Alex Honnold explains the H.U.R.T. His most recent Free Solo link-up through Red Rock Canyon

okay Chris gorney Mountain High Adventures welcome back to the channel guys special guest today Alex honold on the channel and I've got him here with me to give us a description of this huge mega scrambling route that he just did through Red Rock Canyon welcome Alex thanks thanks oh my God we're just standing in the desert so I'm like oh and we're on it's live here we go this is um I'd like to say like I'm super honored I got to be a part of this big effort that Alex did and uh it was this like huge couple a day effort that he did scrambling through the canyon here so I just wanted to take a second to let him describe kind of what his vision was and what the effort turned out to be cool so the vision was to go from one end of the range to the other climbing as many classic roots and tagging as many summits in as uncontrived away as possible and it's it was complicated by the fact that if you're just trying to tag Summits then you're a big running adventure and if you're just trying to climb Roots then it's normally better just to climb the root repel down or hike down and down in the root but if you're trying to do both then it becomes this roller coaster ride across all the different Peaks and so that without Vision but it took me a long time to figure out they're the Peaks like that's actually I mean that's like half the range of the South but it's just hard to see yeah so maybe to give a little perspective of the scope of this effort can you tell us the stats how big was it yeah so in theory or so finally it took me 32 hours to do what I did the final stats were somewhere between 35 and 40 miles of hiking and somewhere between 23 and 25 000 feet of vertical gain and then of that uh I did 14 classic climbing routes and each of those are big multi-pitches in the canyons so I think it was something like 120 or 130 pitches you know probably like 10 000 feet of vertical rock climbing amazing uh so this basically combined an ultra marathon with multi-pitch rock climb free soloing and 32 hours worth of Adventure Time yep yep so Justice because the hard to go up and down I mean you know going down each of those Canyons it's not like going down a nice trip for anybody who's followed my channel in the past you guys have seen some of the big routes that I've done through Red Rock and the scrambling and you all know I'm always talking about how hard root finding is and how none of it's easy there's no there's no gimmies in Red Rock you really got to work for it all so no gimmies the the stats really don't um shed light on happening probably includes half the things you've got on your channel right yeah like all the other classic scrambles because the thing is to get between the different Peaks you basically have to and chain all these different cool scrambles just like down Fern Creek and down the Wilson scramble and like all these things that are pretty classic scrambles in their own right so uh during the 32-hour effort how many hours did you sleep oh so I didn't sleep the idea was just to do a continuous push so I mean and you and you Pace me through the night probably the worst part for me between sort of midnight to 5 a.m felt pretty Grim but then when the sun came back up felt a little bit better it still was kind of over it it was pretty tough it was Final hours yeah it's just like you know it's kind of going slower and grinding to a halt and but then still did epinephrine which is a classic sort of 2000 foot climbing route at the end of the Canyons so that was a nice little bookend to all the the rock climbing involved in the Traverse would you say that was a highlighter if there was a highlight during the whole effort was there like a moment that stands out oh some of the highlights were earlier on actually the the main climbing is in that middle there sort of to the right or Rainbow Mountain and uh I mean I climbed Dark Shadows in 30 minutes or so I climbed a couple very classic climbing routes very quickly in the middle of the day and I felt heroic and was like this is all so fast and fun and then by the end of the day it was decided to be less heroic it's more of a grind it's like surviving just to get through it yeah okay how about a favorite snack during the Traverse was there anything that just brought you around well so I mean the whole Traverse is basically powered by uh what are they the pro bar bolts the little blocks the little gel blocks yeah I really like those but then by hour 16 or so I could not eat more of them and so then I don't know taking me these little egg bagel things good afterwards nice I had some Oreos at one point I kind of helped boost it's like a easy go-to caloric bomb and it seemed right before epinephrine you had a bowl of mac and cheese oh no it's a vegan Mac yeah vegan maximum vegan Mac which uh yeah went down easy but that at that point that was more than 24 hours in in my stomach I was like over it felt terrible so I knew something super Bland and kind of shovel and then I ate a bunch of peanuts randomly with again just like easy calories to go now like reminds me of chocolate awesome and so can you tell us the the starting point the ending point yeah so I don't know if it's in the frame so I started a White Rock Peak but uh the furthest North Mountain and the highway at the South of Highway 160. so uh basically all the Summits in between except that when I got to the zone of black velvet Peak which is the top of epinephrine the climbing group then I cut back to the Limestone and sort of and sort of past the end it originally intended to do a couple more Peaks past that but they they get less cool and so it's decidedly like an easier and kind of Dumber as you get to the end over it as had you have gone climbing through the next afternoon felt like a bit much and like I just don't like that part anyway but what yeah it's a bit less interesting after having gone through like this whole section in the middle yeah the middle section is such you know it's like world-class climbing you know destination worthy and things nobody climbs on the roots of the end because they're just not as good basically yeah you know it's like there's a reason they're not as popular it's because they're it's like not that good and this is something I think is a little understated from Alex on this effort but can you just tell us stylistically um I know you made a choice so how many ropes did you use or touch during the effort and then on a lot of the scrambling descents and things there are fixed lines in place like my principal I skipped them all not that it makes any difference for me but uh just uh it would be like a pure soloing I like that I was using little hand lines because I was like trying to film sometimes and I was trying to keep up so I was using those hand lines but I like the the choice that he just zero ropes don't need him if you're going so long the things that it cost me basically nothing to avoid those ropes yeah like uh you know considering the amount of rope was coming I was doing anyway you know you know that's all the little knotted hand lines you're sort of like this is very easy compared to the rock climbing I was doing so absolutely yeah let's go it's a big outing I mean it's taken me sort of two effort to piece it all together find the roots find the scrambling descent s but it was nice so it all really came together when I did it it uh it all worked which is surprising yeah it went together pretty well yeah because each time I'd done a segment like each time I'd done a single Mountain by itself or or a collection of a couple Roots I'd come home feeling totally busted and all cut up and sunburned and just kind of destroyed I was just just takes our prisoners you know it's just it's all so hard and it was nice that on the actual day the execution was pretty much perfect and it all it all worked as far as like your pacing goes you were pretty much ahead of all your scheduled uh splits right no I was ahead up for the first 16 hours then I started to actually I maybe was still ahead but um only because I built up a little lead at the beginning but basically the whole second half I felt very slow and just maybe less Circle it's pretty grown like the section we did from indecision Peak to Hidden Peak and then down uh was you know like an hour or two slower than I've done it when I done just that segment oh it was this before the other guy any of that yeah because when I did just that segment you know two weeks before I jogged most of it was like so loud and then when we were doing it the morning of day two I was like oh my knees you know I was like I don't think I can run any of this I thought well so I'll put some links down in the description of this video um Alex is gonna give me some info and hopefully we can maybe get like a track so that you guys can see like the actual path that he took through uh Red Rock and um I'll link to anything else that it's sort of important to this effort um we'll put that down in the description of this video and hopefully somebody will do it yeah somebody else could go for the hurt um what could we expect in the future is there going to be a video about this there might be I don't know I mean in theory the the folks from Real Rock uh were I mean honestly honesty's interview is more than like they don't have any of the details they have nosed ads like I don't know what they're gonna try to make a film out of we were filming Alex the whole effort but yeah it depending we don't know what exactly will come of it intermittently you know what I mean yeah with a bit I mean we narrated a bit I had some videos where I'm like I'm on the summit of this I'm but they didn't get a single shot of like here's the objective here's what we're trying to do like you know here's what we did you know it's like they just have little moments of like no I'm climbing now I'm on the summit of something it's like there's no I was like chasing here the GoPro at times but I don't think there's any overview or I'm like I am trying to do a Traverse of Red Rock so we'll see how they turn that into a film whatever well here's a here's some of the information we're getting it out to the people thanks for tuning in guys um don't forget to smash that subscribe button and uh give the video a like or a thumbs up if you're a rock climber or an ultra Runner you all right guys we'll see you next time thanks Alex yeah cool right on

Channel: Christopher Gorney

Views: 59,952

Keywords: Alex Honnold, Honnold, HURT, Honnolds Traverse, free solo, solo, rock climbing, traverse, red rock, red rock canyon, honnold red rock, alex honnold red rock, climbing, mountains, mountain climbing

Id: kyx10PzIXWA

Length: 10min 20sec (620 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 20 2022