Life’s work: An interview with Alex Honnold — Part 2

FREE SOLOING REQUIRES A TREMENDOUS AMOUNT OF TIME THINKING ABOUT RISK. s a pioneer of “free solo” climbing — a controversial discipline in which cliff faces are scaled without safety ropes and failure results in death — Honnold, 35, knows how to perform under pressure. His free-solo ascent of the 3,000-foot El Capitan, in Yosemite National Park, was captured in a 2018 Oscar-winning documentary. “Preparation,” he says, “is what stops the fear.”

ARecently you’ve been “speed climbing” — working with a partner to summit big walls as quickly as possible, often trying to break time records. What have you learned prepping and executing on those climbs?

A lot of creativity is involved in that hunt for efficiency. To trim the fat from the system, to eliminate waste, you have to come up with new ideas. For example, can we implement a different strategy through one section that might allow us to climb with less equipment? We spend a lot of time talking it out, gaming out scenarios.

“Kaizen” and other management concepts involve looking for continuous improvement — small changes that add up.

Yes, that philosophy of marginal gains is central to climbing. When I have a big goal — like free soloing El Cap — I look at everything I do. I’m training, I’m watching my diet, I’m making sure I sleep enough. I’m outrageously focused on constant improvement. But when I’m just climbing with friends, with no clear goal on the horizon, I’m off the program. I have a casual lifestyle mode: I stay up late watching TV and eating dessert. The key is to have the right balance and not be on or off the program too long.

Have you integrated data into your training?

Climbing is only just catching up to where other sports were 30 years ago in putting together plans for people training for big routes the way marathon runners prepare for big runs. I’ve always kept a food and climbing journal, but it’s basic stuff, and I only recently started wearing a heart-rate monitor and a GPS. I’m sure there’s huge potential for applying big data to climbing — but right now it hasn’t had a big impact on the sport.

Since the El Cap ascent, how have you been thinking about your career?

I still love soloing, and I’ve been doing it a fair amount. But after achieving that life dream with El Cap, nothing is calling to me quite as much as it did. There’s literally nothing else like it in the world. That’s what I’ve been struggling with. When you know that nothing you do in the future will ever matter as much as what you’ve already done, it does take a little steam out of you. Even if I do something more cutting-edge or physically impressive, there won’t be an award-winning film about it, so people won’t think it’s as meaningful. Of course, that’s not all that matters. The most important thing for me is to be a good climber. But to know you’ll never be able to impress somebody again — that it’s all downhill from here — is sad. So I’m at a crossroads and trying to figure out what’s next. I have a few ideas. A lot depends on the pandemic, because travel — particularly international travel — is still hard.

Could you apply some of the skills you’ve developed as a climber to figure out the next stage of your life?

It’s clichéd, but I do think climbing teaches you goal setting, work ethic, and perseverance. The majority of the time you spend sport climbing, you’re failing: falling off and then trying to figure out how not to fall. Climbing reminds you that to get better at anything, you’ve got to put in a tremendous amount of time and effort and keep beating your head against a wall to figure it out. So I guess my advice to myself would be to “keep moving.” I started the Honnold Foundation, which gives grants to advance solar energy around the world, because I wanted a positive outlet for the material rewards that were coming in from the film and doing commercials. Otherwise there’s no benefit to being famous. At least now I’m funneling a significant portion of my income to causes that matter. We’ll be giving away a million dollars in grants this year.

You do give away a lot of your income. Should everyone follow that lead?

I have strong opinions about this, I guess because I lived in a van for 10 years. I had a purpose — to be the best climber I could be — so I didn’t need many material possessions, and I was probably happier than most people, because I was doing exactly what I loved at the highest level. The less stuff you have, the more focused you are on the things that matter. And that’s good, because we live on a planet with finite resources. I have a house and more possessions now, but I still live by that philosophy.

That’s well said. My father was a world-class cellist, and when I asked what he was going to do in retirement after his 60-year professional career, his answer was, “Practice the cello.”

Exactly. When I’m no longer a pro climber, it will just give me more time to go climbing, which is going to be awesome.

You spent the third anniversary of your El Cap ascent at a Black Lives Matter protest in Las Vegas. What moved you to take to the streets?

Every individual has an obligation to make the world a slightly better place than they found it. For me, that’s mostly manifested in environmental advocacy. But I was raised in middle-class suburban California and have never had to really struggle. The more I learn about racial injustice, the more I feel an obligation to do something about it.

Climbing is a pretty white sport. What needs to happen to make it more diverse?

The growth of climbing gyms in cities has made it more accessible, and that’s changing the demographics. Kai Lightner, who’s African American, has eight national championship titles. The sport is growing here and internationally.

Are you worried that as climbing becomes more popular, the natural areas in which it’s practiced will be damaged? When you see pictures of queues for the summit of Everest or lines of cars to get into Yosemite, does it bother you?

Not at all. I think that people who have positive outdoor experiences are more likely to support environmental protection, which will be better for the planet in the long term. The growth in climbing and hiking is still a tiny, tiny pushback against the popularity of video games and people being sedentary and indoors. It’s worth having a crowded Yosemite if those people then vote to protect their public lands.