When Alex Honnold was 23 years old, he was living out of his van spending all his time tackling some of the world's hardest rock climbing routes at places like Yosemite Valley in California and Smith Rock in Oregon. Seven years later, he is still living out of his van and climbing whenever he can. The difference is that now Honnold is probably one of the most famous rock climbers in the world. And that's because of the routes that he has free soloed — climbed without a rope.
"It's interesting being in the position of being a very small dot on a big wall ... it definitely makes you feel small in the landscape," Honnold told OPB's Think Out Loud. But because you can't afford to let yourself fall, "you do feel like you're climbing perfectly."
A big part of the reason Honnold decided to write his new book, "Alone on the Wall," was to let people know the amount of preparation that goes into his climbs.
"People see a short little YouTube clip and they're like: 'That looks totally insane! You just walk up to a cliff and climb it.'" But Honnold said with most of the routes he spends a lot of time beforehand thinking about the route, climbing it, and memorizing holds.
"You type too much," says Alex Honnold about why Dave Miller's fingers (right) are so thin. Miller called Honnold's fingers "chunky and muscular."
Dave Blanchard
There's nothing wrong with being afraid, Honnold said, but you have to know what you're capable of, and trust in you're own abilities. "The important thing is to differentiate between the appropriate fear – an actual danger response which is warning you that you need to evaluate what you're doing – versus irrational fear."
“Imagine climbing a ladder. Any normal person can imagine climbing a ladder ... They know they won't fall off. Even if that ladder a thousand feet off the ground ... The average person can still imagine climbing that ladder safely ... For me it's the same thing with free soloing these walls. I know that I can climb them. So it doesn't really matter how high the consequences are.”
After his friend and mentor Dean Potter died in a BASE jumping accident last spring, Honnold spent some time reflecting on his life choices. Life is about quality over quantity, said Honnold.
"We're all going to die. It's just a matter of when and how and what you get to do with your life before you die. Just because you take no risks doesn't mean you're not going to die. You're still going to die, it's just you don't get to do any of the cool stuff along the way."
Honnold said he knows that at some point he'll have pushed himself – and the sport of climbing – as far as he can, but for now, "I just feel like I have more potential in me that I haven't tapped into yet. I would like to climb harder things and I would like to do better with my own climbing."