How Free Solo climber Alex Honnold mastered his fears on El Capitan amid sacrifices

Climber who scaled 900-metre granite wall in Yosemite National Park without ropes doesn’t have a death wish, team behind Oscar-winning film of his ascent say

‘He decided to live his life of intention,’ director says. As for their film’s popularity, producer says: ‘Everyone has a ‘free solo’ in their lives’

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Alex Honnold climbs through Enduro Corner on El Capitan’s Freerider route. Photo: National Geographic

Published: 10:00pm, 2 Apr 2019Updated: 6:26am, 3 Apr 2019

No one had successfully climbed El Capitan – the daunting 900-metre (3,000-foot) vertical granite wall in Yosemite National Park in the United States – without ropes or safety gear until Alex Honnold made his well-rehearsed free solo attempt on June 3, 2017. The climber had methodically practised for a decade before he beat the odds and reached the summit in three hours and 56 minutes.

Academy Award-winning producer and director duo Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin captured Honnold’s process that culminated in that stunning feat in the documentary Free Solo.

The film, which most recently collected an Oscar for best documentary feature, is a visually riveting exploration of how to manage acute fear, the mentality of athletes in this high-stakes sport and, most of all, understanding this free soloists’s process that enabled him to attain what was considered an unattainable physical feat.

Honnold is arguably the best free soloist (still) alive; he lives a vagabond existence from a van that revolves around climbing major cliffs. A common response to the documentary is how this climber is able to maintain his calm while clinging to the tiniest of nooks and crannies on a boulder’s terrain while facing a steep vertical drop.

Filmmaker Jimmy Chin loaded with gear. Photo: National Geographic

Many fellow career soloists, including John Bachar and Ueli Steck, fell to their deaths during similar daring climbs. Honnold does feel fear, insists Vasarhelyi, adding that the heart of the documentary is about his process and how he moves in his own fears and manages such response.