ALEX HONNOLD

CLIMBER

Free Solo, the film that chronicles Alex Honnold’s no-ropes ascent of Yosemite’s El Capitan film, received rave reviews from practically every media outlet under the sun. But an October 2018 Op-Ed in the New York Times might have summed it up best: “On June 3, 2017, Alex Honnold free soloed the Freerider route of El Capitan in three hours and 56 minutes. It wasn’t an act of recklessness but of the kind of planning worthy of a moon landing. It wasn’t an act of selfishness but an extraordinary gift to everyone who believes that the limit of human achievement is far from being reached. It wasn’t a useless stunt but a reminder that utility alone is a poor way to measure the grandeur of one man’s spirit.”

Outside Magazine called Free Solo “arguably the greatest film about climbing that’s ever been made.” Not only does the film document Honnold’s unfathomable feat, it delves into the climber’s head, which the aforementioned Op-Ed calls “a first-rate mind, capable of thinking through both the minute choreography of his moves across the wall as well as the basic questions of his time on earth. He’s a perfectionist who understands that the achievement of one supreme thing depends on the mastery of a thousand small things.” The film won an Oscar for Best Documentary at the 2018 Academy Awards.

Almost exactly a year after Honnold’s free solo of El Cap, he and partner Tommy Caldwell set a new speed-record on the 3,000-foot granite wall, climbing the Nose in 1 hour 58 minutes and 7 seconds, which former record holder Hans Florine likened to breaking the two-hour marathon barrier, but vertically. Widely considered the greatest big-wall climbing route on Earth, the nose runs straight up the prow of the formation and takes most climbers three to five days to scale the route.

The most accomplished rock climber of our time, Honnold’s free-solo ascents of America’s biggest walls have made him one of the most recognized and followed climbers in the world. A gifted but hard-working athlete, he’s known as much for his humble, self-effacing attitude as he is for his climbs. Even after all the fame, sponsorships and commercials, Alex lives as simply as possible. He founded the Honnold Foundation as an extension of that ethic. The environmental non-profit aims to reduce environmental impact and address inequality by supporting solar energy initiatives worldwide.