Life’s work: An interview with Alex Honnold — Part 1
FREE SOLOING REQUIRES A TREMENDOUS AMOUNT OF TIME THINKING ABOUT RISK.
As 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.”
Q: How have you developed the focus required to free solo?
A: That’s actually the one aspect of it I don’t need to practice. It’s not that I’m gifted. Free soloing just forces me to focus naturally. It’s a byproduct of being on a wall without ropes: You have to perform, so you flip that switch. For me, the preparation lies more in physical training and route planning.
What has led to the biggest breakthroughs in your climbs?
There’s a creative element to solving problems, like figuring out how to climb certain sections of wall. But when I’m free soloing, I’ve already prepared and want to stick to the plan. I don’t want to be improvising. That would bring more uncertainty and risk into the equation. So most of my creative processing comes on rest days when I’m lying around somewhere safe, just thinking about climbing. That’s when I’ll envision “enchainments” — combinations of climbs that people have never done before.
Is the way you train — memorizing and rehearsing your plan — typical?
Visualizing how you’re going to navigate a difficult section is pretty common. Where are my hands going to go? Where should I place my foot? Even recreational climbers in gyms make plans for themselves before they leave the ground. With free soloing, you’re both remembering or anticipating how to do certain climbs and trying to imagine the emotional component. What will it feel like to be up high in a crazy, contorted position without protection during a difficult stretch? When I’m not climbing, I spend most of my time reading books about training, psychology and performance. If I get one good idea from one book, that’s a success.
All that memorization of a climbing route seems like a skill in itself.
Definitely. I remember reading that chess grandmasters can look at a game in progress and, with just a glimpse of the board, memorize where all the pieces are. But if they look at a board full of randomly placed pieces, they can’t remember the positions much better than a novice, because the board doesn’t look like part of any game they’ve seen before. I’ve also learned to think in patterns and remember large blocks of sequences. With El Capitan, I had 3,000 feet of climbing memorized.
I’ve seen you described as the Mozart of climbing for your ability to make the extremely difficult look easy from an early age.
I’ve never heard that. I’m honored, but it makes me uncomfortable. There was only one Mozart.
How do you decide which risks are worth taking?
The casual observer might think free soloing is all crazy and reckless. But you can’t have a long career unless you spend a tremendous amount of time thinking about risk and minimizing it to ensure your own safety. There’s a brief scene in “Free Solo” where an FMRI shows that the amygdala in my brain responds differently than a “normal” person’s to low levels of fear stimuli, and most viewers come away saying, “There’s something unique about his brain.” I find that slightly irritating, because I’ve spent 25 years conditioning myself to work in extreme conditions, so of course my brain is different — just as the brain of a monk who has spent years meditating or a taxi driver who has memorized all the streets of a city would be different.
Organizations are beginning to value neurodiversity.
That’s just a fancy manner of referring to people who see things slightly differently. Obviously, the more eyes you have on a problem, the more likely you are to find unique solutions. I spent the past two months bolting new routes on this cliff near my home in Las Vegas with a friend of mine who’s probably the strongest professional sport climber in America. I’m taller, but he’s stronger, so I have to be a little bit more creative about how I’m using my body. It’s been interesting to try to figure out the best way to climb these sections of rock with somebody who’s so different.
“Free solo” implies an individual pursuit. Do you prefer that or collaboration?
On the whole, climbing is very collaborative. Even during the two years we filmed “Free Solo,” I did a giant rope linkup with [the climbing legend] Tommy Caldwell. I climb with partners all the time. Free soloing is only a few climbs a year.
So what’s the key to great teamwork in such high-stakes situations?
Trust. In climbing, your partner is literally holding your life in their hands. I have a roster of people I want to climb with because we have the same standards and considerations around safety. I know they’re going to make the exact same decisions I would.
How do you manage climbing with someone less experienced or talented?
In a guiding role, it’s easy: You just take over as team captain and do what needs to be done. The real danger is when two people think they’re climbing as equals but are bringing very different opinions on safety to it.
Do all your climbs help prepare you for free solos?
A lot of it — with a rope, with partners, or on easy terrain — is strictly for pleasure and relatively relaxed. But there is value in all the time and mileage on rock, feeling comfortable. It’s hard to sustain the intensity you need to free solo, so I think there’s something to be said for making that effort only when I need to.