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Alex Honnold Free Solo El Capitan

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“Secrecy was the key here as we didn’t want Alex to feel the pressure of a big crowd watching the climb,” photographer Tom Evans wrote in his blog. “I was somewhat hesitant to shoot the event, as Alex is a close friend, and if I were to witness something awful it would be with me for the rest of my life,” he said later in an email. “But I figure I have a duty as the de facto historian for El Capitan in recent years, so I…concentrated on the shooting most of the time….” El Cap­i­tan is a big wall that is over 3,000ft high. That’s over a half mile of sus­tained, un-roped, climb­ing.

“It’d be hard to be psyched enough if you were doing it for other folks,” he replied. “It’d be scary. It’s all about the personal quest to know exactly what you can do.” After the traversing crux, he finally gained a true reprieve at Round Table Ledge. From there, only five pitches remained—four of them rated 5.10 to 5.11, including a notorious offwidth. “Not the standard sleeping gear for El Cap!” Evans wrote in his blog. SkiTalk, Powered by Pugski.com, is managed under the stewardship of Phil and Tricia Pugliese, two of the snow sport industry’s most respected and read reviewers and product testers.

Kids, that thing takes about four hours to climb by yourself—after years of effort. I didn’t feel that stressed because in a way I had already committed to autopilot and just put everything aside. Dierdre’s ascent earned her a place in the record books, where she holds the title of being the oldest woman to climb El Capitan. Matthes Crest Traverse and the Royal Arches route.

He parked the van and hiked up the boulder-strewn path to the base of the cliff. There, he pulled on a pair of sticky soled climbing shoes, fastened a small bag of chalk around his waist to keep his hands dry, found his first toehold, and began inching his way up toward climbing history. The climber is the first person to reach the top of Yosemite’s 3,000-foot El Capitan wall without ropes. Alex Honnold is climbing into the podcast world with Climbing Gold, which will tell stories from some of the all-time greats. … Honnold turned that love into an unprecedented career as the first and still only free soloist to scale El Capitan — the 3,000 foot mammoth rock formation in Yosemite National Park.

The World Gasps In The Aftermath Of Alex Honnold’s Free Solo Of El Capitan’s Freerider 5 13a, 3,000′

Alex even has his own verb – “to honnold”, meaning to stand in some high, precarious place with your back to the wall, looking straight into the abyss – literally facing your fears. As I said earlier, Alex is far and away the best free solo climber of our generation, and he has a very good argument to be the best ever. His ascents, which include Moonlight Buttress, Half Dome, Astroman, and of course Free Rider, rank among some of the most impressive achievements of any athlete ever.

The rest of us shook our heads and marveled at how someone could hold on so long and stay so unflappably calm. None of the first 10 pitches of the route are rated harder than 5.11b but they are among the most insecure sections, as they ascend the water-polished slab. The rock is so slick there that when my partner and I aid-climbed the Salathe in 2005—each of us confident at onsighting 5.11—we both took sliding falls with our shoe rubber screeching like a dry squeegee on a windshield.

Climbing: Scopri I Segreti Dellarrampicata

A few dozen men have “free-climbed” El Capitan, but only three – Tommy Caldwell, Honnold and the late Brad Gobright – have gone up the route Harrington achieved, known as Golden Gate. Harrington had climbed a particular route on the wall, called Golden Gate, many times, but never in one day. Alex Honnold is one of the best and most inspiring free climbers of the current climbing generation. In June 2017, he climbed El Capitan in the Yosemite Valley on the Freerider route without rope or protection.

Big moun­tain skiers assess avalanche risk before ski­ing a line. But, oth­er than BASE Jump­ing, there are rel­a­tive­ly no sports in which the ath­lete must per­form with per­fec­tion or death is imminent. Speaking of kids, Honnold has to run – to a school where he is giving a talk.

It can take days just to get into the right position for such a shot, to fully capture how wild and beautiful a place is. It was a very hard trip but it opened up a whole new world of work. I don’t even think she knows what this whole project is about, you know? ‘Hey, by the way…’ She might think I’d already done it.

Asleep, they woke up when he reached them at Heart and Lung ledges. Evans documented the climb through a telescope on the ground and captured an image of one man who was wearing a strange, pink costume. As we talk, he is often distracted, looking around or over my shoulder.

His maternal grandfather died and his parents got divorced during his first year of college, and Honnold skipped many of his classes to boulder by himself at Indian Rock. You can buy commercial kits like thewag bag, or just ask your partner to look the other way while you do your business in a plastic ziploc. Maybe add some kitty litter or wrap the final package in aluminum foil to help control the smell. Then store the package securely in a container that won’t break even if it’s being dragged up the side of a granite cliff. It’s not exactly glamorous, but much better than having the party above you let fly. Now take all those different styles of climbing and try to do them fast.

When, on 3 June 2017, he free-soloed the freerider route on El Capitan, the New York Times described it as “one of the greatest athletic feats of any kind, ever”. The pair had climbed El Capitan several times together, and began regularly climbing together while they were in college in San Diego, the website reports. The agency said Jason Wells, 46, of Boulder, Colo., and Tim Klien, 42, of Palmdale, Calif., fell from the Freeblast climbing route and did not survive the fall. Earlier that morning, Honnold’s friend Cheyne Lempe had rappelled off the top of El Cap to help Chin film Honnold’s ascent. Only 300 feet beneath the finish, Honnold paused on a small ledge to chat with Lempe.

That section is really steep, but the holds are big and solid, so you can allow yourself to feel heroic. That was the first time I let myself really sense my surroundings, the height, exposure, all that. I imagined myself being on a victory lap, like I was taking an extra lap around a running track or something. I had to still focus and make sure I didn’t slip off, but I just kept thinking, “This is so, so awesome, I am cruising, this feels amazing,” as I climbed.

The film crew and I are up here cleaning up and such. Oh, no… I was stirring my drink with a twig and broke it. “Caldwell, Honnold Finish 5k Fitz Roy Traverse – Alpinist.com”. Honnold is a vegetarian, and he does not drink alcohol or use other drugs. He is an avid reader with interests in classic literature, environmentalism, and economics, and he describes himself as a militant, anti-religion atheist and a feminist.

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