Cougar – Moderator
Would I climb it? Get out of my way **** off!.

Would I free climb it with a rope? Not while I’ve got a hole in my arse.

Beautifully shot video featuring a climber I’ve not heard of before. He climbs like a girl (which is an ultimate compliment) and I could watch him all day.

Thank you, sincerely, for posting. That was lovely.
Other than a couple of slight amendments, I couldn’t agree more! 😉

If I was that good, yes every day of the week. I’ve soloed stuff rock climbing and indoors lead very close to my toprope grade, so don’t have that big an issue with fear factor (stuff I was climbing at the weekend was very low grade, but the first protection was a long way up, so I’d have hurt myself quite badly if it had gone wrong – but I was no more likely to fall off than he was on that).

more honnold

7000 ft of Yosemite: Watkins, Half Dome ad El Cap in 19 hours.
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQb4_8PyZBM[/video]

And the Sufferfest with his mate: all California’s 14,000 ft climbs by bike and climbing shoe:

http://www.epictv.com/media/podcast/the-sufferfest-with-alex-honnold-and-cedar-wright—the-full-movie/275335?header_b=1

While I was looking for that, I found they did something more crazy the next year:

http://www.climbing.com/news/honnold-and-wright-in-sufferfest-2-three-weeks-45-desert-towers-700-miles-by-bike/

Incredible.

In a way, I’m more comfortable with the idea of him doing that than watching someone solo something really easy that is right at their technical limit, or even someone leading something necky (poorly protected) at their limit. You could probably find someone jibbering away on relatively easy Peak gritstone most weekends of the year. It’s horrible to watch.

I’ve soloed stuff in the past, only up to HVS/E1, which, on occasion, I ended up finding much harder than expected, and had a couple of close calls. The same with a couple of bold leads – ending up almost jumping for finishing holds or pulling over the top with fingers visibly uncurling from good holds through fatigue.

I’ve been climbing for 15 years on and off and even that made my palms sweat. Nothing to do with the soloing, just the exposure. As someone else pointed out, it’s not where he is 30m or 3000m its going to end up badly either way. The grade is well within him, sure he may make an error, but probably not.

I dabbled a bit with soloing in a bad part of my life (parents divorcing and issues with alcohol myself at the time) and it was probably one of the worst things I did in retrospect. Unlike Honnald I wasn’t in control and the likelihoods of something going pearshaped were high.

There is an interview somewhere with his mother talking about his climbing, it’s really insightful to hear about his upbringing and how she is behind what he does – albeit not 100% happy that he may not come home. Every interview I’ve seen with Honnald he comes across as a really grounded, insightful chap.

I hope he keeps doing what some of us can only dream of, be it nightmares or not.