Don't Look Down

Alex Honnold scales mountain cliffs without a rope or harness. It may seem like madness, but he has simply learned how to transcend fear. His methods can help you to conquer your own uphill battles

- Tom Ward

There is a red insect crawling up a cliff face. It inches higher, a blemish on the vast, grey canvas of the mountain. The treetops below are remote enough to have lost all of their individual characteristics – just a carpet of green. As the red dot persists in its ascent, we realise that it’s a man: Alex Honnold, arguably the most daring, ambitious climber in the world. Slowly, steadily, he makes his way to the top, using only the narrowest fissures as holds for his feet and hands. So begins National Geographic’s new documentary on Honnold, Free Solo.

Honnold climbs without ropes or support of any kind, and seemingly without fear. “Here’s what I don’t understand,” a US talk-show host says in a voice-over. “One little mistake, one little slip, and you fall and die.” Cut to Honnold, hunched and awkward in the TV studio, his eyes peering out from under a mop of black hair. “Yeah,” he says, shrugging. “You seem to understand it well.”

Free-soloing is a niche sport. Of the few who have attempted it, many have fallen to their deaths. At 32, Honnold is a veteran of hundreds of free-solo climbs, and his peers in the climbing community compare his achievements to the moon landing, or the breaking of the sound barrier. One such climb was his 2017 ascent of el Capitan, a forbidding rock formation in Yosemite National Park, California. Within the sport, “el Cap” is considered climbing Valhalla, and it had never been conquered by a free-soloist. This near-vertical, 900m granite rock face has been the scene of numerous tragedies. On June 2 this year, two Americans died in a failed ascent, despite using ropes and climbing equipment. To attempt it without ropes, then, might be considered reckless at best – and suicidal at worst.