Alex Honnold on The Forward with Lance Armstrong

alright hey everybody welcome back to the forward podcast I'm your host Lance Armstrong happy new year 2019 you know what's crazy is next year's gonna be 2020 that's crazy I remember when it when it was 2000 I was like how cool is that gonna be one of when it's gonna be 2020 like the show nobody else thought that okay that's great listen our guest today Alex Honnold from I don't know if you guys and gals have seen the documentary free solo which is a documentary done by Jimmy Chen about Alex climbing El Cap in Yosemite National Park without ropes I'll get to him in a little bit congratulations to the Texas Longhorns we've got to be happy about our future there Sam Elgar great job at QB coach arm and everybody Congrats to the horns what else do we have what do we say Oh run training the marathon the Austin marathon Meade the charity chaser which most you all probably know going well a little setback over the new year holiday or the the holiday season because we were down in the Bahamas so it was a little tough to find paved roads to run on as opposed to water and beaches but I'm excited we got a little over a month to go and and I ran into a guy last night says I'm I'm running the Austin marathon and I'm doing everything I can to not get caught and I said well guess what you're gonna get caught so I'm catching everybody except like 50 people and I don't know if I've mentioned this before on any of these shows but how I hate these scooters okay these things and I near and I'm bringing it up again because I was just standing out front of the we do world headquarters here and I was we were in a meeting and we were sort of talking some people out there and this guy's coming down the sidewalk at like 20 and he was not gonna stop and I'm the only one on the sidewalk so I just want to say it again I just I can't stand them I've never ridden one not that I never will but I know I just anyways I digress our guest today Alex Honnold look when I watched fries solo first of all I sent Alex and Jimmy an email immediately afterwards and I said guys have bad news they had to close down the theater in Aspen Colorado because my palms were sweating so bad that there was flooding in the theater for a movie to me we know the ending he lives he does it right and so but as you're watching it and watching this guy go up you know 3,000 feet off the ground without ropes straight up by the way you just look the reality is in some of the screenings they had people having anxiety attacks watching the movie that stopped the film called the ambulance that's how good it is so if you haven't seen it go see it you'll get a good sense of the man Alex Honnold during this conversation which just so you all know if you watched on video took place in his home in Las Vegas Nevada and when you see Alex doing what he does on on El Cap to think that he lives in Vegas pretty crazy but anyways thanks for tuning in and Happy New Year [Music] [Music] does it feel different to be up there without a rope it's obviously like much higher consequence people who know a little bit about climbing they're like oh he's totally safe and then people who really know exactly what he's doing our freak out I've thought about our cap like for years then every year I'm like that's really scary I'll never be content unless I at least put in the effort El Cap is the most impressive wall on earth it's 3,200 feet of sheer granite it's the center of the rock climbing universe all these gonna get interview questions about it all the time Oh would you like to do that you're like yes for sure so you're a girlfriend now I heard it's awesome it pretty much makes life better in every way it's really hard for me to grasp why he wants this but if he doesn't do this stuff he'd regret it everybody who is made free soloing a big part of their life is dead now I haven't been injured in like seven years unless sudden they start getting injured all the time what if something happens what if I don't get I could just walk away but it's like I don't I've always been conflicted about shooting up some about free soloing just because it's so dangerous it's hard to not imagine your friend falling through the frame to his death I think when he's free showing us where he feels the most alive most everything how can you even think about taking it away from something no mistakes tomorrow starting to come aside if you're pushing the edge eventually you find the edge [Music] I can't believe you guys actually gonna stitch hey Jimmy do you copy they just started climbing Alex thanks for doing this man tell pleasure yeah I watched like so many other people free solo about a week ago and I've never sat through a movie and I like I just kept and I emailed you guys this I mean Jimmy like my hand dude it was how it the fact that you know the ending and yet you still are like you know kind of your mind won't let you know like I was like this dude's gonna fall well thankfully I didn't know you're here right you're right all right but it does bring me to this my ultimate question which I'll start with which you're normally not supposed to is that there are no eighty-year-old free climbers or seven-year-old there's there a few there few older dudes that are the free solar I mean that's actually one thing in the film that I think is a little overstated maybe when he talks about free solace all sort of dying because a lot of the the solace that they mentioned you know we're significant solace but they died actually BASE jumping or doing or sort of in freak accidents you know like one sort of conspicuous solace from the last decade died in like a rogue wave took them out to sea basically and then you know they never found the bodies well that doesn't count well know exactly but so then a couple of the other guys died BASE jumping and then a couple solos have died under easy terrain just sort of falling off things that should be kind of casual mm-hm and I like to say that no soloist has ever died doing anything cutting-edge that's the that's the real statistic right there wait what no no free solace has ever died doing anything cutting-edge like pushing the actual you know edges of resoling yeah I know in some ways that's how you can kind of Judge how dangerous is more elusive if the people at the elite are dying doing the elite thing and they're also beginners I mean basically like if you look at sport like base timing people die all the way across the spectrum you know beginners have never done it done and then people who are the best in the field also die doing it you know and anywhere in between it's just like everybody dies right know if resoling is not really like that and in BASE jumping is this this this like the squirrel thing or yeah yeah basically who's jumping off of you know scroll see yeah well actually that's called wingsuiting and so that's normally the base rig is just like the parachute that you used to jump off with it's an acronym you know since your buildings antennas spans earth so like bridges cliffs things like that yeah but um the patient means like pretty it's way more hardcore than skydiving cuz skydiving you have two pair of shoes and there's way more time and you have a bigger canopy and it's all yeah it's all safer what struck me is that you know if it says the film goes on obviously you're getting higher and higher and L cap this is 3,000 vertical fume and so people I think people's tendency is to get so wrapped around 3,000 feet but to me it's like first of all I'm terrified of heights like just looking down even from my hotel here in Las Vegas like looking out the window I'm like oh no no no no I can't like if I anyways past I don't know what 75 feet past like 35 probably 35 for like 50 for sure I mean you're dead yeah I mean people have survived hundred foot Falls I mean people pilots have survived 20,000 foot fall so I mean crazy things happen right basically if you're following more than 50 feet it's gonna be a disaster yeah you're probably gonna die so they say I know it is funny it's funny but then the height though still matters in terms of how long you have to pay attention how long you have to stay focused you know how long you're in it yeah because it's definitely a really different thing psychologically to free solo a 75 foot route versus the 750 foot route versus like a 3,000 foot relay because if something's only gonna take you for five minutes you can kind of like listen to some loud music get all fired up here we go and just do it before I get all gripped but if you have to do something for hours and hours you know it's you can't just like get fired up and go cuz 20 minutes later you're like I'm not fired up anymore ya know you gotta have a yeah you need to stay in for what what fatigues like when you when you free solo del cap is it is it your feet your toes is it your arms or hands your fingers what what goes like or what things the mental side is what you really have to worry about okay for the free sowing it's like praying mentally and I've had that experience on some other solos in the past where on you start out kind of like what I was just saying you know you like get all psyched you're like I'm doing it and then you do half of it you're sort of like oh it's starting to seem a little daunting you know and then pretty soon you're like why I'm up here oh god I want to go home and then and then you know and hopefully it doesn't all fall apart but but then physically nothing well physically I never just have to think like the I don't know I never you're so well trained that it doesn't but it's like you have to put it in the greater context of the climate that you're doing so the free solon that I'm doing is so within my physical limits normally the that's just not the thing you know obviously you get tired you know you feel your body but you're way less tired than what you'd be doing with the rope and so like physically it feels pretty much fun it's for me at least it's the mental side where you have to stay motivated stay you know stay in the zone or whatever I don't know hmm but you never happen with this when you did El Cap you'd well the successful climb I was totally in development right and we all saw you kind of tap out on the on the first attempt mm-hmm yes that's kind of an example of mentally friend there basically that was an example just not being fully prepared yet and just not like my ankle's joinder did everybody just things weren't quite right but um but yeah basically I was like this is really scary I'd only be here what's crazy is I as I was researching your story that came across this fact the first time El Cap was ever climbed was in 1958 by a group of guys and it took with ropes yeah it took them 47 days yeah you did it this is just [ __ ] mind-boggling like this is just next-level no ropes three hours and 56 minutes yeah that is just what if any of these guys are still alive no they unfortunately are all gone now I think and actually so the route that I freeze solid the person who done the first ascent of that route that's a different route there they're like 100 different routes on okay to go different parts of the wall but some the first ascension is the one that I just climbed there's also a part you can walk up yeah activate the bat you could walk up the back down with that yeah I don't know but if you walk up the back you still have to walk over the edge and appreciate and I feel like you wouldn't be down to that I would you want to know what I would do I mean not that it matter that anybody really wants to know what I would do but I would I would if I had to do that if somebody said you have to go over there I would lay down yeah my not like sperm yep yeah input my is feel safe yes that's that's all I could handle except a lot of the places the edge like rounds down to it I'm out you know then I would take my phone yeah and you know picture like that and that's and that counts that's better that's better dude right now just cause more problem solving right there I just couldn't I couldn't do it man I couldn't well I mean you definitely could if you built up to in practice and trained and you know because the thing I mean if I were sit yeah I think that typically actually I mean most people say they're afraid of heights are really just afraid of falling off and dying which is totally reasonable and you know as a totally reasonable and so you know so I mean if you feel confident that you're not gonna fall off the mountain you just have to build up to that right yeah yeah it's pretty rare that people are actually afraid of being up high I know that might be the case for you if you're afraid of the hotel room window stuff but yeah yeah I mean I wish if we were sophisticated enough I would have been fun to like go out and like climb on something you know like wow we're gonna train in the gym after this come come give it a try yeah it's a it's five minutes where it's on the way back to the strip so yeah yeah I don't know well I actually normally just Boulder so without a rope but it you're only going you know the height of this room yeah twelve feet or something yeah just because it's a little more intense it's a easier way for me to Train my weaknesses and I would just love to be like the the you know the check in person at the climbing gym when you walk in yo it just depends which gym it is cuz if you're in some random part of the country where they don't expect you you don't just show up at some random gym yeah you do well yeah I mean if I'm and if I'm I mean especially the parents Boise you just show up at the climb to come out of the gym yeah yeah he must [ __ ] their pants he spit on the waiver I don't know I mean people try to keep it cool you know they're just good yeah but I mean if I'm like the last three months that I've been touring with the film and I'm in you know Chicago and a New York the next day LA the next day it's like yeah I mean you have to still climb so you just go to whichever dream is around and you're you go out that to you that's training or that's just fun or that soweth both it's like it's probably it's like maintaining fitness having fun and like staying sane you know because if all you're doing is press and film events yeah I mean I need a couple hours to just like feel like a my normal self I'd go climb happen no I get you like that's what I mean that's why I either ride or Runner yeah I'm sure couple hours on the bike you got it just sort you out of them otherwise you just go crazy and you're a terrible person yeah I know it's hard yeah it's hard to like show up on stage every night and be like hey I'm so happy I'm so happy to check if you haven't at least have your own base level of exercise like the two hours of small talk [ __ ] that I just had to go through was amazing oh so you're in the thick of it man you're you're you're you're you're in the thick of it this film is [ __ ] amazing and you got to go do all that stuff like I don't have to do that anymore yeah I'm sure you've done a lot well I've done a lot no no but I you just hate it a lot III don't I don't mind that much cuz you know it's I'm just getting a little burnt out after three months ya know but honestly it's like I'm sort of amazed that people go and see the film you know I mean for climbing it's just crazy to even have a film in movie theatres you know for me to see El Capitan on a big screen in a movie theater I'm like that's that's pretty cool right because it's something that I've dreamt up for so long and you know I mean the wall is meant so much to me for so long than to see it you know like I saw in an IMAX screen at the Toronto Film Festival and I was like that is a big freakin wall I get school you know IMAX that would be a way to see it yeah yeah I mean you kind of have to not to discourage people from because it comes out on iTunes pretty soon I think you know well not until it's on TV so probably not March or something oh wow so it's a minute but yes it'll be a look um so not to discourage people from downloading and watch it on their computer or their iPad or isn't on the big screen it's the screen is yeah I can't even imagine an IMAX would just be no I think I think that you know there's rumor that it may come out on a big big screen let's see oh my god yeah no I mean basically the bigger screen you can see it on the better if nothing else if even if you have to download it like go to your friend's house and watch on a projector or something you know I mean it's like it's worth seeing as big as possible speaking of rumors I heard a rumor that in one of the premieres or one of the screenings somebody in the in the audience had an anxiety attack and had a rush to the hospital is just true yeah that means I believe him I forget screening though so I think doesn't matter which speaking I think in merrier the directors previous film I think somebody had a heart attack during the the screen but I could just be random - but of course and then I know that the free solo got stopped I forget which city we ran it could've been Chicago or something and a guy you know maybe fainted or something but you don't know if it's cuz because the film or not no we do actually think we do know well I do know but sometimes people just keel over I mean so that's just life - but yeah the film probably didn't help no it's my aunt I kind of secretly want somebody to like fully have a have an episode while Washington you're sick poppy you who I already knew you were sick puppy but now you just confirmed it I really hope no I don't wanna say that you know I don't want anything terrible to happen but but uh just a little yeah it's just such an amazing wall and such an amazing experience and it's like I don't know you want to make sure that people really appreciate the you know the the power of it yeah the intensity yeah you don't want someone to watch the film be like oh yeah okay that was pretty but you know it didn't look that big you're like no it's so when you see it in person it's it's so I mean in the film I think is great but it's still nothing compared to walking into u7t Valley and looking up at the walls and just feeling that sense of grandeur and odd just like whoa no we could we would have gone sooner and we would like just struggling with like finding a babysitter for the kids and I was like well we just take the kids yeah did you take the kids no no we couldn't in hindsight there's no way you don't think they'd be I think you're old enough right there they're nine and eight yeah no they'd be someone don't know well dude you're you're completely discounting how [ __ ] scary this movie is that my kids would they'd go in their room and never come out no I don't think so I think it's extra scary because you're afraid of heights I think that for just like a normal like for someone that is not afraid of heights but also doesn't climb they you know it's scary but it's not crazy like the directors three-year-old is watch it like four times I know but that's that's that's Jimmy and his DNA is different than an ID I mean I think that I just don't think and again not to discourage people don't let's definitely take your kid climbing kind of such a good healthy you know good active lifestyle it's like yeah take your kid to the climbing gym taking in that movie look I do think you hit the nail on the head I I do think that that your story and your success in this film will only benefit the sport I mean the people are I mean I'm sure there's somebody that has the data of climbing gyms or gear sales or something that that stuff is all been on the up-and-up of course I mean you know not climbing is gonna be in the Olympics in 2020 it is that's like kind of a big thing so the sports been just steadily so way that's a demonstration sport in Tokyo a lot of baseball and a couple other things okay so then well this is way more entertaining than base baseball I can tell you that yeah so alright it's not gonna be big well for you so like it's not alcohol or competitions based on time or based on its three different disciplines speed climbing difficulty in bouldering bouldering being the short stuff and then difficulty being with a rope but bigger okay and then yes the combined score of the three disciplines so you right I don't want to do any of those I don't do that it's like it's the difference between like Olympic skiing like moguls versus like big mountains in Alaska I'm telling you no yeah exactly I'm more of like the big mountain adventure I'm definitely not the Olympic mobile skier you know so people doing it and people that are gonna win the Olympics are probably all like seventeen right now it's pretty crazy 17 year old gymnast probably yeah basically I mean it really is a lot like gymnastics yeah but there's like crazy talented gyms now and it's just it's like a different generation no yeah so this mix of gymnastics and like what's that thing where they go run around in chart or Park or no so that really is so in Norridge in bouldering is a lot like parkour now where people like bounce off walls and jump and catch things and swing and it's all crazy and so it's funny cuz that's getting more and more popular in gyms like the the setting style when people put the holes on the wall to create the problems that style is becoming more popular in gyms because that's how people compete but so it means that I don't wanna call myself an older guy but I'm you know I've been climbing twenty-two years or something and I show up in the gym and I'm like I don't know how to climb any of this stuff anymore it's like too jumpy and weird and it's not like the outdoors and yeah but this you know the world changes some yeah and what do they think about when is the Oscars are the Academy members and February indepent I'm II this film has to win Best Documentary right I mean there's brothers there's a bunch of record-breaking documentaries this area yeah there's the and actually they showed a preview before we saw a free solo for this other one about the opera singer they've talked about that this lady opera singer an operand heard about exactly and I was like I was so funny I was watching the preview like an ant I was like that's amazing it's like the [ __ ] you talkin about that's it looks terrible we're about to watch Honnold this isn't I mean this is this is like what would she think at the end of the film was she was she equally gripped as you are yes now she was yeah she was like that was an experience yeah and she's a mountain girl group in Colorado like she I mean you probably heard this from every one of your buddies wives or girlfriends or even just any woman I mean your girlfriend is such a sympathetic character in the in the film and I don't know I mean I get I know how these things work so the certain things get played up certain things can play down but it's pretty good it's pretty fair I'm in the film that's one of the things that's made doing all the press for me pretty easy is that the film is a really honest you're like yeah it's that's the last you tell me this and I don't want to and we can I wondered and I could add streaming this to a suspect I might get a different answer but the morning of the climb and the walk to the climb was that real-time no the walk maybe not a lot of it was the first time the failed attempt I'm pretty sure there was a I mean I kind of forget now it's been a year but um but and they filmed with me so many days of like driving the van marking walking I think that the actual morning that I did it I think that the crew picked me up at the base of the roof yep so is there a walking shot so that maybe was shot look by the way if I were you and I was going to do go attempt that I would never have I would do it I'd be like yo you can go set up on the mountain yeah that's kind of thing so like let me let me get in my space alone instead of having you know I would be free definitely the crew definitely learned that over time and so and realized that they needed to sort of insulate me a little bit more from everything and give me my space and so on so for a bunch of the soul is in it I mean some of them aren't even played up that much in the film like the Morocco section of the film is like a few minutes long but I actually did a bunch of soul as though that we're sort of cutting edge of the time and there's all sort of like training but but then ultimately didn't help the narrative the film so it just disappears into this montage you know yeah but so for those it was pretty you know there'd be someone hiking with me someone filming the whole thing like audio ruin the whole time like the whole thing is just all happening and then I think for the actual climb you know is toned down a little bit but it's because we'd already had shot two years of material too so it's like you know they just knew that they needed me to actually do the claw hem but like at some point there's like whatever it takes for me to be able to perform yeah yeah it's pretty like waking up like I would go crazy dude like if if I was about to go attempt this and this is like making breakfast and a lot of that stuff is all on autopilot anyway it's a my breakfast was already sat out you know I'd already mixed everything all I had to do is just pour some you know have milk into it and start spooning it you know basically just roll out of bed put the clothes on they're already sitting there my backpacks already packed like everything is ready so there's no you know it doesn't feel like you're hemming and hawing all morning like oh and when you first went the first attempt which you you pulled out of maybe because the crew that the crew was no no that was it there was yeah in the film sort of plays that it's like oh you know the tension with the Kaiser in my way and you know certainly that I'm sure that contributed but but largely my ankle basically wasn't healed and like the move that I bailed on was I had to trust my way onto this right foot hold like there no hand holds it's just this blank wall there's nothing to hold you just see you're balancing in her feet and my right ankle it's all swollen I couldn't feel my toes and I basically to trust my life to stepping on this little edge that was like you know the width of that pencil or pen basically because what it makes the first attempt you start in the dark and again three hours and 56 minutes like you can time this thing and the second successful attempt not in the successful mission yeah wasn't you didn't start in the dark that's the difference moved from time is time of year right so why wouldn't I would think we would want to just be yes in spring time during the mentally light well actually is hit or miss of spring time is normally better and that's when I did it was in June the days were longer and because the Sun is higher in the sky the wall shades itself for longer so you basically have six hours of shade to work in which is long enough that you can climb the whole route in the shade but also in the light whereas in the fall which is when I bailed the Sun comes up so late and then and then it's so low that the way it reacts across the sky this the wall gets Sun instantly so you basically only have two and a half three hours of shade which isn't enough time to climb the whole route we just want to start in the dark to make sure that I'd get through the hard part but also when I was doing all the preparations I thought it would take me close to five hours maybe just because nobody's ever climbed El Cap that fast so it's hard to you know like Tommy Caldwell who had prepared with in the film yeah the two of us he's a great character and yeah he's he's an amazing man yes he's awesome but um you know he's been inspiration from childhood I like that yeah Tommy is know as those old magazine covers of like his kid face but so the two of us had climbed that route together in six and a half hours previously and that was that had been the speed record on the roof so we kind of thought that six and a half seemed pretty fast so then when you're doing the planning or you know I definitely didn't think that I was gonna go sub four because you're just like that's but it's really hard to know what difference it'll make when you take the Rope way because there's just way less weight on you and you move more quickly and yeah that's so awesome yeah I mean that's kind of the nature anytime you're doing something that hasn't been done it's hard to anticipate well how about the I mean this is the only time in the film that showed you running into somebody so to speak but you're going along in this [ __ ] guy in a unicorn outfit is is come on why is there a guy on El Cap Freedman in a in a full body unicorn outfit he has one of those free things so I actually but that has stood that was did they know you were coming no no yes no it's random because this is I mean you know so if he is it's like a unicorn feet yeah it's funny chai has to be the director loves the unicorn thing and every time we do a Q&A together she's like oh the unicorn the unicorn feet exactly exactly this is a unicorn thing like she's like is how it's the unicorn or is there an actual unicorn and then there was a unicorn nice so far it has to be somebody somebody planted the unicorn no no serendipity then why is the guy on El Cap with the unicorn suit well so I passed three parties that morning so they were the third party that I passed and the other two parties were just normal busy you know actually the lower parties or parties at 3:00 so they're the three guys together on ledges and I mean it's totally normal for people to be camping on El Cap and in a bunch of the preparation shots where I'm like rappelling down the wall to work on sections you can see other people's ropes all over and like things going on because I'm you know cap is you know I mean that's the beauty of public land we can all just drive in there and climb I mean it's you somebody is the climbing is unregulated you just show up and you do your thing so on any given day there's you know dozens of parties always a list of these people most of the unicorn the other people must yeah I'm like holy [ __ ] today was our day like we saw him I met I've met a couple of them later at some of the film events who were like oh I was on this ledge when he passed and you know now asked a couple I'm like oh you know how long did you watch her you know because in some ways it's like oh this is amazing this feat is happening while we're up here in otherwise it's horrifying because if you're about to spend five days camping on a route and you're already pretty uncomfortable and you're tied into all this gear you know if you haven't spent much time on El Cap it something pretty intimidating and then some guy just walks by without a rope you'd be like oh my gosh like you would totally blow your mind and you know could be but they know obviously they all yeah yeah yeah but even still get a selfie bro and so that was the things I want to know weird and so when I passed everyone is so basically in bed and so you can see in the film and I walked past the unicorn guys still just for lunch and then and then they cut to a shot once I've climbed by when he's after this bed and he has the horn right a hole so when I saw him it didn't even look like a unicorn thing it looked like he was just wearing pajamas in a sleeping bag you're like oh that's weird and then yeah yeah what does they say well so mostly people just said good morning you know I just said good morning and walked by I mean it was still low on the route so I didn't want to get distracted or chow with anybody right like up higher on the route when I passed some of the crew some of the camera guys I actually chatted with him for a bit cuz it'd be like oh we're a beer rabbit you know because by then I was through all the hard stuff and I wasn't really stressed and it was just fun but but down low I was still feeling you know the weight of things like the boulder problem above me yeah and this that there's so many fascinating things about the film but the thing I love because I was um when I raced and competed I was a big believer in just knowing just doing recon right which is obviously you've done we're like visualizing the course and everything just yeah knowing it visualizing it thinking about it dreaming about it and in the level of detail that you went into I mean it to the person watching her to me it looked like you literally had envisioned and written down every footstep every every hand hold every yeah for all the hard parts for sure actually I'm curious so with racing though I mean did you visualize that kind of stuff like this is where I make my move yeah you know and you would like imagine like pulling away from the whole pack or whatever and you know yeah yeah it's it's not or like imagining the effort is you're like and this is where I've really dropped the hammer and go or whatever it's so yeah you're what you do is way more technical right in and so there's it's you're alone you know obviously I'm with 200 eyes so they 199 guys get to dictate actually what happens no matter who you are and and you can say you can you know you can sort of project or to try to predict who's gonna be left at that point so you find the places but you just never know there's too many variables inside you know sometimes people crash or whatever yeah and the tactics change for the day and then maybe there's a breakaway up the road or your your your team isn't as strong as it should have been or would have been so it's impossible to compare huh but so when you're when you're sort of imagining those do you just play through all those different scenarios then yeah because that's kind of that's definitely the thing for me with the soloing is you just play through like oh well what if it feels like my foots gonna slip or like what if I get scared at this point or what if the handhold doesn't feel great or what if it's a little humid and it feels a little slippery you know thing that things like that you just played through all the what-ifs I could imagine what cycling you're saying there's so many variables I'm just like imagine all of them so when it happens you just do exactly what yeah that's the humidity would be bad yeah but I mean it was a general humidity in the air just makes it feel like not quite as crisp and you know that's where you have a chalk bag you're consoling chalking up yep but then if there's actual water on the roof that would be even worse what about seeps out of the crime and this is just you know I was watching it first of all and people who listen to this show know I mean like I hate bugs I hate mosquitoes I hate flies I hate [ __ ] caterpillars I hate about you hey cliffs I hate I hate you hate Heights and nature and I'm sore and I hate you so of crowds just a crowd and I hate unicorns but in some of these shots as they're shooting down on you it's like these flies are buzzing around yeah it's a little bee things yeah Bo even worse it's not staying there like little you're 2,000 feet in the air and you're like trying to like it's like being in nature it just yeah it doesn't bother you so there's a season in Yosemite when the red ants all come out and some that even better not on El Cap so much because there's no vegetation but a lot of the other cliffs and you somebody there's a season where like as you climb the cracks their ancestors swarming down your hands and you're just getting bitten on stuff and it's all kind of heinous that's and there's also a season when do you know what silverfish are they're like these little like Trebek type creatures the tiny little they're kind of like your Wiggy 10 things but they don't bite and they're not like they're totally benign but they're like little silvery fish yeah look up a silverfish they're like they're weird little critters but anyway for whatever reason they kept fish no no they're like little tiny bugs I don't know I mean I don't know I I don't know how better to describe it they look like ancient creatures you know like prehistoric indeed and you kind of vision of course yeah yeah yeah but it's like smaller than that you know like they don't yeah like these guys dude but so so there's a season in Yosemite when hundreds of thousands probably millions of those cascade that makes it look really scary there because that's okay I mean the reality is there they're like size of your fingernail which have a little stress I'm afraid of heights my hands are tired and then this puppet so those guys though like certain time of year they're literally millions of them like cascading and sheets down the wall it's almost like water just like rolling down the cliff and so as you're climbing they're just falling onto you and then falling off and you're just like oh that's it's like silver fish just like raining it's weird I think it has to do with like when there's water and stuff but anyway I can't all i'ma say okay I have to close this page I can't look at this I can't look at it well that's why you ride your bike on you're high enough above everything that don't you bite through bugs yeah no I'm three feet off the ground it might be going fast but I guess some people are afraid of aren't you eating all those little bugs going through clouds and gnats and just like you get a little bit he did some yeah that happens yes you know you don't eat bugs okay I mean fair enough I mean it's it that's yeah I just like you adapt to any sport that you do because I actually I didn't really like bugs when I was younger I was pretty afraid of spiders and things like that and then you spend enough time climbing and especially in the more tropical parts of the world and you just you just run into him you know yeah it just happens ya know they just going back to the detail like it was just crazy I mean not crazy it was so cool to to actually see you I mean having sort of written all this down documented it like homework and then play through it and I mean I mean it comes off come in the film it comes off completely authentic it's not like Jimmy's like hey go over there read your notes for a minute no no I mean that's yeah you have to you have to learn it all I mean that's kind of one of the things with free soloing is because you can't just do it over and over to practice so the visualizing the mental component of it is so important because you can't physically do it to remind us you can do it with a rope but that's so different than the free solo experience that it's you know you really have to just play it on your mind talk to me about the shoes I was convinced and I'm probably wrong but I was convinced that you that when you were training the shoot you're trained she was different than your race shoe so to speak yeah yeah it looked it looked with same model same shoe right but maybe it looked like that it's always clunkier right so I was typically because the thing is when I was doing preparation you're on the wall for so long that you want you're like I call Mike loaning out crazy shoes they're like a little bigger a little pop you're all just like more comfortable yeah and then you know my race day she is my performance shoes and not tied that title I just look yeah exactly these guys just you know this is clearly a you know like a drag suit for a swim yeah yeah examine and then he's gonna go you know that is and so the thing is they're all the same model shoe what so somewhere half size bigger but mostly I would use you know I was using a TC pros as an image it's the Tommy Caldwell pro model so I designed for continental cap so they're like the best shoe in the world for that type of climbing and so so I was wearing 41's euro sizing and then the thing is when you wear for like a while it starts to get softer and like blown out the edge kind of wears off the rubber wears away so then once it's blown out then you're like that's now your work shoe and then and then you break in and because when you break them in out of the box they're super stiff and really uncomfortable hurts your feet quite a bit so she's a minor really really downsize so you can he's like my street shoe is 46 and a half and then my climbing shoes 41 so I'm downsizing five and a half European sizes which is like a lot of foot and it's not a small shoe yeah but anyway yeah yeah basically right you just use the use the blown out shoes for practice and then when you're doing the real thing it feels so much more crisp and perfect and yeah it looked he I was like oh boy your guys got these got their the sloppy sloppy cheating it's a racing flats on now oh yeah yeah totally for the real thing yeah you're like all this feels incredible right it feels like you can just step on anything which you have to be able to do because the foot holes are so bad right and what is this cuz when you got done there like nobody gonna go to you now you know if it went Super Bowl I'm going to Disney World and you know you're like I'm gonna go play or now hang board and hang board e yeah that's the doing the pull-ups off the little fingertip edge things and as I pulled up to the house I was like dude there's the van no there's the hang board in there yeah you won't try that after yeah what got in my door crammed in the bedroom we can yeah you can check it out in a bit Wow yeah it's fun well it's not really fun no it doesn't look fun at all actually yeah but he's doing pull-ups from your fingers all fingers what depends what you're trying to training out so sometimes you isolate specific you know one finger to finger whatever you're trying to do and then sometimes all four if you just had a pull-up bar how many it's good to do I don't know I haven't done endless probably like 20 or 30 because I mean for climbing you don't need to do that many pull-ups it's about the fingers yeah it's mostly about the fingers in fact you could probably be an elite climber with like basically if you had infinitely strong fingers but no bicep but you'd be a better climber than having huge biceps and no fingers you know I can I can I can see that you know strength yeah there are a few climbers who have freakishly strong fingers and just no arm muscle you know they can't like pull that hard but they can hold on and the thing is as long as you can hold on you can move the rest of your body in position you know if you keep your arm completely straight but you can hold the infinite with infinite strength you can maneuver the rest of your body and whatever way by rolling your shoulders to reach the next hold and then if you can crush that one but you don't have to be able to pull with your arms you know you can just use them you know I don't I don't think I can play the game today because I actually cut my fingers no you just do your back three that's how you train okay I'll try we'll try back three and and I also have to do a pull-up or just a hold just drive just feel the stuff and she's gonna tell you what happened to my finger I was here what do you do so okay I don't like I cook like scrambled eggs and I bought pasta and I can make toast it was a terrible scrambling accident no and so no so Anna the other night she's like which I don't know why she asked me to do this is [ __ ] terrible she made this out and she and she wanted to have she wanted me to shave some parmesan on top of it so not like grate parmesan but shape so it's like one of these I don't know what the tool is called budget carrot pieces cannotyou carrot yeah so I'm I'm a big chunk of parmesan I'm just going of course you know it's you ran out of thousand seven o'clock second o'clock at night so I've had a couple glasses of wine and I'm just you know all proud and then whack [ __ ] hole into my finger just by the way in the salad blood everywhere and it won't you know it's it's not a slice it's like a chunk Joe won't it just keeps bleeding for days so as much as I'd like to kick your ass and finger finger board or whatever I buddy doctor yeah yeah yeah no that's very that's better head but it was nobody had the salad either the game really nobody because my finger wasn't the chunk of the finger was in the saddle that's fine you can figure it out I couldn't we couldn't find it I feel like it's like I surprised you nose like when you get the Christmas cake and somebody gets the little present inside yes yes Christmas by the way I mean the fact that there's like this is called Anna put this [ __ ] around our front door it's gonna just like no it's called it's not a wreath stay what's this isn't Garland this garland yeah I mean see in the Christmas tree you know Alex you have you have stockings yeah you dude this is like a regular life like you watch the movie you're living in the van and you have this relationship over your girlfriend's beautiful and cool and yes like this is like you've gone from being a single dude living in a van playing finger board or whatever not quite playing but yeah yeah working on your finger strength and now that you got this is like regular like what what's next like 2.3 kids a white picket fence and we're in Las Vegas which is the craziest like when you guys go into AI this house I'm like Vegas I know but if you drove 15 minutes the other direction you'd be in full mountains I mean it's the best calm in the country it's like I'm fully into Vegas I played golf yesterday up on the on the foothills over there and I am and there was some of the holes were right on the border there are the you know the yeah pads going on basically the Mount I mean I saw a hundred mountain bikers like yeah guess the single track and yeah like yeah exactly so like 15 minute drive from the house you can be mountain biking you could be trail running you can be climbing and what amazes that I could go and climb like a 2,000 foot route by myself and still make a flight by noon you know it's like there's nowhere else in the country where you could go climb you know thousands of feet and then still make it and do they report because it's just like the the accessibility the ease of living I'm like I'm so into Vegas yeah I don't know I just found the last week in London doing film stuff and showing that back at home I was like oh my god it's so like easy here you know it's like yeah I know I love it good you gotta go now well we get a couple weeks for the holidays I'm so psyched yes climb and hanging and then just more film events and we'll see yeah this this thing in the film you know I would always that good because sunny comes in and that's your girlfriend and and do you have this discussion about priorities let's call it in life and you you know actually I was I was running with Ricky Gates the other day in San Francisco he's running every street you know in the city which is we can debate on well why but 1300 miles that's bothered and we were talking I said I said have you seen free solo and he said yes and so he's like he's like did that was so cool when he said I would always choose climbing over a woman yeah I see some of those and I'm like oh cringe that's a little that's a little much he loved it I was like yeah it depends on the person because then you know a lot of people see them like that guy's some kind of sociopath there's somebody who like what a weirdo oh my god I mean some of that is just because we'd already started filming the the movie in either it's already working on El Cap before I met Sonya yeah so some of those lines from like oh I would always choose a climbing goal over over a woman you know we're because we were two weeks into a new relationship or like a month into a relationship and you're like oh who knows that this is gonna be a thing versus the fact that I've been dreaming about alcohol ready I don't know I see that now and I'm like AHA that's pre pad because now it's like we're three years in this great glacier we have a home it's like great life together in Garland yeah I'm in a garland it's hard to argue that yeah handles yeah yeah those are left over from this thing but yeah but basically now I think if I was gonna take on something as big as one into free so long cap or even to make a film about it because obviously the film is pretty invasive in your life for a long period of time now I would certainly have some conversations with Sony about it be like so you know this is gonna take over my life for a couple years and there's obviously gonna affect you like you know is there something harder more iconic more legendary than El Cap I mean not really not I don't think so there are bigger walls in the world but they're mostly in really remote places so it's just less it's less accessible less and that makes it less historic less iconic you know I don't know yeah I mean I don't really think so but what you supposed to do I don't know you know enjoy my Garland no I know but I mean no I mean you're not there unlimited other climbing projects out there whether or not they're free soloing bigger walls is a different thing so like a couple months ago Tommy called or this summer Tommy Caldwell and I did the speed record on the nose which is the different route on El Cap so with ropes yeah with ropes though it's kind of a weird hybrid it's like when you're speed climbing you have a rope tied to each other but you're only placing gear every hundred feet sometimes so you're still looking at taking a 200-foot fall potentially like Tommy took 100-foot fall while we were working on it didn't hit anything totally fine like didn't effective but you're still like it's kind of sobering because we're like oh my god he just fell like a hundred feet you know yeah yeah but and just let me because I think I understand how this works technically but the Rope you know always feeds through a something that's no so hammered into the wall yeah basically so how does that catch you like you're if you're you're 160 pounds and you fall a hundred feet that mean the amount of force no because the the ropes are all dynamic so the rope stretches and absorbs a lot of it but so typically the second person the partner is holding the rope with the blade of a secre it goes through a play and they're able to like lock it off and and hold it yeah so you were holding when he fell yeah well so that's what made it a hundred feet is that I wasn't holding because and that's where the speed record stuff gets all weird because so we're still both tied in so normally you have two people climbing together from your perspective one person climbs up stops and then brings the other person up and eat and you're limited by the length of the rope you know so you do one pitch and then stop and then the next pitch and then stop and then the next pitch and stop when your speed climbing one person climbs up and when they get to the top of the pitch instead of stopping and bringing this guy up then you both start climbing at the same time and then the second guy just tries to climb at the same pace as the first guy and now as long as you have the rope clipped in into a couple pieces of gear as you go like the guy in the front Clips the gear the guy in the back cleans it back off the rock and then you know after a certain amount of time the guy in the front has run out of gear to clip and now the guy in the back has it all and then you switch and then that guy goes to the song yeah anyway so Tommy now it's like extremely complicated to configure as strategy-wise making sure that you always have gear between you because the thing is if you don't have any gear between you if you're not clip to anything and one person falls and it pulls you both off and on so it's like a disaster that would be that actually happened on El Cap this year while we were training for the while we were practicing for the speed record and it was like because that like never really happens then it actually happened it was like is that was also excuse all I know have you ever seen anybody fall like yeah yeah yeah a couple things yeah you actually saw this terrible accident red rocks here last last year right here yeah like home crag basically didn't see the actual accident but we heard some people screaming for help so we ran over and then basically this guy just like bled out at the base of a rudos kind of horrible here's all like help the fire department everybody get in there but then they just you know stopped effort services station when they saw him excuse he was dead you're just like whoa he's right there in front of you yeah you're just like but alive when you got there it's impossible to know I mean the same condition all the time people were doing CPR on his you know I mean but his head did collapse so yeah just assume that it's hard to know that's the thing with climbing it's like it's funny so in some ways climbing is a very safe sport where you don't routinely get injured you know you're not like the first word I comes was so like mountain bike say like a pro mountain biker breaks something like every season yeah you know or like a pro skateboarder breaks something every season like with climbing you cannot break anything your whole life and then you have one accident where you die yeah so it's like you know it's kind of a weird on/off kind of sport we're really safe right up until isn't and then you're dead yeah no I got it I got that part that's why I don't like it people emphasize the part where you die and people look at it as like rope climbing super dangerous and you're like no climbing a super high consequence but it's not that often that people actually have those kinds of accidents and so you know typically you can go for ten years without ever hurting anything and you're like oh that's a super safe sport but then if something does happen it's gonna be really serious and do you feel any does it stress you out at all to think that that because people are going to I mean fifteen-year-old kids are gonna watch this film and be like I want to do that like I want to be that guy I want to do that I want to do it fast about that you know oh yeah or any any face right and and and there are they're gonna slip yeah I don't know I mean you know to be fair I was that kid 20 years ago so you know it'd be slightly hypocritical if I was like oh I'm not gonna not gonna show these kinds of things because I was that 15 year old reading all the media you know reading articles watching any movie I could see you know getting inspired by climate and it's taken me down a path that I'm pretty grateful for you know I'm very happy with the life that I've lived in sort of like God you know think other people should be able to do the same thing yeah but the other thing with free soloing is that it's not something you can just watch a video and then good do you know because it's basically too hard you know young right I mean I don't think people are driving over to Yosemite this looks like where he started I think I'll just go here like on a totally totally and then think of the unit they did even if they were just like I'm just gonna do it I'm sure it'll be fine you know then they actually have to be able to you know because the first the first 15 feet of that route are fairly easy but then it starts to get kind of hard and so it's like you know and then move I move you basically have to choose like I want to pull up and make another move and like I want to raise my feet stand up make another move mm-hmm and if it's like at all scary for you you know you just stop after a couple moves yeah you know once you're six feet off the ground you're like a lot of my twist my ankle you know it's then you got to get down yeah exactly see that's the thing like if you yeah if I were to cool I would do it and then I'd be like how the [ __ ] am I gonna get down like mom mom please help there's I mean they're self-service on on capp you know you just very carefully pull your phone out you call call somebody yeah we all help yeah yeah we'll see I'm actually really curious about that kind of stuff I mean give a couple years and see what impact the film has on on climbing and on you know cuz I wonder if the roots gonna get really crowded because the the roof free writer that I sold I mean like I said anybody can trouble you 17 climb so you know anybody that wants to go try it can go and try it so going back to what what you could do next I mean is it is speed a thing like do you d say well I did in three hours - six minutes can I can I do it in three and a half like our design speed could be a thing in this case it doesn't really matter because the significance of free soloing I'll cap is so much greater than repeating though the speed matter to me in as much you know I kept track of the time because I knew that it would be fast and I wanted to know so you know I had my time we're going yep but um but no I mean I doubt that but if somebody does the second ascent and they do it faster but they'd be proud of that you have somebody else free soul is it but they do them 350f KT or whatever like trail running world yeah and I mean that's that's cool I mean I like I like keeping track of speed - well why wouldn't you just retire can we can you I'm not asking you I'm - I'm just saying why don't you just stop yes come on well I mean for that matter I mean I haven't done would you go crazy well I would go crazy if I didn't go climbing I mean I love it on climbing that's what can we not I mean you have this beautiful girlfriend I don't know if you you mean if you had a child you can't you can't go do that [ __ ] when you have kids I'm just telling here that's the way it is and that dogs doesn't count the cat doesn't round it garland doesn't count like you the garland feels about half way to having kids you committing but you just it's a lot in cycling like the the best field sprinters in the world so these dudes at the end of the race that are I mean they're sprinting at 40-plus miles an hour rubbing elbows bump and grind and you sprint at 40 months no they go faster than that yeah yeah I'm so flats just on the five yeah yeah 200 guys you want for the line and I mean they're there but it's it's like a it's like NASCAR right and so that's extreme but when they start having kids like without naming names I mean kid one can - they start getting they go from first to third to seventh because they have less quality training time or is it because they lose the edge of what do they lose yeah that that fearlessness that sort of thought is that gladiator just like [ __ ] it whatever it takes to win I don't know I don't care if I hit the crab date when they're young and dumb they don't care if they hit the ground yeah no no I mean I've seen a fair amount of change in that in my own process I mean and even the film even free solo sort of shows that change in my process because so much of the film is me talking about being the lone wolf though you know the warrior all that kind of stuff and then the reality is that I do the whole thing with my girlfriend in a stable relationship you know there's never any big drama like it doesn't come off as stable it's pretty stable I mean you know we're still together we have a house together I'm happy you know I'm honestly bro I'm surprised you're shocked but no I'm surprised no yeah it's just you and you have to be when you watch that again maybe it's part of the film a part of the the narrative but you I'm like wow she's still there yeah yeah she's she's an angel you know she's very she's very forgiving but no I'd had previous relationships though there were much more tumultuous with much more on/off and you know basically like oh I want to go climb something real so I need to break up go out do my thing for a while and then two months later be like oh I really miss you she would get back together like that type of stuff where and Sonia has no patience for that she's like that is stupid if you break up with me it's done no sort of like oh oh so let me get this right so most people okay most most relationships guys and girls are partners or whatever yeah yeah if somebody breaks up then the and then wants to get back together then the natural question is like well did you sleep with another woman and so in what you get to say is no I climbed three mountains like that's that's that's the biggest fear she needs or has yeah I mean it's all way more complicated there's always way more drama but we broke up and I went climbing and then I came back and like but most most people are like running around being just dog yeah yeah yeah I'm definitely not going to the bar I don't even drink so yeah I'm just like living in a car especially my old man was so scrappy uh it was pretty pretty bad so just like living in the little tiny band and just like trying to climb hard things here yeah yeah yeah no I mean I definitely have seen a difference and you know I'm definitely way more stable and and I mean since since I for you so I'll cap I haven't done any significant for you so part of that is just because I was focused on some other types of training and then I did the speed record with Tom and I've just been doing other things and then and not too long with the film for three or four months but I don't know I don't have any free sewing projects coming out I don't have anything I'm excited about yeah so I mean you know maybe I'll like never free so anything significant again good I like you think that's a good idea yeah we're you seem like a good dude and let's not let's not [ __ ] this up okay yeah it's just something my boss let's this is great just keep it like it is but in the past though I've also kind of gone is sort of cyclical where I'll do some hard soloing and then I'll take a year of just going on expeditions and climbing with partners and doing other things like working on other parts of climbing and then so uh some things so you know could just be in a year or two I get really inspired by it again and thing is if you've done carefully and thoughtfully I mean you you know I could potentially free solo it forever carefully when you did this were you ever scared when you're up there and again it doesn't matter when you're about 50 feet you're gone anyways if you slip but when you look down or when you the boulder problem and you had to leap over or stretch over the Karate Kid Clayton are you you gotta be scared no not not for that stuff I mean so there were a couple moments on on the actual climb like the day that I free saw a little cap I mean I was you know I don't say scared but you know nervous or excited or whatever while hiking up to the base I mean just walking up you're like oh you know like it's kind of on ya but your feet on the ground at that point yeah and then the free blast labs like the the low angle stuff down low that's low angle mean low angle meaning less than vertical so the wall is like sixty degrees that's a so you're walking kind of yeah yeah but I mean you're not but it's like walking up a mirror you know so imagine like a completely polished smooth slab and all your weight is on your footholds so it's actually the scariest style of climbing because there's nothing for you to hold with your hands so does that make sense - yeah totally yeah so it's like because the thing with that is that no matter how strong you get it doesn't feel any easier because all your weights on your feet so it's purely technical if your foot slips you're gonna fall off whereas other styles of climbing the stronger you get the easier it feels yeah you know if you're like I'm so strong I can hold on you're tacky yeah even if my feet slip you could just hold onto some edge you know the stronger you get the safer that feels whereas with the low angle climbing you know if yeah if you slip you're gonna fall off the mountain and there's no stop man you can't catch it right as a feet down right yeah be horrible and like I just do it I can I'm sorry keep going back like you're up there like and you look down like no part of that you're like I'm but this I mean you spent so much time preparing so and you've also just spent so much time you know like if I was just magically transported in the middle of a peloton I'd be like ripped out of my mind because you know I don't like to cycle that close to people or things because I don't feel that confident in my handling and I would for sure hit somebody than we crash so we I used to do this with the guys like I would and not just my teammates but but other guys in the peloton that the spoking lizard you could communicate with like I mean we do down hills and in the rain you go 70 downhill 70 miles an hour downhill in the rain a hundred guys around you and I'm and I'm thinking to myself I am so [ __ ] scared yeah then you would go fine and then you get to the my heads you should because it's just like one move away from death right but you're good but you're not you don't get scared so at the bottom I would confide in somebody at one time I'll never and he was a great bike handler I confided and Stewart O'Grady I was like dude were you were you scared just now cuz I was [ __ ] terrified and he's like yeah yeah I was scared like y'all sit all scared like but you're you're telling me that you're not yeah but it's a little like I'm is legit scared no no I mean no I mean I've been legit scared many common experiences but I mean I think that one of the difference though is like with sports where you go really fast it's just it's easier to get scared like that I mean climbing is a very slow and thoughtful and you know in the and you're not competing and so there's no pressure you don't have to do it if it's scary you just don't go that day you know whereas with racing it's like if everyone else wants to go 70 you have to go 70 or else you're not you know or else you're not competing what happens dorm rolls in like oh the day you did it and you know half what you know that part of the world I mean storms can it's California it's you know yeah I mean Jun and Kelly watch the weather night yeah you watch the weather but if it happened like a rain big rainstorm yeah you got to stop you get super wet yeah yeah you have to stop you can't climb but um but you know if you saw it building you could stop on a Ledge somewhere you know like the places where people camp on the wall you could stop on one of the you could set you could call on your friends I'm worst case scenario you stand on some little tiny perch and just stand there for day and it's like shiver there's somebody to come and get you yeah like the cover you did that cover yeah National Geographic yeah exactly I mean the alleged like that I mean it looks crazy but it is safe to stand there and so if it started to rain you could stand there indefinitely and just but that's what it helps to have the crew I mean yeah if you're out there truly alone then you're you gotta wait for somebody to come by or calls the funny thing with the film crew on the wall is that you know you're like oh there's a film crew there but so I think the day that I did it there were maybe five or six people on the wall on a 3,000 foot route something's every 500 feet there's there's a dude hanging out that's not like a lot of coverage you don't know because they're hanging in one spot and so you climb 500 feet and you see your buddy who's hanging 15 feet away you know off the route with the ropes totally out of my way and you'd be like hey and then and then is along and then and then it's another 500 feet yeah exactly would you talk to these guys yeah I mean they're all really good friends and roll up they're hanging out yeah the one guy who was the dude he couldn't you have a guy he couldn't watch yeah this guy like he literally had to turn away as well I mean it was a sweet he's a sweet story like the guy was legit no my friend yeah I mean had he been up like so he had done most of the filming on the wall with me actually but then he unfortunately towards a CEO and a ski injury and then wasn't able to get up on the wall for the actual day that I didn't which is why he was shooting the long shot from the meadow but um but part of it is because when you're shooting the long shot you don't have to watch the whole thing because you can just reframe it every once in a while yeah and so I think for him was just like who wants to expose the you know who wants to watch more than they need to right you know had you been on the wall on the wall filming like obviously he would have watched the whole thing because you know because you had you but you know for him he's just like dude I don't need to see more of this than absolutely necessary yeah and the old guy in the movie what's Peter Croft yeah Peter crafts is the man so he's an example I've been always cool like when you when you when you pulled out of the first attempt and it just y'all's interaction and and it comes off very authentic like he you know he was like what happened you I don't know what you said you said something like I had yeah just I all there and he was like just it was like this sage like I know he's so chill he was like like you so I would take care of so ya know he is he is seriously the the I don't I don't wanna say grandfather but he's like Buddha free soloing Buddha for sure yeah and so he has been free selling in a super high level since the 80s or late seventies maybe and and he's still alive he's something now and he has a wife and you know totally happy life and in Bishop California and I mean he's it's just funny I like I had dinner with him a couple years ago and I was like oh so Peter at what point did you stop you know with soul lying harder it's like at what point he sort of back away from the cutting edge and he was like kind of thought about he was like oh actually I did a couple of my hardest soul it's just a couple years ago like at his local crag if you measure by grade I mean several of the most significant things he did were in Yosemite like there's a scene in the film where he's like all I did the rostrum 50 or 60 times and I was like you did a 50 or 60 times I was like you know cuz at the time that would have been like nice and that I've climbed out cap like 15 times you'd be like really like that's crazy you know and so yeah I mean so his most significant climbs were in the you know seventies and eighties in Yosemite but just you know a few years ago he was still climbing at a high high level at his home crag just like all just fun you know you're just like that I mean that's pretty remarkable Craig is like Oh Craig is like local cliff so like his normal Craig cake how do you feel like CRA gee it just means like a rock Radcliff yeah yeah sorry yeah this is how far away I am from I didn't know that was a word yeah honestly the crag just means like the cliff but so it means you know like for me if you look for my driveway you can see a bunch of rocks I'd run Rock and everything out there you're like oh we're going to the crag it's like the 20-minute drive to all those rocks yeah do you ever go down to the strip like once try see here you know go for like a fun date night with my girlfriend or something yeah we're in the suburbs a little bit or just yeah Relic on the west side of town you know you would never go down and play black jacker no no I'm like I I think gambling is so stupid because you're designed to lose like what's the point in gambling well you know it turns out they don't build those big expensive shiny buildings yes sir even money I'm exactly exactly like the spa is not that nice it's that nice I won't use yeah why would you ever play a game where if you play it enough you're gonna lose all your money yeah will you gamble enough what that's the thing is that I wouldn't consider that gambling it's all calculated it's all you know like consider a gambling we're free that's well no but that's the thing it from the outside yeah it looks like gambling looks like rolling the dice but from the inside it looks like you prepare until until you're a hundred percent sure that you're gonna do it and then you do it you were 100% sure well I mean it feels that way I mean realize you guys may have to be because if you're thinking well I've got about an 80% chance because the other 20 isn't like you lost are you or you know it's slow or yeah beep no it's yeah no no it feels like 100 I mean realistically it might be 99 or something or you know 98 but um but on the inside you're like I will for sure do this this is the day mm-hmm whereas you know with blackjack it's like yeah that's it's never your day mm-hmm and I'm not I'm not trying to throw them under the bus but I but I was curious and they did they did it to others besides you but when cliff bar ended the relationship with but not just you but other athletes that they're doing extreme very dangerous seemingly very dangerous things that they dropped everybody due to the risk and they'd want to be associated because of yeah it's the only friendly company yeah I don't know I wasn't down with that decision it didn't bother me that much I mean um you know it's I mean it's private companies they can do whatever they want sure and uh you know yeah I was like it's their choice you know I disagree obviously because I think that it's important to support these sports and I think that the people that they cut were all relatively thoughtful about the risk that they were taking I mean I certainly feel like I'm gonna be as thoughtful as possible about it though I mean one of the people that cut was Dean Potter who did die two years ago in a bass drumming accident and so you know I can in some ways Clifford you know was trying to distance himself from that kind of risk taking and and that's what happens yeah but you've never seen I mean I've never seen a company I mean here's the I mean comparing contrast to the North Face who's leaned completely leaned into your endeavors kind of actually the North days I mean they don't really support free soloing either I mean all my all the people in sports until the movie runs the academy award and zillions of people see it and see the red shirt and the little yeah they'll be proud of it I mean they've always been very supportive of me personally and you know they're they're supportive of my climbing and whatever way but nobody would ever ask me you know my oldest bonus no no the exports ten thousand dollars if you can solo El Cap the the last sports marketing manager and this is before I'll cap and me for everything she always just told me if you never want to go climbing again and you just want to show up and do appearances that it's fine by us you know yeah I was like I agree with her yeah but you know where's the joy and I mean the whole point is to go climbing yeah yeah it's funny though because people always ask like oh or your sponsors pressuring you to take risk and you're like no your sponsors are pressuring you to stay at home and just go to events you know because as far as sponsors are concerned like they don't really need at least for me they don't necessarily need that much more from me they just need me to go out and represent the brand would you have done it without the crew oh yeah well I would have tried it was easier with the crew though just as the logistics make it even if Jimmy never came here I don't know how the whole thing drew yeah I was already playing I mean it was already you know I already had journals with lists and goals and all that kind of stuff I mean El Cap was always this big dream of mine whether there was a film or not but the fact that the film crew came to me about making a film did make it a lot easier for me to work on it actually since we're talking about sponsorship one of the ways that doing the film made it a lot easier for me to work on it was because I basically got like a two-year pass from all my sponsors from doing all the obligations that I would normally have because I'm like oh I'm working on the film and obviously my sponsors are long farsighted enough to be like oh you just focus on the film and you know skip this with some appearance or yeah triage so it meant that um so like 10 or 12 years ago before I had any sponsors before had anything I would show up in Yosemite and I would just be posted up for two months doing nothing but climb yeah and you know until the weather got bad and I'd be like oh that was a fun season in the valley and if I did like one interview I'd be like what a crazy season I did that one interview for rock and ice magazine or something you know I was like random you know now it's like I go to 70 for a couple months I have to fly in and out for different things I have to you know there's a lot more stuff happening and it's way harder to get into that deep you know to feel fully in the place and prepared and so I felt like to feel comfortable for you selling I'll cap I was gonna need to sort of tap back into the older style of just like I'm there there yeah yeah I'm or monastic for sure and so you know by doing the film was actually easier to tap into that and in a lot of ways because you know I could skip going to events I could skip showing up at you know excuse yeah exactly because like I'm working on the film right but then the film you know they're only documenting whatever I want to do normally it's not like I'm going out posing it's not like a you know they're never scheduling my day I'm doing whatever I want to do and then they just try to film it yeah and so it was like it's pretty easy in a lot of ways I know right because people are like oh isn't it so invasive and you're like well the thing is you know the day to day is like one of my friends is holding a camera and hanging out with me you know it's not that different than then I mean what sometimes it's weird there's like guy with the boom and you know the the microphone and like the directors and there's like a crowd around but a lot of the time it's just me and one camera guy and they're all friends and so you know you're like oh it's a lot like normal life in you so many yeah I don't know so all these people like I look out here and I see I see a house but as I drove in there said does your name do your neighbors have any idea what what the hell you do yeah actually so it's all older ladies I would imagine a built in 89 and it's all the original homeowners so we're surrounded by three older ladies on each side and it's pretty classic so when I first bought the house I saw two of the two of the women speaking to each other on their driveways and so I went over is like hey I'm Alex I just bought this house next door like just FYI I'm a professional climber and you know there's a big climbing community here it'll be pretty normal for like random people to be coming and going and like packages to be showing up and it's just all kind of a weird scene I was like don't be alarmed by it you know it's like total smoke working bad yeah exactly it was so that's yeah I was just trying to reassure them they're like this isn't as weird is it my look is this is all yeah on the up and I'll be home during the day it's all kind of yeah I run weird hours and pack in the van and then and then the car will be gone for two months and then we'll be back and things like that you know it's like just you know be prepared and uh and then some honey told me late so I think the last Christmas maybe she made cookies for all our neighbors or she just like had extra course she said yeah of course but um but so she wouldn't over gave some of our neighbors that our neighbor told this whole classic story that when I the neighbor said that when I want to over and introduce myself she was like no way this guy's a frickin Tweaker like he said only doesn't the house if she actually contacted the HOA to find out who had ownership of the home and like fully looked it all up and it was like this is this seem sketchy and then was like oh but then as it turns out when I saw him again over the over time I gave them all like a signed copy of my book and you know so now they're all like super stoked and not like signed posters for there's like I don't know I haven't actually I haven't seen them in like months now cuz I've been gone so I should go interview them dear excuse me ma'am have you seen Alex's new it would be quite the interview they'd be like oh yeah I know that they're pretty classic just another I love rankings and then stats and data and I mean Vanity Fair I didn't know they did this but they do so they the Vanity Fair I don't know if you know this right ranked the top ten movies of the year movies not documentaries movies so you know I'm sure the sound of music or whatever that thing is about this this documentary slash me they put it number four I was good I mean documentaries don't they just don't rank like that yeah but this this doesn't feel like a documentary in a lot of ways you know it's like an action movie almost sure like I know it's actually a dude it's like a [ __ ] I've never been that scared like Freddy Freddy Krueger has nothing on you [ __ ] Texas Chainsaw Massacre nothing bro I'm serious I don't sweat when you watch these very deep fear of heights I think that the some people aren't quite as grip I went with with Anna and another friend of ours Ilan and now everybody oh no no I don't get that scared watching the movie I hate horror movies though I'm like yeah I'm gonna do it yeah no but yeah it's funny some people talked about a narrative rights to moviemaking like a Hollywood version in the movie and you're kind of like how could a Hollywood movie cinema possibly like what and how could it possibly be more more compelling than the actual moment that was like yeah it seems totally crazy no not when you're alive you can't do that when you're alive I mean like they mature Steve Prefontaine you know that's a great movie because prism is an iconic guy and edgy and it's not alive you know have you ever done any of that stuff have you did like sold by fresh they're done a film or anything well I don't know if you know my story or not but it's been a little it's been a little crazy yeah I mean but that's what makes it compelling so it started my story would start it started as I read your book when I was young like what is it it's not about the buddy when is that published because I think everyone was like mm maybe came out in 2000 oh yeah so yeah cuz I thought it was like a teenager so it make sense yeah so that movie or that book which is you know I was waiting book by the way I was like so inspired at the time I live it left out some parts and so that that that book was a that was like I feel related yeah feel-good sort of iconic hero movie and so that would there was a lot of interest around that hmm and then the pendulum swung in the way the other way and so then there been other there's been documentaries there was a feature film with Ben Foster who's been on this podcast who played me what's with that phone that's called [ __ ] what's Dave what was that movie anyway so how do you know they're in the name of your movie you didn't do that much no hang on hang on no no I wasn't I mean it was a but it was about you it's yeah it's unauthorized if you're if you're a public person yeah yeah no I've got 18 books coming out of this here I'm sort of like yeah so that's there's nothing you can do about that yeah it's not please Lee defame you then you yeah but then you get in I mean there's this movie coming out um Christmas Day called Vice which is about Dick Cheney and I mean it's not like Dick Cheney sat down well this is exactly what happened what the hell was the name of the movie this is okay this is gonna bug me look up IMDB then and by the way Ben's been he's gotten to be a really good friend that's cool but he played you he played me that's awesome and I you know it's not the kind of thing I would ever watch yeah but when he agreed to come on my podcast I was like that I have to watch it I mean it would be uncool of course interview him and not have watched it no no I watched it how was it I'll let him the program it was called the program I don't know 2015 but oh so yeah I mean it wasn't look it's hard to watch that book yeah and about Lana so yeah well I mean for me watching free solo half the movie all the stuff with with Sahni all the stuff with my family and a relationship I mean I find that pretty hard to watch even though it's not like it's not overtly bad but I mean there's so many scenes where I'm unkind to my girlfriend or just yes you are yeah well yours like oh no I watched that I had my hood like pull you know I was watching the movies yeah watching all that cringing and just like oh man but you know the thing is it's all kind of honest this is all I'm like well that's you know obviously I said all those things so it's fair yeah but um but yeah you're just like well yeah yeah you don't strike me as a guy who sort of hams it up for the camera that's like that's what you see is what you get yeah she knows that it did I did you know definitely all kinds use in the film yeah you lose a little I got a little lost on in the lead-up to the to the successful run when she I don't know how it all went down but either she wanted to leave or you asked her to leave and and that was that was I was like oh like is she ever gonna come back like she was so bummed and like oh no it was alright I mean so I didn't have to ask her before the fan she finds it yeah she knew she just knew that she should give me a little more space and at that point we own this home now and so it was way you know she had somewhere to go she had lots of friends in town and it was like a much better scene I mean in the fall on my failed attempt you harder because we didn't have a home and there is no where easy for her just to disappear for a few days there wasn't like a place she was living in a van with me and we were climbing together so you know she was just gonna like stay in the van but then it's a little weird for me just because you know I mean it's hard to roll out of bed at 4:30 in the morning leave your beautiful girlfriend and be like I'm gonna go do this thing when you're like or I could just stay in bed yeah okay I don't know yeah women [ __ ] and I was like yeah I mean I'm sure you dealt with all the same things like getting up early training like pushing like what motivates you to push super hard if you already have a very comfortable life you know like if things already good like why push yeah well that's that's that's then if you never win anything if you think that way exactly but I know why do you have to win right you know like that's just that's just in people's DNA what with us I mean I've been getting questions about that all the time for the last couple months you know doing press for the film like you know but like what is it the heart of drive like why are you trying to do hard things and you're gonna like I don't know cuz mm you know parents didn't love me properly or is that just or is that like hardwired in you know mm like some people just want to mm-hmm you know but same with like explorers or adventurers like why does anybody want to see what's around the next corner you know like like where does yeah where does human drive come from yeah I mean obviously you you have a lot of drive to yeah it's like that you can also had I mean you know real family life and me but nobody in your family climbed no no nobody so when you started when you were 12 or will be 13 oh yeah 11 I think 11 you just up and said hey I'm gonna go down to the no I'd already been climbing on stuff so much I love like running on the tops offenses or like playing on playgrounds and running on the tops of fences I just thought of X I've looked out of my fence because that's how I get to my grocery stores I walk out the top of the fence baby I can cut diagonally through my neighbor's fence to get to the store faster saves me having to walk around the block and so uh wait wait hang on hang time the [ __ ] so it's a cinderblock wall I see that so if you walk along the top of the cinder blocks you can cut out to the cul-de-sac do you go through your neighbor's yard well I walk you know in between my two neighbors yards on the top of their fence so I ask about these poor ladies that you live around I mean no Matt now there so you warn them on how yes I scheduled the woman over there yeah they like your Peter there's my neighbor walking on top of the fence in my yard well I'm not in her yard I'm walking between her yard and what she thinks you're in her yard well yeah but it's but it's her front yard and sir driveway and it's totally fine but um you know it saves me a couple minutes going to the grocery store mr. Wender I went out that way this morning and I was like but so that's the point it's my whole life I've always been into that kind of stuff where you're like oh I'll obviously take the straightest line even if that means jumping to fences and climbing over roof you know like that's like that's a no brainer you know is you said that I thought to myself well that's a no-brainer yeah exactly no that's not that's no first of all I get in the car and drive to the grocery store well my guru sister was like 200 meters away it's like right over there but you know yes I went this morning but um yeah coffee no I don't know never been into it no alcohol no carbs you know happen just water mmm I'm gonna have to break my rule see I don't trust anybody in the world that doesn't drink alcohol and doesn't drink coffee and ideally they drink both she wouldn't you trust a mark is there more stable no because if you're taking stimulants and then sedatives that saw a sort of a weird roller coaster that you're on of course no it's just people more when they're I didn't say I didn't say it was the rule made sense or it was everybody should have this rule I'm just saying that's my rule huh but I just I'm breaking the rule like I totally totally trust you yeah no I feel trustworthy you know you just just watched a documentary honest you're way too much like old man yeah your definition of cheating on your girlfriend is going climbing yeah well you know that's trustworthy you know yeah the let's talk about your foundation because it was cool I'm glad they put it in the in the film and and you know you probably never thought I mean none of us ever think that that we're gonna be in a position to try to do something useful to affect change to raise money to help people like I'm a climber like ten years ago yeah let's start I had the little bracelet there yeah never like I never thought I was like oh my god if we raise a thousand bucks we will exactly exactly know and that was certainly the hähnel foundation when I started I was just donating my own money through and I was just like oh if I can give anything you know basically if I can do anything positive in the world that's great success and I'll feel great about it and it has nothing to do with climbing based on know what it has to do with the environment I mean so I was trying to I was looking for a sort of environmental protection any kind of something that helps the environment and then that led me to solar supporting solar yeah because like there's no point in supporting environmental projects that don't also improve standard of living that also help people yeah these people in these villages like no electricity no light no yeah or even or even here I mean even in the US I mean because we've been supporting this group of grid alternatives that works domestically and it just does home PV for for low-income families mhm so far fighting systems for for folks in need and it's pretty amazing I mean for people not having to pay utility bill I mean that can significantly improve the quality of like a family living on a fixed income I mean that can be a big deal if you're saving 100 bucks a month yeah and so in and you're saving that money in a way that helps the environment yeah and so to me that's like an obvious win-win yeah and your sponsors help no not really I mean they kind of have sort of one-off things actually cliff are supported one of the projects on the post no before okay and then the North Face has supported several of the expeditions where we've gone to certain places to do work but um but so far they haven't really supported like at a corporate level she's supporting the foundation to renovate but I kind of think they will I just think there's some like inertia and that kind of stuff where it just hasn't gotten there yeah and honestly I think the film will help I think I didn't know you had a foundation yeah there you go right and so you do now and you look it up and you know yeah so I also I hired an executive director last year so there's a full-time this woman Dorie tremble who runs it yeah there's Dorie Brittney Givens yeah there you go dorium Brittney Alejandra yeah alejandro Espinosa de los Montero's yeah he's a lot of name he's newer he's doing events yeah I didn't yes that's cool yeah exactly so basically it's been it's been growing over time and yeah this is this year is the first year that we've actually tried to fundraise a bit and it's kind of amazing we've raised a lot more than we ever had before yeah and so uh so I think that's probably gonna change the scope of the foundation event like start actively seeking out more projects just where is that based well I mean you know between my house and Dora's house I guess okay it's she's here no she lives in Salt Lake yeah which is another climbing hub yeah yeah it's basically just online you know I mean us just communicating yeah yeah are you gonna go to the Academy Awards if I get invited I mean I don't know I mean the film of the film's gonna get nominated well we'll see actually I think tomorrow the shortlist gets announced and so that's the top 20 and then the nominations are gonna goes down January yeah I've followed all this closely last year with Icarus I don't know if you so yeah yeah I saw grace yeah yeah so so I understand how the process yeah kids not one that's doctor one who does documentary yeah yeah I didn't think was that great but but I you know oh no it was good don't yourself you gotta say nice [ __ ] about people well no I mean no you know I know I never you know what you actually call it exactly the way it is never was so I've been watching all the other contenders for Best Documentary this year and and it's just that so many documentaries are like slightly boring you know I'm not a dude I'm obsessed with documentaries the listeners of this show no I mean I watch every documentary especially music do you know all the contenders this year I want to hear your reviews no so the well the thing is is I don't come and I might have seen a documentary in a theater before but I'd download them and watching when I travel so it anything that I would have watched I'm gonna watch this with like if you see an RPG this year mm-hmm oh yeah three huncle strangers no don't alone but the three brothers who yeah yeah that's out on iTunes is that yeah it doesn't that's this year okay whatever you guys got this won't you be my neighbor is that that's the mr. Rogers mr. Roger haven't seen people because I want to bring my said that seemed that is that in this dozen this year it now made like more than twenty million dollars yeah it well record boxes and stuff and yeah and I think there's such nostalgia for for mr. and mr. Rogers is just such a remarkable man as you know I don't remember the show I never washes a kid or anything but um but watching the documentary I was like oh wow he is an amazing amazing man and then the film was really moving but it has you guys look you're gonna get nominated and we'll say so then you'll be there just wait and see yeah I know cuz I can see people also just being like oh that's a climb to new beer it's a I don't know you know I mean yeah so you just never know I think the Academy is maybe a little I was gonna say a little fickle but maybe just hard to it's it's I think it's I think it's um I think it's pretty gamey I mean like I think there's you have to play the game I think you got to play the game but yeah I don't know I mean I'm not I'm not a film person it's funny because then you're not a game you don't strike me as a game when there's the last several months that we've been doing this film tour I mean I'm basically playing the game I mean I'm going to the event it's all set up by publicist is set up by you know I don't know whoever's in charge you have equity in the film yeah I think I get a like some I think that well then you should go to those things because the more you go the more people watch and if you have and you should have skin on the game by the way I don't know yeah yeah I don't know what your action is do I think it's a I think it's like a producer stake you know something you know 10 percent of something of the users but I was sort of told ahead of time that that it was not likely to ever actually make money off that kind of thing which you know we'll see it's gross what is it gross worldwide probably like 11 million Oh No which is way more than anybody especially ranked is more net oh I don't know the u.s. is probably at around 11 or not and then we'll see that in the download point and it just opened in the UK just it's going to it's going to freaking 1800 screens in Australia over the next little bit or some fish I was like that's more in the US it's good yeah I don't know yeah so I mean and then all the foreign TV rights I mean it's yeah it's barely even begun I think but I know but I was told that it's kind of like books where you don't expect to necessarily pay back here like you you know you know want one in 10 books yeah you're not expecting to make money alright book yeah don't yeah you didn't you weren't out there like ya know exactly as I'm climbing on my achieve nickel 5 recorders are falling out dollar bills everywhere yeah it's raining dollar bills yes no I mean no bag nobody's ever gone climbing to try to try to make money this is such a weird town I saw it look check this [ __ ] out I took a picture of it last night this it's just like it that's why I don't go done yeah [ __ ] did I delete it anyways there's this like sex museum like a sex toy museum and they had they had a x-rays through the ages no no no hold on this is crazy man well I can't find it but it was they brag about they have the largest sex bike in the world on display I mean I don't either and I know about every kind of bike yeah I was like yeah I put it on my actually I put it on my Instagram look world's largest sex bike huh I'm surprised you never rode that for training or anything is that is that's just been crazy it's called the erotic Heritage Museum just 15 minutes from here Alex I'm gonna go I'm gonna take Sahni on a date night down there dude then when that happens we have to do another podcast cuz I want to know I want everybody I need to interview her she's awesome and I was like you should interview her well she's back tonight she's a she's at a wedding on the second-last at 1:00 oh yeah nice to go back to the fam back to the real world yeah exactly dude thanks for doing this no not a pleasure your legend no well yeah now retire yeah well I've got a garland I feel like I'm halfway though yeah yeah yeah I think it's I think this is all wrapping up you know okay good all right now was it yeah thanks man dude don't tell Santi [Music]

Channel: WEDŪ

Views: 321,019

Keywords: cycling, rock climbing, free solo, alex honnold

Id: qvsBz7hbIj8

Length: 89min 9sec (5349 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 07 2019