When Alex Honnold Fell Free Soloing In A Snowstorm

it was the one where you topped out through lots of snow like navigating getting off the roots was like really snowy and kind of Epic he like slipped on the snow in like a bush saved you or something yeah can you tell that story yeah yeah they're two crazy stories so the one you're talking about is from uh above shoon's buttress so shuns you normally climb and then repel with two ropes um I stole it so I got to the top of this little Tower this is when you want isolated yeah in the snowstorm yeah well I mean to be fair it only started snowing on the last pitch the forecast had shown snow midday and I was like oh it'll only take an hour it'll be fine and then it started snowing a little on the last pitch and I was kind of like oh better climb faster and then by the time I topped out it was like snowing and I was like this is all pretty Mega I thought I was just gonna scramble up to the rim turns out that you know it's something that nobody like probably nobody has ever done because it's pretty extreme terrain and like big terrain like huge gash Canyon things and like you know 2 000 feet of vertical it's like this giant I mean everyone's ever topped it out because they all just repel yeah exactly got you I mean maybe maybe some somebody has but it would be it would be Mega you know and I was going up there like having just onsite freestyle at 11 plus been like I'm freaking sending it's on it's game time and I was like this is really real so I kind of think what was it like fifth class yeah well it was more like uh like ball bearing hail uh like unconsolidated hail on steep like sort of fourth class Labs so it was kind of like you know tricky climbing-ish terrain with lots of hail that was already there and then you know the snow around me was just sort of like fun Ambience like it's snowing it's pretty whatever but then there was also a lot of snow because it's winter so I'm like post hauling up these steep technical slabs anyway long story short the feature that I was trying to climb was like this huge wall and I was on this kind of ledge system and there was like a cliff band above me in the cliff band as I like progressed further up the cliff band was getting smaller but then the ledge that I was on was also getting smaller and like forcing me into like a drop off to the abyss sort of thing like a 2000 foot Chasm of Doom and so I was trying to find the sweet spot where you know if I Traverse the ledge far enough then the thing above me becomes small enough that I can sort of solo this wall to like get onto the next tier of the Mountain uh whereas you know if I stay at a part where the ledge is big enough then the wall above is too big you know it's just a weird trade-off anyway I found a good spot I was like okay this is my thing and I started to like solo this little face and basically broke a hole and just fell off the face and then just landed on this tree and so it just totally stuck it you know it was like under 10 foot fall just like land stuck was like whoa you know because the thing that I landed on sort of like rolled off into the abyss for you know thousands of feet and so it was all very adventurous it was all very adventurous it was like Jesus okay can you elaborate on that you what do you mean you like stuck the tree what can you just freaking fell and I just like land I mean so this is Tiny ledge and there's like a tree on the edge of it or something that yeah yeah I probably I mean I didn't like grab the tree it just happened I mean maybe if there wasn't a tree there I would have just landed either way but um but it just that just landed was like holy you know it's like geez probably could have grabbed the tree though and I started to fall off I don't know man yeah there are a lot of things like that and the thing about it is that I was like that's really scary and then I just had to climb the exact same thing again but just hope that nothing broke because there's nowhere else to go you know there was no other way to do it no like this is totally virgin unclimbed yeah yeah this is like solo this is exciting this is like what people imagine so long in the mountains is like you know just like full crazy you know like the most rugged looking mountain you can imagine this covered in snow with big chasms and you're just up there like figuring it out damn yeah I mean that's the kind of stuff that you don't really get credit for when you're like oh I sold this route you know people are like oh yeah cool you sold that route you're like but then I spent three hours like fighting for my life trying to get to the top of the mountain to then hike down yeah and then even once I got to the plateau there was snow everywhere and I was kind of worried that I wouldn't even find the trail and so you know I was like I'm just gonna be wandering around up here on like the rim of Zion for hours like lost in the snow but then thankfully I found the trail and it was fun yeah you said there was two stories yeah so the other story so I had just had that experience and the next week I saw a monkey finger which is like this I don't know 10 pitch will be and that one you know I was sort of fresh off my survival experience on iTunes and that one was just like maybe even snow here and same thing you have to do like a thousand or two thousand feet of bird to get to the rim and now it's kind of like post-holing in the snow sort of confuses to where to go and it was all sort of full-on and then uh I found a freaking set of bighorn tracks and wound up following this set of bighorn tracks all the way to the rim and it was it was got kind of this magical experience for me because you know honestly I was like this is how Native American folks wind up with like spirit animals and things like that because it definitely felt like I was being guided because it all felt like pretty raw I was like this is scary I just did something scary this is all hard I don't know what to do I'm totally hosed and then you find one set of tracks in the snow and you're like well must be going to the rim because I was basically on a Cliffside so it's like it's not going anywhere else you know it's like this Bighorn was clearly going back to like where there's flat ground and yeah just like guided me to the top basically wow I was like that's freaking cool that's incredible yeah I was sucked talk me through on-site free selling because like rehearsing something head pointing getting it really dialed and knowing I feel comfortable doing this without a rope that I can kind of get behind that thought experiment it just makes sense but on-site soloing I mean is it okay I'm not doing a single move that I know I can't reverse and I could climb all the way back down there's a little bit of that but there's also a little bit of just it's 11 plus crack you know like when was the last time I fell off an 11 plus crack um I mean to some extent on-site solving is is like a test you know like you're basically it's it's like your finals exam on a certain style and whatever else and and particularly for classic groups something like shins that people climb all the time people love it's you know it's a great route so you know that it's gonna have chalk on it it's going to be though that particular time I don't really know because it was kind of winter so it wasn't it wasn't really it wasn't really the season for it but um but at least you know that tons of other people have climbed it it's not going to have loose Rock it's not you know it's like the grade is well established like there shouldn't be too many surprises and you're like you're just testing yourself against a classic but I can't I kind of like onset solar I mean actually so they're talking about like unsung solos I mean another thing in Red Rock a friend uh Dave Alfrey who's a fellow sort of you know semi-professional climber sort of big wall veteran told me that I should definitely onsite solo resolution or Rhett which is like a 25 pitch 11 plus or something up one of the mountains in Red Rock and D1 plus pitch is like a little finger crack at a roof and he's like a super secure it's though I don't think he told me it was out of roof I think he was just like oh it's a finger crack but it's it's all uh sort of like yellows and reds aliens like it'll fit great like you'll love it it's super easy it's Locker I was like yeah cool I'll go up and outside so this thing so I got up there and and it turns out the Crux is this crack coming straight out this roof and you know you're 1500 feet off the ground or something I was like holy like this is pretty scary I was like what and then and it wasn't really it wasn't really that easy and and to get up there had kind of been too easy almost uh so it wasn't really warmed up okay and so you know you're climbing like five eight five nine like Alpine terrain and then I think I did one pitch of 10d which was enough to sort of be like oh I don't really want to reverse it unless I have to because they're kind of weird technical Corner stuff and then all of a sudden you're in this weird roof and I was like man what a sandbag you know like it's really rare that friends tell you you should onset Soul or something because typically friends don't encourage you to sell them at all and so I was kind of like ah it'll be great and I was like this not great this is messed up but obviously it went fine you survived what is the hardest thing you've had to reverse down climb ah I don't know I mean I'm sure I must have down climbed at least 511 in my life I mean I've gone up and down sport pitches and things at different Crags I don't know oh I've done climbed 12b sport um but that was just because I went up it and then we went right back down in the same route okay uh things like that maybe there's harder I don't know but trying to think of big walls and then I've done a bunch of multi-pitches uh like in uh Patrol Chico in Mexico I've had a few things where I climbed like a 15 pitch 10d and then just down climbed it after wow things that climb towers and stuff like that we were kind of like oh I don't want to carry a rope and I don't want to you know I don't want to do a couple hours of repelling by myself yeah you're just kind of like I'll just climb back down and we get double the pitches in the day nice [Music] thank you

Channel: The Nugget Climbing Podcast

Views: 81,737

Keywords: Climbing, Rockclimbing, Bouldering, Outdoor Climbing, Adam Ondra, Magnus Midtbø, Emil Abrahamsson, WideBoyz, Pete Whittaker, Tom Randall, Tommy Caldwell, Aidan Roberts, Alex Megos, Hooper’s Beta, Lattice Training, Climbers Crag, Wedge Climbing, Hannah Morris Bouldering

Id: 1k9w-qiBwBE

Length: 8min 50sec (530 seconds)

Published: Mon May 01 2023