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I thought he was totally crazy, but there was something about his supreme confidence and the way he effortlessly moved up mind-bendingly difficult rock faces that made the comment seem like more than just an idle boast.Īlex researched several El Capitan routes, finally settling on Freerider, a popular test piece for veteran climbers and one that usually requires multiple days to ascend. In 2009, during our first climbing expedition together, he mentioned the idea to me.

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It’s important to note that Alex’s quest to free solo El Capitan wasn’t some adrenaline-fueled stunt that he’d come up with on a whim.

As sponsorship offers poured in and journalists and fans hailed his achievements, Alex was secretly contemplating a much bigger goal. The next year he free soloed two famously tough routes-Zion National Park’s Moonlight Buttress and the Regular Northwest Face of Yosemite’s Half Dome-climbs so long and technically difficult that no serious climber had imagined they could be scaled without a rope. He stunned the climbing world by repeating Croft’s Astroman-Rostrum masterpiece. Then, on October 3, 1913, while free soloing the North Ridge of the Mandlkogel in the Austrian Alps, he fell to his death.Ĭroft’s achievement stood until 2007, when a shy, doe-eyed 22-year-old from Sacramento named Alex Honnold showed up in Yosemite Valley. He proclaimed that the very essence of alpinism was to master a mountain with superior physical and mental skill, not “artificial aid.” By age 27, Preuss had made some 150 ropeless first ascents and was celebrated throughout Europe. Such was the attitude of an Austrian alpinist named Paul Preuss, considered by climbing historians to be the father of free soloing. Others, myself included, recognize it as the sport’s purest expression. Critics regard it as reckless showmanship that gives the sport a bad name, noting the long list of those who’ve died attempting it. Some in the climbing world view free soloing as something that isn’t meant to be. Maybe, I let myself consider, this isn’t meant to be. I will talk to him later, but I already know why he’s backing off. I can hear the static of his walkie-talkie. A cameraman, part of the crew recording the feat, hustles up the trail toward the base of the wall. The log on which I’m sitting lies less than a hundred yards from where Alex will land if he slips.Ī sudden noise jolts me back to the present. I’ve climbed this slab myself, and the thought of doing it free solo makes me nauseated. He’s facing the move that has haunted him ever since he first dreamed up this scheme seven years ago. It hasn’t moved in what feels like an eternity but is probably less than a minute. Six hundred feet below, I sit on a fallen tree watching the tiny halo of Alex’s light. There is no “maybe” when you’re 60 stories up without a rope. Free soloing isn’t like other dangerous sports in which you might die if you screw up. His right ankle is stiff and swollen from a severe sprain he sustained two months earlier when he fell while practicing this part of the route. “It’s like walking up glass,” Alex once said. Unlike parts of the climb higher up, which feature shallow divots, pebble-size nubs, and tiny cracks that Alex can claw himself up with his freakishly strong fingers, this part-a barely less than vertical slab on a section called the Freeblast-must be mastered with a delicate balance of finesse and poise. Above him, for several feet, the stone is blank, devoid of any holds.

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That means he is alone and climbing without a rope as he inches his way up more than half a mile of sheer rock.Ī light breeze rustles his hair as he shines his headlamp on the cold, smooth patch of granite where he must next place his foot.

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He’s attempting to do something that professional rock climbers have long thought was impossible-a “free solo” ascent of the world’s most iconic cliff.

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on a chilly November morning in 2016 in Yosemite National Park.Ī full moon casts an eerie glow onto the southwest face of El Capitan, where Alex Honnold clings to the side of the granite wall with nothing more than the tips of his fingers and two thin edges of shoe rubber. This story appears in the February 2019 issue of National Geographic magazine.

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