in but so part of part of my process for for free soloing El Cap was to not build it up too big in my mind you know I mean obviously it was this dream that I had forever it was really important to me but I didn't want it but but I was I had been physically able to climb El Cap without falling since 2008 or nine or something so basically you know it didn't almost ten years that that I was physically able to you know that's kind of the bare minimum to consider free soloing I'll cap is that you obviously have to be able to climb from the bottom the top without falling off or using your rope at all and so technically I'd been there physically for quite a long time and so really it was the mental side that took so many years to develop and you know it took a long time for me to feel confident doing in anyway so because of that I didn't want to build it up too big in my mind because I didn't want to put too much more pressure on the mental side of it I didn't want to put it on this pedestals like this will be the craziest thing ever done this is so extreme this is the hardest thing that any human can imagine you know I didn't want to like put it way up here when the reality is that physically you know I was capable I just had to actually do it and so part of the way that that I kept it from putting it too high in my mind was to kind of treat it as one of many other climbs during the year so I had all my norm as a professional climb where you basically go on expeditions you you know you work on other climbing goals so right after right after I did the free solo actually I went on an expedition to Alaska with some of my teammates on the North Face team and to climb big mountains near Denali well not that 5000 foot rock walls and so not really mountains you know but but big walls and so and that was specifically training for North his expedition in that winter going to Antarctica to climb first ascents of big walls which was something was an incredible experience for me something totally new for me you know really character building because I don't really ski that well and to like live on skis and Antarctica climbing big granite walls it was you know it was incredible but and then later in the year Tommy and I did the speed record on the nose and so the point is I had all these other big climbing goals lined out in front of me and so I I free so a little cap I immediately went to Alaska I practiced my skiing a bit climb some mountains that got me ready for Antarctica you know I trained a bit more during the springtime than Tommy and I did the speed record is your is your physical stamina like it's not slowed down at all are you still improving are you feeling like your old age no it's I mean well obviously I've already begun my decline I mean I'm 33 I'm you know I'm halfway halfway done no actually looking around the room I'm like oh no yes no no I mean I don't know it's hard to say I'll get to that in one second though because so my point with the whole thing is that I did all that climbing and then the film came out and then so since then it's been you know seven months of touring with the film going to be Academy Awards doing the whole crazy thing and so now every day people like what's next and in some ways I'm like why already did what's next you know I did the climb and then I kept doing interesting things for a year I kept challenging myself as a climber I did several things that I'm quite proud of you know climbing El Cap and sub 2hours had been had been a bit of a dream as well and we were pretty proud of it when we did it were like that's awesome but of course it's overshadowed by this incredible film that goes on to win an Academy Award and so you know it's a little bit weird for me to be like what's the next big thing oh my god I'll just keep chipping away out I'll keep setting goals for myself I'll keep trying to improve I'll keep doing things you know I mean who knows if they'll ever be I mean basically they'll never be as good a film about it so it's like it you know for the mainstream public no one's ever gonna be like that's incredible and in the same way but but for me personally as a climber is it's fine you know do you ever imagine a future without climbing I know Dasani know she I mean she loves coming to we climb together all the time I mean it there will almost certainly be a future where I'm not pushing as hard at climbing where it's not my every thought when I'm not training all the time when I'm not worried about my diet when you know when I'm just casually climbing for my own fun but you know we'll see when we get there one of things I want to ask you about before we turn to audience questions because this is important is I'd like you to talk about it a bit about the Honnold foundation what what it is what you're doing what your ambitions are for them yes the Hahnel foundation is you know I've started at five seven years ago I guess that's makes me feel old speaking of aging so I started many years ago and we've been giving grants to other nonprofits basically supporting solar projects around the world supporting energy access and and I mean I guess the long answer of it is that uh I don't know I mean how do you how deeply should we go in this audience for it yeah well okay so when you asked about what's next I mean honestly the foundation projects that we're working on right now are a big part of what's inspiring me and sort of motivating me right now because I've been doing so much traveling with the film that you know I just don't have any big climbing dreams right now but some of the work that were you know we're supporting the the first cooperative solar micro grid in Puerto Rico which is potentially the islands first and so and so a month or two ago I went to Puerto Rico visited the community group that were that we're working with you know saw the project saw the the businesses that will be affected by it you know and it was incredible I mean it's pretty it was personally very satisfying I was like oh this is you know I mean this is great and so you know if people ask what's next I'm kind of like well I don't know I mean people want to hear free solo2 are like some rad climbing objective but the reality is that I'm pretty content training in the gym improving as a climber working with foundation you know busy living life and sort of seeing how it plays out you know just trying to do something useful in the world while still trying to improve you know what I do I don't know it's just not a sexy answer and if someone wants to get linked up to the Honnold foundation what do they do so Hahnel foundation.org you can see all the projects that we've supported over the years you can see the type of projects that we're supporting currently around the world we're mostly focused on the Americas for the next wheels just because it's slightly easier to ever see but um but yeah I mean to reach out to hona planation org goes to the director who's this incredible woman who's and you know basically we're just we're just working away I think later later in the summer I'm gonna be going to Detroit to do a project there it's more more domestic but uh you know I'm still very much an area with with some need and yeah I mean it's it's nice we're gonna now start doing questions I guess I'll call people and but I'll cut you off if you start bloviating so ask a question like one two sentences question mark and then you're good so there's a young woman right here there you are maybe just tell us your name and stand up and ask a question hi I'm Maddie mama D from the bezos Scholar Foundation and I was wondering what inspired you to start climbing there wasn't a specific thing that inspired me I just always loved climbing as a little kid I climbed on things I loved climbing trees and buildings and whatever else and then and then a climbing gym opened in Sacramento which is where I'm from and my parents read about in the newspaper and they just took me to the climbing gym because they thought it'd be a more structured outlet for them you know I mean it's better than me jumping off the roof and playing around at home they're sort of like Oh at least this way you can do it properly with padded floors and ropes and all that kind of thing and so then obviously I love to climbing in the gym and then did that for the rest of my life basically but still going to the gym all the time up here this gentleman hey would you consider releasing all four hours of footage pretty please I mean I have no say in it I you know I don't have any like I said I had no editorial control over the film I mean I would actually be sort of interested in seeing that too but I think it'd be pretty boring you know it's hard to say because I mean the reality is that free selling is is pretty even you know it's a nice even pace it's pretty mellow I mean there's a lot of easy climbing on El Cap it's just I mean be four hours of just trotting up the wall just sends you're out a bunch of full frontal nudity cuz obvious that peed off the wall like six times or something you know and few things like that but that's fine if you rated R okay let's see someone from this side yes I wanted to know what motivated you to keep achieving these extraordinary goals I mean I think for me part of it is the fact that I've always felt like I can do a little bit better I think that the real motivation is improving and and in some ways all these you know what you call incredible achievements or goals or whatever you said I mean they're just they're just ways of sort of measuring improvement for me you know I like to take on slightly bigger challenges I like having something more complex challenges and so you just keep you know I've always been all about incremental progress I mean it's funny because the the solos that we talked about we're sort of big milestones for me in my climbing but I've done I think maybe thirty five free solos that are the first you know first free solos or things that I'm sort of proud of and really when you lay them all out 35 of them it's I mean it's a lot it's a long long road that eventually culminated without cap for me you know it's like many many small steps and in different directions until until I finally was able to actually I woke up right here in the middle yeah hey I was just curious what impact your growing fame has had on your mental stability and clarity when you climb today compared to say five ten years ago I think overall it hasn't that big of an impact I mean so I think obviously when I'm climbing in climbing gyms and everyone's staring I mean it's you know slightly distracting and and a little bit harder to perform in the way that I'd like you know it's it's hard to totally shut that aside but I don't know I mean you know we're not climbing on the past day and I felt just like you know it felt just like any other day I climb and it was incredible so I mean yeah I don't think it's had that big of an impact I mean to some extent I think that's what I love about climbing is the fact that it forces you to focus 100% on what you're doing and and you know it really that's the joy of climbing is that you're so in you know in the actual activity of it that you're not self-conscious about those kinds of things okay well yeah eagerness counts so definitely over there oh no they're all heckling I know them and I don't like them well we have a question because yeah Emily and I have both watched you solo in person in real life and it was absolutely horrifying you also were witness to one of the more horrifying three solos I was that's not true so for those I don't know they're both also professional climbers that we're all in the North Face team so they're heckling and they should be removed no no no no but we I do have a legitimate question with with on the regards to free so Louis how did you feel knowing that your friends were watching you like it talks about it in the film a little bit but actually really how did you feel yeah I mean I don't want to sound too callous I didn't totally care I mean I knew that you know I know it's super stressful to watch and I don't like watching other people for isola if they're pushing hard I mean it's it's really stressful to watch it's yeah I mean I just did you get stressed out watching the movie like no no no I mean that doesn't stress me out because I'm like oh that's that's me and my best I'm like that's awesome no but but watching a lot of my friends you know I have a lot of other friends that have sold things and it's yeah I mean it can be stressful but um but no I mean I think that that the main thing was that I cared about my own safety more than they cared about my safety basically I mean I kind of already knew that I was that I was being as careful as I could be that I was as much as possible and so I knew that it was super hard for them to watch but at the same time I also knew that I was only going to do the climb if I felt totally comfortable and and if I felt comfortable it should be okay for them you know they should be able to hold it together basically I don't know I mean I know it's yeah it's slightly I don't know there's no great way to say that but but they're professionals you know they just have to face thank you first of all thank you this has been an amazing conversation really really great to have you here Alex in the film your personal life is really sort of on display not just the unflattering stuff stuff that you thought was unflattering the beginning of your relationship but there's like you know filmmaker prerogative and what's shown and what's not showed and there's a sort of story arc to your personal development that goes along with your development as a climber and your your breakthroughs and climbing in your personal break those how how real was that and how much of that was licensed by the director and I mean did you feel like you had a sort of true personal breakthrough in in your capacity to have a relationship and be you know committed to somebody she's a psychologist no no no I'm about ready to lay down on sofa and just open up I'm ready no I don't I don't know I mean I don't you know I definitely don't think they took any creative license with that I mean I think that it's all honest it's all in there I mean there are a couple things that like so for example with with my relation with my girlfriend at the end of the film I say I love you on the summit of the mountains I'm hiking down and the many audiences interpret that is the first time I say I love you to pieces the first time has shown that I mean that's not the case and we've been dating for two years already you know I try to use the l word sparingly but it does come out from time to time and and so you know I mean I wouldn't call that artistic license though I mean I think that I mean cuz that is an honest moment that you know everything everything in the film happened you know like it's all honest it's all there you know but they had 700 hours of footage that they had to condense down to a 90 minute film obviously I did it in the best way that they could so I don't know I mean yeah I think there's some legitimate well I mean honestly I would hope that anybody has some kind of actual personal growth over two years of you know over two years of life you know I mean and Sonya Sonya is an incredible woman and she definitely has pushed me on a lot of those things as well you know I mean she's kind of required me to be slightly better in some ways and so you know I've done my best to to meet her expectations you know but over let's go so far side this young man in green oh good question well we are going all night now they're there they're funny I don't know so it depends what you mean by worst I mean so the closest that I've come to falling off things has it's definitely been I've had maybe a half dozen experiences where I've broken holds or things you know things have suddenly happened where like a hold snaps off the wall but the thing about those is in some ways they aren't my worst moments because they're over before you even realize what happened basically if something breaks off and you don't fall off the wall then you know by the time you realize that you broke a hold you already didn't fall off and so basically all there is to do is take a breath and just you know compose yourself and sort of carry on it's kind of like you know if you narrowly avoid a car accident or something I mean by the time by the time you know what happened the accidents already avoided so there's nothing really to be afraid of at that point even though you still feel a big rush but run illan and your body starts to shake and it can be old traumatizing but you know the reality of it is that the that the dangerous situation has already passed at that point so I think that most of my most dangerous situations and free soloing weren't really that scary because they just happened instantly and thankfully you know they didn't wind up being catastrophic most of the scariest experiences were sort of things like Half Dome that are sort of long you know mounting dread where you're like am i off route like will I ever make it to the top who knows if this is the right actually particularly when I was younger and I was sort of learning how to free so I had a bunch of experiences where I was really bad at reading TOPAS which is the the maps that people draw for where routes go I used to be really bad at interpreting like what's the left facing corner what's a right facing corner where is the crack where's the little roof you know so so now you can like look at the map look at the wall and be like okay I'm gonna go up there and then left and then up and is gonna be perfect but when I was younger I would just sort of like oh I think this must be the one and then I'd climb halfway up it and be like I don't remember the map saying that we're supposed to be bolts on this route and then be like well I'm on passing bolts and then suddenly realize that I was like five hundred feet away from the route that I thought I was supposed to be on and I was actually just on the wrong wall and you're like oh no and then started to panic and then you know so really I think that experiences a mounting dread have always been the hardest that's the long answer but another one over here you sir I know that your max climbing grade is obviously higher than the grade that you're willing to necessarily solo at what grade would you so low at this point what's kind of the max grade that you would consider it's it's it's not really a great thing it's basically how secure does it feel and that's kind of the challenge about cap I mean L cap isn't actually really that hard for grade by comparison the the technical difficulty grade of L cap is it grade at which I often warm out bond at a sport Greg like when I'm just out for a normal day of climbing at a cliff with a rope you know that's what I would kind of consider generally my second warm up today you know once I kind of get limbered up a little bit I'm like okay I'm still still warming up so I mean you can't really compare the the grade I mean it really just comes down to how secure you feel while you're doing that style of climbing but let's go in the middle with this guy waving his frantically waving he must be psyched I'm not a climber so this is maybe a naive question but it seems like my assumption is it's easier to climb up than it is to climb down so if you is there a point of no return where you have to keep going up that's not totally true I mean so down climbing so it is fair to say that in general climbing up is easier than climbing down and part of that's just because when you're climbing up you can see where your hands are going but when you're climbing down it's really hard to see where your feet are going just because they're blocked by your own body so it's basically hard to see but there are some styles of climbing that are a lot easier to go back down like say chimneys or you know certain types of crack you can kind of slide back down them it's actually physically a lot easier to go down I think the biggest difference though is that most people find it easier to go up because that's all they ever practice very few climbers spend a lot of time down climbing so they're just not used to that the style of movement but I have spent a lot of time down climbing because that's really an important part of free soloing is to feel comfortable reversing things and so in general I feel pretty comfortable reversing almost everything that I've sold I mean that's not totally true on something like I'll cap because it's just so big and so hard and you know such an undertaking that that typically it's probably better just carry on to the top and then reverse you know the thousands of feet that you've climbed but but in general you know down climbing is an important thing for soloing next question icy hands way in the back on the left wait for the microphone hi I'm Sarah thank you this is actually a question for my boyfriend he wants to know how many times on free solo did you come down to like one feature like where maybe three limbs were off oh I see what you're saying I mean basically how often was my life depending on a single limb I don't know I mean I have to count all the different think about all the moves on the roof but they're probably uh you know a couple places basically but I mean specifically that move we were talking about on the free box lab where your whole weight is on one foot hold just for a moment they're probably a couple other things sort of like that but there are tons of places on the route where if a single thing slipped you would fall off I mean like you know not to say that you're only using one limb but if you're in counter pressure between one hand and one foot and you're pushing between them if either of them slipped then obviously you're no longer encounter pressure you're just pinwheeling backward off the wall so you know so they're whole sections of the wall that are climbing in that kind of style that you know require all of your limbs to stay on the wall let's go to the center there's a lady waving her hand right here hi my name is Billie's I wanted to ask about your climbs where you use a gear what are the notable improvements that you've had with gear and are there any innovations that you would recommend or have had change with the gear I use all my months of touring nobody's ever asked about innovations in gear and I appreciate that so yeah I mean over the 20 years that I've climbed there definitely have been big improvements in gear but they're sort of all incremental I think for the most part things get a little lighter I mean particularly with climbing hard goods like the actual equipment that you're putting into the rock it's all gotten a little bit safer a little bit lighter ropes have gotten thinner which means that they weigh less and they're easier to pull behind you I mean in general it's all just gotten slightly easier but but nothing groundbreaking you know it's sort of in the same way that peril continues to get better you know you're a little bit warmer a little bit lighter a little bit more waterproof or better wicking you know things like that but for the same time you're still wearing clothes you know so yeah I mean it hasn't hasn't totally changed the game but but it is nice to have lighter mountain boots lighter equipment it's all it just means that you can climb a little faster basically his new climbing gonna become a thing not by me right no actually I mean and so speaking of that so climbing's in the Olympics next year so climbing's in the 2020 Olympics and and climbing in general has been booming as a sport and so it I am personally sort of curious as to where you know what happens if more money comes in to climbing if there's more innovation because there hasn't really been any major changes in equipment and in a long time it'll be interesting if people really push it in new directions yes hi Alex I hate to get back to your relationship but if your first film was called free and then solo what would the next one be called well I mean the film crew is jokes that it's still salt well when when Santi leaves me and I'm back to living in the van you know but uh but I think the answer she was looking for was married with children isn't a TV show yeah no that sucks I don't want that well let's see that's it I meant the show sucks I'm sure life will be great with okay yes ma'am I wait for the mic so we can record you is there someone there Thanks you're really making poor mic runners just really get their exercise so first question are you still eating off the spatula and the second question is about the MRI in your brain so do you really think that I mean did I understand correctly that the test said that you experienced less fear than another person would okay so first of the spatula I mean when I'm in the van I often the office passionate oh I mean the whole point of even on the spatula is you don't scratch your pan you have fewer dishes it's very efficient very practical I strongly encourage everybody to do it actually anyway the amygdala thing we were chatting about a bit backstage earlier but basically I mean what he's asking this question if I don't feel fear the same as other folks here so yeah so I think that for those I haven't seen it in the film there's this you know maybe 30-second scene where I take an fMRI they scan my brain and it basically shows no activation in my amygdala which is sort of the fight-or-flight center of the brain during the specific round of tests but the takeaway from that wasn't so much but but the thing is it's there and it works fine just don't get me wrong it's it's all good the thing was that basically through years and years of practice I've desensitized myself to certain levels of stimulus I think and that's kind of the takeaway of talking with the researcher and and there's a full feature-length article about that exact I mean the reason I was taking the fMRI was for an article for Nautilus magazine it was a science magazine and so if you're interested read the article dive in deep to it but basically over years of exposure to scary situations I've sort of desensitize myself to the point that the the test that you take where you're laying in a tube and you're looking at images I was like I didn't I didn't find it very scary because it's not you know because it's not dangerous at all but had they thrown a snake into that from where I with me I'm sure my megalo would have lit up like Christmas tree and you'd be like ah jeez you know but so you know I saw it as all perfectly rational totally normal you know I was like of course my brains not gonna light up looking at black and white photos and while lay here perfectly comfortable and safe inside the tube I was lying about stupid but apparently the the average human mind does react to the images the same you know as if they were actually experiencing it but I think it's because the average person hasn't you know been scared out of their mind for years and years and years you know having near-death experiences over and over you know okay there is a young woman directly in front of me in the middle there raising your head yeah coming from both sides such a this is a big moment for the mics so when so when you're climbing with other people do you like when they gave you when they give you beta on a route or no yeah so which is so beta is what it's called when when you get a method for how to climb something and so it's really common for climbers to tell each other you know like raise your left foot and sag your right your right hip and you know open up to the wall and grab that with your left hand like that's what's referred to as beta I freaking love it I whenever I get to climb with folks who are who are much better than me it's such a pleasure to have somebody just tell you like here's how you should do it and you're like oh it's so nice I find it I mean actually so today I was climbing with two guys who were both very good climbers and it was really nice to be able to share beta they were also both slightly taller than me and and big and strong strapping men and so it was kind of nice to have people who were roughly the same size roughly the same strength be able to just tell me like here's how you do it and just you know I was like oh it's such a pleasure it's like having a guided tour yeah I love that some people really hate it though I mean particularly for climbing in commercial gym it's a kind of poor form to just yell advice it's somebody that you don't know be like raise your left foot and they're like f you I'm like working it out for myself you know but I like it on the left right there yeah so I'm not a professional climber either but I had a question as a ultra runner I always carry water with me how did you do that whole climb with no water I didn't I stashed a liter of water and a little bit of food in two different places on the route so uh and that's part of the appeal of having a camera crew and having stuff like that is that it may still it just sticks a lot easier because for them to get in the position to film the climb they had to rappel huge sections of the wall so they were able to stash some food and water for me they carried my sneaker you know my my shoes up to the summit so that I didn't have to pre stash him ahead of time you know all the things that they did for me are things that I easily could have done myself couple days before with a lot more planning and foresight but because they're filming it just makes it pretty easy where the morning of you're just like here all my snacks but I'm you know put them up there when you go it's like no yeah I mean and honestly that's one of the reasons that I've agreed to work with film crews over the years is because you know that in some ways it does make your actual climb easier or it makes your own logistical process easier this side of the room sir with a white shirt yep so when you think about limits of what you can do is that defined by what you think what's physically possible or your intuition I mean I think it's mostly limited by what's physically possible I mean you know there are some things that I just can't do I mean there are some little edges that I cannot pull with my fingers you know I mean that's I mean so if you're talking about specifically with free soloing I think that being able to physically do something is the base and then beyond that you know whether or not you mentally can can do it you know that's I mean that's kind of the extra step but um but there's this whole physical layer at the bottom that I mean if you can't do it you can't do it and and to me the physical side has always come harder like I'm not actually the guy heckling me over there that guy freakishly strong fingers very very strong naturally gifted in a way that I never have been and so you know the physical side for me has always taken a lot of work a lot of you know a lot of training a lot of effort and I still just can't really be that strong I hope Maddie psyched over there he's he's single by the way kissing is interested but yeah that's him he's he's living out of a tent I think but you know it's pretty cool but but anyway so for is for some climbers you know the physical side comes easier and the mental side is really hard for whatever reason the mental side has always been slightly easier to me but but the physical side is still a struggle I mean it's just not that easy to pull yourself up on a tiny wedge I'm just trying to go you asked a question already yeah yeah the guy right next to the microphone at the black yeah it's all about keeping it right by the mic and it's easy hey oz it it seems like any time a new record in any sport is set that no one ever did before somebody else comes along and duplicates it what you did doesn't seem like it's readily duplicate ball is there someone in your community or have you met someone who said I'm gonna do what you did and in in a way that's credible that's believable impossible or is this something that's years and years away from being replicated yeah it's an interesting question and it's really hard to know for sure because like I was just saying I mean there's such a difference in the physical side of it and the mental side of it and so physically they're probably you know they're many people on earth right now climbing who can physically climb El Cap without falling off you know I mean they're I don't know maybe 20 people or something who could potentially walk up to the base climb from the bottom the top without falling you know but none of them none of them free solo and none of them really have the drive for another necessarily one to but conceivably if any of them were just like screw it I don't care about living or dying I'm just going for it you know I mean one of them potentially could so I mean in some ways I've always I've always kind of you know darkly joked that that the right person just has to have a bad breakup and then they'll just go and do it you know you know so yeah well I mean okay no so to bring it back full circle doe so Tommy Caldwell went through a really difficult divorce many years ago and and he did have a moment he's the most successful cop climber ever he put up most of the other fruits on the wall the climbing shoes that I was wearing her named after him you know the Tommy Caldwell Pro model like he designed them for climbing on I'll cap he's an incredible climber and so he was going through this very difficult divorce and you know he had a moment when he was sitting on top of us root you know looking over at El Cap being like I should just go over there and so loved that you know because I mean I don't know sometimes you have dark days and and he is somebody who physically could you know I mean he you know if he was in the right mood potentially he could and so it's kind of a weird thing though because you know I don't think that anyone's actively trying to I don't think that anyone really wants to I don't think that anyone's really in the right place that they they should but you never really know I mean somebody could but I mean time will tell though if history is any guide most of the other big cutting-edge free sellers haven't really been repeated for 20 years or so and so you know it seems to be sort of a generational thing but you know time will tell we are over time but I'm told we can go over time so whatever you guys want yeah we're just partying okay so I'm yes over there maybe just a few more questions and then I'm happy to hang out and chat with whoever whoever wants to afterward and so you know don't feel like we're holding you hostage but but if folks are interested we can we're happy to chat as long as you guys won okay great thank you what would be an activity that you would be too freaked out to do like skydiving er I like knitting like ballroom dance at ballroom dancing like oh goodness no I don't know about freaked out I mean in general I don't I don't know public performance I cried to sing opera mine you know that's that's not for me I don't know thanks so much for this by the way this is a real treat and I was just curious as to I mean I'm sure this theme has been beaten beaten to death here but I'm wondering what your risk assessment kind of strategy is how it's changed over the last couple decades and maybe kind of who your mentors are in that or if there are any or if you're you know studying risk assessment I know it's a big deal and other sports you know pilots yakking I've never studied risk assessment I don't technically know anything about it you know from a education standpoint though I have had you know countless conversations with people like Tommy Calvo of other climbers you know peers and I mean even conversations like this I mean basically climbers talk about risk and managing risk all the time because it's such an important part of the sport I mean it's you know sort of at the core of of climbing is how do you manage the risk associated with it you know I know what was the first half the question look oh how how is my process change over time yeah yeah I don't know I think that maybe my biggest development has been sort of accepting I think as I've gotten older I've sort of expected that even though something might feel like 100 percent realistically it's never 100% there's just always I mean I've just seen too many friends have terrible accidents too many you know unfortunate things happen to happen in the mountains and so you know I've kind of realized that that even if something feels 100 you know I mean it never actually is a hundred and and in a lot of ways I've actually really limited my easy soloing now because I feel like that's kind of where I'm rolling the dice the most when I was younger I had a lot of kind of high mileage days where I was going out in climbing things that were physically easy but tons and tons of them like say 50 roots in the day or something and and I think that was a really important for me to sort of build my base and feel comfortable soloing and to you know to grow as a climber but I pretty much don't do that at all anymore because I recognize that even if it's an easy route and I feel totally fine on it there is you know a slight chance that something's just randomly gonna break or something something random is gonna happen just because I have you know I basically know many people who have had accidents like that and you're sort of like well so I mean I guess that yeah I'm a little more conservative over time which is ironic because you watch the film free soloing you're like oh that guy's crazy but but in a lot of ways that actually represents me raining and in quite a bit because I trained for two years to do one climb that I really cared about as opposed to just going for it you know I mean it I just not really cared about it I could have just tried on day one you know it probably would have worked out probably you know 85% chance would have worked out fine and and there wouldn't be a movie you know but instead I wanted to get to 100 so I spent two years working on it and and it's funny because people watch for so long they're like oh so much free soloing but I mean that's two years of climbing and I did what maybe four or five free solos in the film culminating with El Cap which is obviously really important to me but but I did you know maybe six or seven days of free soloing mixed you know interspersed throughout two years of training so I mean the ratio is pretty good let's take one more question and that will be to the really enthusiastic really elastic person all the way in the back yeah she seems psyched you can't tell I won't go as sexy it's really hard to see I apologize um did you memorize every single move not just the biggest ones and do you still memorize them no so I didn't memorize every move on the whole climb mostly because I didn't have to like I was saying earlier the elk at maybe breaks down into a third relatively easy climbing a third sort of moderate climbing and a third really hard climbing so the hard climbing I knew every move I knew everything about it but for the easy climbing I just knew that I could do it and just you know obviously I'd climbed it many times before bred in half to memorize the moves I could just trust that I could go up there and have a nice time and just climb you know so I basically I saved my effort for the parts that mattered the most let me just sort of take advantage and just ask you a final question so there's been a lot of like really young people asking you and you know you write about how you were a young kid with like not quite posters of Tommy on your wall but but pretty close so now you're that role model for I think a lot of really young climbers and what role do you want to model and that's a hard question because I've definitely never aspired to be a role model of any kind I would tell kids to stay in school even though I unfortunately did not but you know but learn from my mistakes no I don't know I mean I think that I think the film is a good job of sort of showing that if you put enough work into something I don't know I mean I guess if I want to be any kind of role model I want it to be around living intentionally choosing the things that you care about working hard toward them and and putting in the effort required you know working on the things you care about and doing them I mean it was never you know that was never my my design and you know I've I certainly would never call myself a role model but I'm sort of like if you're gonna pull anything from it I mean I hope it's something like that you know choose I mean we all have a finite life I mean we're all gonna die we have a limited amount of time use it for the things that you care the most about now it's Hahnel [Applause]

Channel: The Aspen Institute

Views: 383,576

Keywords: Free Solo, Alex Honnold, Bret Stephens, New York Times, Aspen Ideas Festival, rock climbing, El Capitan, Yosemite

Id: GZhnio6UWbI

Length: 68min 15sec (4095 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 25 2019