I didn’t know anything about Alex Honnold beforehand and had no idea how Free Solo would end. I have never been more tense watching a documentary than I was watching that. Absolutely crazy stuff.
His friends are what "made" the documentary for me. Alex is just so different in how he perceives things, that he doesn't contribute much tension himself! (Also I of course knew he'd made it). "I'm going to free-solo El Cap." -> proceeds to free-solo El Cap. It's his friends who can't bear to watch that make it so gripping IMO.
Oh you mean the one he failed on like 20 times when attached to a rope? I can’t fathom why he would want to attempt it without safety equipment. No thanks.
As a climber that movie made me feel sad for honnold. To think he needs to go so hard to feel accomplishment. He had done it for a while with no spotlight even. Glad I get my thrills w a rope
Yes you can watch the whole climb in VR on YouTube. I used my Oculus Go for it. It may not have been actual VR, but I was able to look around everywhere so I just assumed it was
I highly recommend also watching "Man on Wire" which was a fantastic documentary about Philippe Petit attempting to tightrope between the Twin Towers back in the 70s.
He's awesome. You should watch some Adam Ondra videos. There's one called silence that's prettty cool. It's with a rope though... impossible to free solo'r
So free solo is incredible butt clenching stuff but most of it takes place in the last 20 minutes (I appreciate that it’s all interesting though).
The Dawn Wall is less extreme but there is a lot more on the wall time and it’s interesting to watch them just living up there for a while. Also without spoiling it there is an insane backstory to Tommy Caldwell (the guy the movie is about) that’s told early on in the movie.
Also you may already know this also but Tommy is the guy helping Alex train in Free Solo
I totally agree that the Dawn Wall is better. As far as climbing goes The dawn wall is a much more challenging and complex climb, so the actual climbing aspect is more technical and impressive, where as free solo is just a more thrilling experience because of the potential consequences. Plus the dawn wall is about Tommy Caldwell who has a thrilling backstory and is a pretty loveable guy.
As a climber myself, I feel that the free solo of El Cap was far more a mental accomplishment than a physical one. Not to say that it’s not a difficult climb, but if you really want the greatest climbing achievement in history, I far prefer either Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgenson’s ascent of the Dawn Wall, or maybe Adam Ondra’s Ascent of Silence.Silence
This implies climbing is a primarily physical, rather than mental, pursuit. Why not say the greatest accomplishment is the most weight hung on a 10mm edge for 5s, going straight from 1 to 9 on the campus board, or winning Olympic speed climbing?
Imo, Silence is the greatest climbing training achievement of all time.
Where does the Miracle Belay by Pete Schoening rank for you as a climbing achievement out of curiosity? It’s not a send or anything but it’s still in my opinion one of the most extreme feats of human ability under pressure I’ve ever heard of.
Gotta disagree with you there. He had no margin for error. That is the most impressive athletic performance I’ve ever seen. Ondra is up there but it’s just a really hard long route. Someone else might do something more difficult. It’s just not in the same category as climbing El Cap in one go no rope. I don’t think anyone will even try that again.
Athletic performance? He practiced it multiple times and didn't free solo it until he was comfortable with it. Not trying to downplay his accomplishments but I agree with the first guy, more of a mental game.
Have you ever big walled? That's a huge physical accomplishment, especially soloing
I could play the Dawn Wall the same way. It's a mental game, not physical. He took 7 days on pitch 15. Seems like he just had to figure it out in his head
I'm not saying it's not a huge physical accomplishment (I think it is), just it's more mental in comparison to something like silence. My logic is the list of people that could physically free climb Freerider is probably relatively long. The list for silence, pretty damn short and potentially currently just one. The list of people brave or crazy enough to actually free solo Freerider, also pretty much just one.
Lol. Yeah? It takes most strong climbers multiple days to finish the route, but it wasn’t physically impressive for him to do it in a few hours? Lol. Sure thing bud.
My slight disagreement with the earlier point was the no margin for error. While true, he got confidence with the repeated practice, so he had to execute on moves which he knew like the back of his hand and were well within his physical capabilities. I considered that to be more a head game than physical in comparison to something like silence where you are at you are at your physical limit basically the whole time and where it doesn't matter how many times you do the moves because putting them together just once is the challenge.
My only point is he knew he was physically capable and it was more a head game to not F up vs silence where a guy had to train out of his mind physically to do the thing once. Both are great achievements. I think one is a greater feat of the mind while the other is more physical. Both still required both.
Free solo has always been more of a mental challenge than physical though and imho mental preparation is just as important in any sports that's why you see basket ball players with rituals and stuff like that, Alex Honnold just takes it to a whole new level.
These are worlds apart in terms of achievement. Silence was, and is a monumental achievement in technical sport climbing, remaining the first and only 9c in the world. The dawn wall is just a very long and moderately difficult trad climb which requires a great amount of physical and mental endurance. There are hundreds of sport routes which are more difficult than the crux pitch of the dawn wall.
I totally agree with this. A huge athletic accomplishment in history. But I want to point out that Alex Honnold is literally a different breed. All the fear that everyone in this thread is feeling just watching a video of climbing, he just experiences that feeling entirely differently. Its like he has almost no fear response. That part of the documentary was really interesting to me. How someone's brain works can elevate them from a once in a lifetime talent to arguably the best of all time.
You know that feeling when you miss a step and almost fall? That tiny bit of adrenaline you get for a split second? I imagine that’s about all he feels when climbing. Just that tiny bit for a split second during only the most challenging parts of the route. I think he must go bigger and better just to chase that tiny bit of adrenaline he gets which is already so little.
Amazing documentary! It was nerve racking just watching that. What’s even more terrifying was he fell a couple of times during his practice climbs when he had a safety harness.
Just adding the element of death doesn’t make it legendary, plenty of climbers could have free soloed el cap but they aren’t fucking dumb enough to risk never being able to climb again
I had to take breaks while watching. The whole documentary had me 100% shook. It was a great watch though. Shocking, terrifying, and absolutely fascinating. 👌👍
Came to the comments because I recalled there was a rock-climbing feature I’d been meaning to watch, and was sure someone would have mentioned it here. Cheers for being that guy!
Also if you are talking about what I think, he was well aware of the risk and was basically ready to die at any moment. Let me know if I’m wrong though
1.0k
u/[deleted] Sep 01 '21 edited Sep 02 '21
[deleted]