Alex Honnold

I think some people don't know that.

Oh, really?

Some people watch the movie and they literally have no idea what it's about or what's going on, and they spend the whole movie being like, oh, my God, what's going to happen?

So basically, I think climbing is always intrinsically motivated.

I mean, since I started climbing when I was a child, I've always loved climbing.

I love the movement of climbing.

I love the feeling of it.

I love the whole experience.

You know, just everything about it is great.

But then, you know, now as a professional climber, obviously there is that extrinsic motivation as well where you're like, oh, this is how I make a living.

And so I think with the film Free Solo, you know, it was a really interesting balance of the two where it's like, this is something that I'd love to do for myself.

And even if no one else in the world existed, I'd want to do this thing.

But then you also know that if you're, if the film turns out well, which it did, uh,

You know, it's going to be great for your career.

It's going to be great for whatever.

And so like there is that extrinsic motivation as well.

And so then you're always trying to parse out like which part is which.

And, you know, because you don't particularly with free soloing, you don't want to be too extrinsically motivated because you don't want to get pushed into something that you're not prepared for that you shouldn't be doing.

Of course, you know, being even being extrinsically motivated, you can do something you shouldn't.

You know, I don't know.

I mean, but you're just constantly thinking about those things as a climber.

It depends.

So for the hardest parts, I memorized, like for sure, memorized every aspect of it.

But that's only the hardest part.

So that's maybe like a third of the route.

And then for the easiest third, and some of it is actually quite easy.

Some of it's like even a non-climber could climb small sections of the wall.

Like there are parts that are quite easy here and there.

You know, it's like not the bulk.

But so for the easy parts, you just know that you can do it and you don't have to stress it.

And then the medium part is kind of like the remaining third of the wall.

you sort of remember kind of like you said, motifs, like you might know the hardest part and you just kind of know that it's going to be fine, but you don't have to memorize it per se.

But certainly I knew the route very, very well.

You know, you just, you just know all the things that you have to know.

Yeah, but not as much as you might think because like I was only climbing it in shade.

Like in the springtime, that whole...

West side of the wall stays in the shade until 11 or noon-ish in the morning.

So you go at four in the morning and then you have sort of eight hours of solid shade.

So normally the temperature and the conditions feel relatively stable and you spend the whole season working on it.

So you kind of know that tomorrow is going to feel the same as it did today, roughly, you know, and so it's all within a relatively narrow band, particularly in the spring, which is why I did it in the springtime.

In the fall and the autumn, it's a little bit different because the sun is lower in the sky.

So it gets sun much earlier and it actually is way hotter counterintuitively.

It's colder when it's in the shade, but then hotter when it's in the sun.

Anyway, that makes it harder for climbing, obviously.

But when I free soloed El Cap, I was spending three or four months a year in Yosemite every year, like a month or two every spring and every autumn.

And so you're spending four months a year in a place, you just know how it feels.

It's like you're used to getting up that early, you're used to climbing on the wall, and you're just kind of like, oh, it's going to be another beautiful day on the rock.

And actually the day that I did the free solo of El Cap, it was actually a little more humid and a little warmer than I maybe would have been optimal.

It's not what I would have chosen, but that's just the way it was that day.

And I was kind of like, well,

this is my day.

You know, you kind of just have to do the thing.

Um, but it'd been like overcast that night and you know, when it's cloudy at night, the lows don't drop as low.

And so I woke up and it was like kind of muggy ish feeling.

I was like, it's not, it's not great for being four in the morning.

It was like, it feels kind of gross, but I was like, this is my day.

And it was fun.

Yeah, that was in the autumn.

That was the season before.

And basically the season was ending, like the storms were coming in the next week type deal.

And it was like the season was winding down.

It was kind of like, well, I should at least take a shot because I'd done a lot of prep and I felt mostly ready.

And it turns out I just wasn't ready, ready.

And so I wound up bailing.

But that was kind of my end of the season.

Like, I think I can squeak this in knowing that if I couldn't squeak it in then, then I'd have to wait six more months.

And with the pressure of the film crew and all that stuff, knowing that there are all these people like working and waiting for you, you're kind of like, well, I'd at least try to get this done.

It's like all these people are waiting on me.

But as it turns out, I just didn't quite have it yet.

And then when I ultimately did do it in the spring, I was much better prepared, felt way better.

The whole experience worked out better.

So now in retrospect, I'm like, oh, I'm glad that it played out that way because it was better.

But at the time, I was like, oh, God, I failed on this thing.

All these people are watching.

It's embarrassing.

It was all very stressful at the time.

For me, the thing is, is that if I'm going to go climb the wall, you know, I start climbing at 430 in the morning or five or something.

So that means some of my friends to get in position at the top of the wall or getting up at like one in the morning and then hiking to the top of a mountain with a heavy backpack.

And if you're asking a bunch of your buddies to go hiking at 1 in the morning, you better live up to your end of the thing.

If you say you're going to do something, you better actually do the thing because you're friends.

Obviously, no one's complaining.

No one is pressuring me.

But at the same time, you don't want to bail.

It's pretty embarrassing if you tell someone you're going to do something and then you just can't do it.

Yeah, and they were all super positive and supportive, and it's all great, but you still can't help but feel that pressure.

You mean on the day of the actual solo?

No, on the day I was 100%.

Everything was perfect.

I knew exactly what to do.

It was all amazing.

But it took a really long time to get there.

It was like literally years of building up to it and then months of preparation and everything.

But no, on the day it was perfect.

Well, I think the aspiration is to be in that, you know, flow state, whatever you want to call it.

But

You know, actually, I think even in the film, there's some quotes from me saying autopilot and things like, you know, I'm aspiring to be on autopilot.

So I'm aspiring to not be thinking too much about it.

And that's, for me at least, why it required so much practice was to be able to just do something almost by rote, you know, through repetition, just to do the thing that you've practiced without...

having to think about it.

Cause I think once you start thinking about it too much, you're just more prone to not just make errors, but just like get to get caught up in your own mind.

And I don't know.

I mean, the aspiration was just to do the thing, like no thinking about it, no hesitation, you know, no emotional, uh, you know, affect around it and to just do it.

Yeah, I've actually never been asked something quite like that.

In some ways...

I mean, the kinesthetic aspect is maybe the whole thing.

Like, I mean, it is kind of like dancing or something where you are just flowing over stone.

I mean, obviously, you're looking around and you're looking at your footholds and you're sort of placing your feet correctly that way.

But really, you're just doing sequences.

You're just flowing like your body is moving.

I mean, I think when you climb well and particularly when you rehearse something and you know the climb really well, it feels like jogging or swimming or sort of other elemental movement patterns where it's just like your body doing what it's meant to do.

And it feels great.

You know, it's like it's really nice.

For me personally, that's maybe my favorite moment in climbing is when you surprise yourself.

Um, and this isn't so much with free soloing because with free soloing, you don't want to be surprised, but, uh, but with, uh, but with a rope on, you know, you have moments all the time where you're sure you're about to fall because you're, you know, up against your physical limits or whatever.

And then you stick a move that you were sure you weren't going to.

Um, and you know, it doesn't happen that often, but when it does, you're like, oh, I exceeded my own expectations.

It's like, it's like the best feeling, you know?

It happens from time to time.

In some ways, actually, I was telling one of my friends, I think that that might be one of the ways in which I see aging.

You know, like as I'm getting older as a climber, I think I surprise myself less often.

You know, I think as like a 24-year-old, you just don't know your own limitations that much and you frequently surprise yourself where I'm like, wow, I really outdid myself.

I really did something that I was sure I couldn't do, but I managed to do it.

And now as a recent 40-year-old climber,

you know like that happens from time to time for sure but not all the time you know it's like and and now occasionally i have things where i was like oh i was sure i could do that and and then i failed you know and you're kind of like oh you can blame conditions you can blame whatever but you're kind of like oh i really thought i would do that and i fell off anyway and you're like damn it what is the role of aging and climbing uh traditionally and how you're experiencing it like there are fields of science like mathematics where that the stereotype is uh

I don't think anybody calls free soloing an old man's game.

But no, but it could be.

But no, I think in general, climbing has more longevity than most sports just because it's relatively low impact on your body.

It's very technique and like movement focused.

And so it's not just pure physical strength.

That said, I mean, climbing is in the Olympics now, and the people winning the Olympics are all sort of 18 to 23-ish, you know, sort of same as gymnastics type of range.

So I think at the most elite levels of climbing performance, it's kind of similar to gymnastics probably.

But then to do interesting new things on real rock outdoors, I think there's a much wider latitude.

You know, it's like...

And then even into your 50s and 60s, there are plenty of climbers who are leading expeditions to new places, developing new climbs, doing things that are noteworthy and sort of meaningful for the climbing community, even though they're not necessarily cutting edge physically.

So I think there's a lot of...

A lot of opportunity for climbing, more than most sports.

And I think actually the other big thing with climbing is that in so many other sports, like I think ball sports, NBA, NFL, baseball, whatever, it's kind of like if you don't make the team, then you're done playing forever.

Like you'll literally never play football again if you're not a professional football player.

Whereas with climbing, even if you're not playing at the highest level, you can still go climb all the time and you can still do cool climbs.

You can still do things that matter.

You can help teach, you can do whatever.

And so you can kind of like stay in the game much, much longer.

Well, more that there weren't smartphones, there weren't cameras, you know, it's like, it's not even about the social, it's about the whether or not you can record it easily.

I mean, personally, I'm way into it.

I mean, I was a kid that got into climbing, into climbing gym, and it's changed my life for the better.

You know, like I love climbing.

I think it's great.

you know, I can certainly see the sort of commercial influx from the Olympics or sort of like more mainstream adoption of climbing, but that's kind of great.

Cause I mean, most of my friends are sort of climbing industry adjacent professionals in some ways, you know, like they make, they're like coaches or dietitians or setters.

Like they, they make the climbs that people climb on.

Um,

And so basically the bigger the industry gets, the more people like that can make a living doing the thing that they love to do, even if they're not necessarily sponsored professionals at the highest level.

So I'm kind of like, you know, a broadening industry is kind of good for everybody.

And mostly, I mean, climbing is awesome.

Like if people enjoy, you know, it's like, why not get into climbing?

It's like certainly, I mean, I think it's better than most other fitness modalities.

You know, it's like, oh, why do CrossFit when you go rock climbing?

It's way cooler.

There are probably certain aspects you wouldn't want to do alone for safety reasons, but... I think when people ask, like, what do you worry about with climbing culture and all that kind of stuff, like with the Olympics and the...

mainstream appeal kind of like you know if somebody wants to be a climber and only go to the climbing gym in a in a major city for their entire life like that's great like if they just want to climb plastic the rest of life that's still better than going to crossfit or doing whatever else i'm like that's cool like you don't have to go climb el cap to be a climber i'm kind of like people can do whatever they want and i think i think that's great for the sport and and you are seeing standards rise

There's a little bit, not that much, but climbers often, like competition climbing, like bouldering, which is in the Olympics, has definitely taken a slight turn towards parkour-ish sorts of moves, like big run and jumps and like crazy swings and things like that.

And so some old school climbers complain that it's like gotten a little too jumpy, that type of bouldering.

But I'm kind of into it.

I mean, it's, I don't know, this is all very like inside baseball.

Like how do you separate, like basically the highest level competitors are all very, very strong.

So then how do you separate them?

these different competitors who are all climbing at an elite level.

And one of the ways is complicated movement like that, like running jumps and coordination and things like that.

So I don't know.

I mean, I think it's cool.

Um, I've actually met like a couple of professional parkour athletes who also climb, uh, and they are really good at very particular sorts of things where you're like, it's, I mean, it's amazing to see.

amazing ambassador for the sport as it's gone through its various like you know peaks and valleys now in the olympics so i think climbing and sports like skateboarding and surfing have a lot in common in this way subculture but then also gets popular yeah with the kind of niche and then they become kind of mainstream but then even once they're mainstream they're still kind of cool you know like skateboarding it's like definitely not like full punk rock anymore but you're like it's pretty cool you know like skateboarding still

and it's not that common still you know and that's the thing with climbing is i'm kind of like yeah climbing is growing it's becoming more mainstream it's just never going to be you know soccer or something you know what i mean like it's always going to be slightly niche slightly countercultural because it's just you know it's just a smaller thing like it's just not playing basketball or something yeah i'm intrigued by um the training aspects and some of the fitness aspects i agree that it

Climbing is great for that.

Yeah, isn't that – I've always thought that's just a correlation.

It's just a correlation.

Because grip strength is just a proxy for all – it means that you use your body a lot and so therefore you're probably –

Like when I read those things about like if you have strong grip, it means this and this and this.

I'm like, no, if you have a strong grip, it means that you do stuff all the time.

And so as a result of doing stuff all the time, you're probably sharper than somebody who doesn't do stuff all the time.

And you're set.

Yeah, I think so.

I mean, I think.

You know, it's hard to say because there just aren't that many super old climbers.

And then a lot of the ones that come to mind, like sort of famous old climbers, you know, I mean, they die the same ways that everybody dies, you know, like cancer or heart disease or whatever, but like in their late 80s or whatever.

Mm-hmm.

No, I mean, I think climbing is a great way to age.

I mean, I have a bunch of friends who are sort of 50s and 60s who are very fit.

Like actually, I mean, it comes to mind, there's a friend of mine who's a philosophy professor at UNLV at the university, but he's incredibly jacked.

And I think he's 64 now.

I think he just became the oldest person to climb a certain grade, like 514, which is like kind of an elite rock climbing grade.

But I think he's maybe the oldest person to have done that now.

But he once told me in San Diego that he was at some hotel pool in middle America at some conference or something.

And some kid asked if he could touch his abs because he'd never seen.

He was like, are they real?

Because he's like a 48-year-old professor who's shredded.

And some kid in the pool was like, can I touch those?

Is that real?

I've never seen a thing like that.

Yeah, that's a very common thing for adults.

I mean, especially men, especially somebody like you who's already fit.

And so you try to bring the tool you already have to it, and you're like, no, you've got to drive with your legs, go technique, mobility.

I like to say that anybody that tries climbing should think of it as climbing a really, really steep staircase where it's like you're still walking up the stairs and you're using the handrail for balance, but you're not pulling yourself up the handrail.

And most of climbing is basically a steep staircase.

You know, I mean, especially outdoors and in climbing gyms is a little bit different because the wall is actually vertical.

But outdoors, the wall is almost always a little bit less than vertical.

So it's like basically you're on a very, very steep and technical staircase.

And then you're using the handrail like the handholds to keep you balanced on the wall.

But your legs should always be driving you.

No, but just do it after the permits.

You know the cables stay up all year.

So when it's out of season, they take the uprights down, but the cables just sit there, and you can do it any time.

It's actually way better to do it post, like after the season because there's no permitting, there are no people, and it's like super chill.

Yeah, just do it off season.

But you're strong enough to just glance them off, you know, just like shrug them aside.

Possibly.

I did hear a lot.

Or ideally stop them.

Yosemite, I mean, is a crown jewel.

I mean, I think it's the best national park in the country.

Yeah, I'm not sure.

I'm not sure what the hidden dangers are.

I would say, though, that the obvious visual dangers, like for a non-climber just watching free soloing, I think they generally misperceive all the dangers and risks involved.

You know, they just see it and they're like, that's crazy.

That's whatever, you know, and like whatever they're bringing to it is probably not the actual case.

Just because it's hard to visually tell what's challenging in climbing.

You know, you're like, that's a vertical wall.

But if it's like a nice crack going over a vertical wall, that's actually quite easy and secure climbing.

But then some of the other stuff, you know, if they're really small holds, you're trusting your feet.

I don't know.

I mean, it's just really hard to judge that stuff visually.

Like, you have to do it to experience it.

But I think that...

that honestly the whole perception of risk around free-soling is maybe slightly misperceived by people.

So with climbing in general, like if you go climbing with a rope, like if you're traditional climbing, like you're climbing with a rope and gear and you're going to climb half-dome, let's say, when you start climbing from the ground, you go some distance before you put your first piece of gear in because that's just kind of the nature of climbing.

You go for a ways and you put in some gear, you clip your rope into it, and then you're protected and then...

for whatever distance you're going, you're essentially free soloing to that point.

There's always risk involved in climbing because even if you have a rope on, depending how far you're going above your last piece of gear and what the terrain is like and whether or not the rock is good and all these other factors, you're more or less safe.

And so I think people look at free soloing as this binary.

If you don't have a rope, that's dangerous.

And you're kind of like, well...

Anytime you're climbing, there are dangers or there could be, and you're constantly evaluating those and trying to mitigate them.

So I think that's the big misperception because easy free soloing is probably like if I'm somebody, you know, who's like an expert rock climber or whatever, I've been climbing 30 years.

If I'm on an easy free solo, that's almost certainly safer than a very hard, certain types of hard climbing with a rope on.

You know, and most of my scariest experiences as a climber actually have been with a rope on because with a rope, you're much more willing to push yourself into unknown terrain because you're kind of like, surely there'll be something good just around the corner.

And so you keep going around the corner and you keep not getting good gear and you're like, holy shit, it's getting scarier and scarier.

Are we allowed to curse?

Yeah.

Yeah, perfect.

Yeah.

But so a lot of my scariest experiences have been with a rope on because you're kind of like, I'm sure it'll get better.

I'm sure it'll get better.

And it keeps getting worse and worse.

And then pretty soon you're in some position where you're definitely going to die if you fall.

But you never would have climbed into that position if you didn't have a rope on because you're just so much more conservative when you're ropeless.

And when you're ropeless, you're kind of like if something seems wrong, you just go down, you know, because you're just not going to push that far.

I mean, that's an example of pushing really freaking far with a rope on.

It's like because you have a rope, you're willing to just keep pushing into the unknown.

But then you wind up in a position where you're like, this is pretty freaking extreme.

I mean, you saw the film.

It's all totally insane.

Like, yeah, it's true that most places if you fall off, you're going to die.

But like when I started free soloing as a kid, not that I like started and then only did that, but on my first free solos when I was young.

In the back of my mind, it would always be like, if you slip, you'll die.

And the reality is that there are tons of places where your foot can slip and nothing else moves.

Like your hands are locked on, you're holding on tight, and your foot slipped, and you're just kind of like, oh, my foot slipped.

And you keep climbing, and it's no big deal.

I mean, there are also some places where if you foot slips, you're going to die for sure.

And the key is differentiating between those.

But I think when I started, you know, it was like, if anything happens, you'll die.

And as you do it more, you're actually like, no, I mean, a lot of things can happen and it'll be fine.

You just have to make sure that the wrong thing doesn't happen at the wrong time.

Yeah.

There's a, there's a quote in the film free solo or a friend of mine, Tommy Caldo, who's a very well-known climber says something like all the people who are big free solos are dead now.

And it kind of implies like, you know, free soloing is dangerous and they all died soloing.

But the reality is that basically none of them died soloing.

Like one or two soloists have died soloing.

Though my preferred statistic is that no one has ever died doing something cutting edge.

So like no one has ever died pushing the envelope, like doing something extreme.

There have been a couple free soloists who have died free soloing easy terrain, like just out doing something casual and maybe a hold breaks or maybe something happens.

Like it's impossible to know what because they die.

Um,

But then the bulk of other people who are sort of known for free-souling have died either in parachuting accidents like wingsuiting or base jumping, or one got swept out to sea by a rogue wave.

It's kind of a freak thing.

One died in a car accident.

It's basically just ways that people die.

So all that I say, it's not clear that free-souling is the most dangerous.

No, I mean, I also would suspect that all the people that we're talking about are all just a little, they're just bigger risk takers in general.

They're just more willing to do things like drive quickly and, you know, do whatever.

Just more willing to take risk in their life.

And I suppose sooner or later, those things catch up with you or they can.

Though that said, with re-soling,

Two of the world's best free soloists from the previous generations are still alive, you know, older men just living their best lives, doing their thing.

Yeah.

Maybe not at like a super high level.

Maybe not pushing themselves hard, but yeah, like certainly could.

So a man named Peter Croft, he's a Canadian, but has lived in the U.S.

forever.

He was like my childhood hero growing up, and he's an incredible soloist.

Actually, there's a film with him or a scene with him in the film Free Solo.

He's kind of like a – they kind of frame him as like a mentor figure, though honestly he wasn't.

a mentor because I was too afraid to ever even talk to him because he was like such a personal hero.

But I mean, he's such a he's incredible.

He's super nice guy.

And so I'm we're both sponsored by the North Face now.

So we're friends.

We're on the same team.

And so I've like hung out with him at events and things.

And I was having dinner with him once.

I was kind of like, oh, what point did you kind of end the cutting edge free soloing?

And he was like, oh, actually, I did a couple of my hardest solos, like in terms of grades, like not necessarily the most cutting edge, but kind of the hardest grades within the last several years.

And I was like, really?

And he's still just kind of doing stuff and fit and he's psyched.

And he's got to be –

I don't know.

I don't want to offend him, but he's got to be like mid fifties or like maybe 60.

Like, you know, he's, uh, yeah.

And he's just still incredible.

He's still climbing all the time.

And even on his rest days, he goes down into the same climbing areas to hang out with his friends and chit chat and like take his dog to the cliff and stuff.

So, you know, I look at somebody like him, who's basically made an entire life of free soloing.

I'm kind of like, you know, if you do it carefully, you, you know, make good decisions.

I don't think it has to be sketchy.

How awesome is it that you're

friends and coworkers with one of your childhood heroes?

Oh, that's the best.

That's actually, I think one of the best things about being a professional climber is so many of the people that I was, that I looked up to as a kid, you know, and our friends and peers and things, and you're like, Oh, that's so great.

Yeah.

You get to like hang out with your heroes and you're like, yeah, no, it's amazing.

kid out there now thinking the same it's like i'm too afraid to go up to alex and say hello uh and uh they should just say hello yeah i don't know in the same way right yeah totally i mean in the same way that i was like so afraid to ever talk to peter when i was young and then ultimately now he's just another nice guy and we're friends we climb together it's great sort of like yeah anybody should just say hi you know it's like if they're at the if we're at the cliff like come chat you know it's like we're all doing the same thing

I'm not totally sure because in some ways, so it depends what you mean by achieving success as a climber.

Because if you're trying to climb the hardest grades or go to the Olympics or things like that, in some ways, you're almost better off being a university student or something like having a structured schedule that in some ways limits the amount that you can climb.

Because, you know, I don't know enough about other sports, but I suspect this is akin to like power lifting or something where it's like if you're trying to be really, really strong, you kind of only need to do a little bit every couple of days and then recover.

And so for a sort of elite physical training for climbing, you really only need, you know, say three or four hour sessions, four or five days a week.

And then it's like, what do you do with the rest of your time?

And so like you may as well have a job or.

And so a lot of my friends who like write code for a living or, you know, do things like that are very, very strong climbers because of the, the, the schedule that allows the structure.

Um, that said, I think if you want to be a great free solist or like a big adventure climber, you're probably better off living in a van and just doing the thing nonstop.

Because for that, you're not trying to have that peak muscular performance.

You're trying to just learn a skill and do something all the time.

And so then like hours of practice, I think matter more.

Is it just basically sleep?

No, I push my three-year-old on the swings.

That's how I recover is I play with the kids on the swings.

I try to eat relatively well.

I try to sleep enough.

I do all the basics for recovery.

But no, I basically just survive in between.

I was actually just joking with somebody that I think as a 24-year-old living by myself in a van,

I would have crazy days of climbing.

And then on a rest day, I would like binge watch an entire season of some show while eating an entire flat Oreos, just like never even leave the bed of my van.

And then the next day go out and like do a speed record on something or just be like, I'm, I'm so psyched, you know?

And now I'm like, I'm definitely not doing that now.

Or at least no, I haven't done that in forever because I just don't have the time and don't have, um, yeah.

So I think now it takes a little more effort to recover and,

And it's just a little slower, probably.

But it's hard to say, though, because a lot of that's just having kids and just having different demands of time in life.

Yeah, I mean, I was living in a van.

I was basically, like, you know, super low overhead, no team, no support.

I'm just living in a car doing the thing nonstop for, you know, a decade.

And so that's a pretty scrappy approach, and I think that in the years since then, climbing has professionalized a little bit, and there's a little more money, there's a little more support, and there's just a higher level of competition.

I think it'd be harder to achieve things doing just that now.

I think you'd have to have a little more of a plan.

Massage guns for sure are there.

Massage guns are there.

I try to roll out every once in a while.

Even when I was living in my van, I would stretch and roll out and do those types of things because you just kind of have to stay supple.

Yeah, how do you feel?

How does your body feel?

Well, I mean, right now I think pretty good.

I don't know.

Yeah.

When I'm, um, I live in Las Vegas when I'm at home, I try to see this body worker in town once a week, Pat, sweet Pat, he's the man.

And so, uh, you know, I think of that as kind of like a basic, just taking care of, uh, you know, making, it's like an oil change.

It's like making sure the engine runs smoothly.

And I think as a result of body work like that, I haven't had any major like overuse injuries in years.

So, like, that's pretty good for me.

Climbing still has that exact same thing going on where you can kind of go either way.

I do think though, that the self-care track will obviously went out long-term.

I mean, that's the thing with the climate and being in the Olympics and just the professionalism, all that.

I mean, obviously self-care is better for you long-term.

It was like, you know, everybody knows that, that said,

you still see a lot of very proficient climbers who, yeah, exactly.

Just kind of party, go hard.

I mean, cause so much of climbing just comes down to effort when you're doing the thing.

Like if you go climbing several days a week and you try your absolute hardest every time you're climbing, you're going to get pretty freaking good.

You know, whether you do red light therapy or like any of the weird other stuff or not.

So it's like, I mean, it really just comes down to your effort doing the thing.

And so, yeah, I mean, you could live and I mean, a lot of climbers, especially in the past lived on a diet of, of, you know, cigarettes and,

No, I think that's definitely a big thing.

I mean, I think I've thought in the past that in some ways I feel kind of lucky that I came up when I did in climbing, where it's like sort of pre-smartphone, pre-social, pre, you know, you just live in your car and you do the thing and that's it.

And that's your whole lifestyle.

I mean, currently, you know, I have all the social media accounts and things, but I don't have any of the apps on my phone.

I have a friend that manages it for me.

I, like, send all the content to her, but she posts stuff.

And so it's a nice way to sort of disconnect myself from scrolling aimlessly.

I don't really have the time anymore.

You know, it's like I'd rather play with my kids than for sure scroll.

Uh, you know, I was like, but no, I mean, that's, that's tough.

I mean, I think it'd be hard to be a kid now growing up, like thinking that that's the norm that you like have to be connected, that you have to be capturing everything, you know, documenting and then sharing it and posting and just all this stuff.

I've always felt like the thing about being a professional climber is that you just have to be a good climber.

Like first and foremost, the key to being a professional climber is being able to climb really well.

And like the most important thing is doing the thing.

And I just think when you get caught up in all the posting, sharing, streaming, all the whatever, that's not doing the thing.

But it's easy to conflate them and it's – I don't know.

Yeah.

No, I think it would be really hard.

It's just so hard to actually be good at something.

And this goes back to what we were just talking about with free-souling and perceived risk and all that kind of stuff.

It's just really easy.

To make something look rad, soloing-wise.

Like, you know, I could climb the outside of this building and it would, like, look insane.

It would get tons of likes.

People would think it's cool.

But it's not cutting edge.

It's not cool.

It's not even hard.

Like, it's not – it's whatever.

But to actually do something that's cutting edge or newsworthy in climbing, it's pretty freaking hard, you know.

And the challenge with social and with public, all that kind of stuff, is that it's just so easy to –

I don't want to say to fake it because it's not like people are out there like trying to be duplicitous or like to trick you.

But it's just you can get the same splash with none of the effort, you know, through social stuff, I think.

You're like, oh, I just did something easy and people thought it was amazing.

Let's call that good.

And you're like, well, that's just not good because it's easy.

It's freaking, you know, like it's not cutting edge.

It's not rad.

Yeah, on the one hand, I set big goals, I guess, you know, something like El Cap.

But the thing is, I would actually say that's more the outgrowth of setting consistent little goals, like, all the time.

Like, I basically always have a running to-do list of, like, what am I doing tomorrow?

What am I doing today?

What am I trying to do this week?

And that extends to climbing as well with, like, what are all the little things I can be doing?

Like, what are the little things I can tick this week?

You know, I have my climbing journal goes back to 2005 or 2006 or something.

So basically everything I've ever climbed is logged with, you know, difficulty and times and whatever.

And so I'm constantly trying to take things as a climber, you know, just like to do new climbs that I haven't done before.

And so, I mean, I think like actually my day of climbing yesterday could be a good example of this.

So yesterday my wife and I dropped off our older daughter at school, went to the cliff, uh, did a day of sport climbing, um, and then picked up our daughter on the way home.

It's like a perfect day like that where you can kind of like make it all work.

And I'm not going to be able to go to that cliff very often this season just because of travel and work and life basically.

Um,

So I don't want to have any big project there because I just won't have time to do it.

I'm trying to set my goals appropriately where I'm like, oh, there's no point in trying to do something that would take me a month or two to achieve if I only have three days.

And so I had a goal for that day of trying to do this very particular little project

combination of routes that i hadn't done before it's just something new something interesting it's not that hard but then we got there and it was it was like the worst condition it was like 86 degrees when you parked the car and so you know it's like you're trying to work out and like horrendously hot and it was also that kind of monsoony so it's very humid so we got to the wall and it's like disgusting and i was kind of like well you know it's a training day like whatever and so i tried to do this new combination of routes ultimately i failed on i felt the very freaking top of the wall was like so maxed and didn't do it uh i'll probably get a chance to go back on monday and hope and i'll for sure do it then

Um, but you know, it's like a very small goal.

Like this isn't cutting edge, like big, this isn't, this isn't even cool at all.

Like my friends won't even care.

Like they'll think it's stupid, but, but it's nice for me to have a reason for me to try my hardest for that particular day of climbing.

And I think that the big goals come as a result of all those little things, you know, like if day by day, you're constantly doing something that's a little bit new, a little bit different, a little bit harder, you know, whatever seems like the appropriate challenge for that day.

I think that

looking back at 20 years of climbing outside nonstop, that the big things have just come as a natural outgrowth of all those little things.

You do like enough little things all the time.

And then every once in a while,

something big happens.

And so I don't know, that's, you know, but I have to do lists going back like years of like goals and all these aspirations.

And, you know, some years I only do half of them.

Some years I do a third of them.

And then, you know, something like free selling all cap sat on a list like that literally for years.

And it kept floating to the next year, to the next year.

Cause you get into Yosemite, you look at the wall and you're like, nah, that's, you know, you're like totally out of the question.

And so you just like punt to the next year.

And so, yeah, I mean, sometimes the goals don't happen.

Sometimes they do, but you kind of just have to let it play out.

You know, it's more like the day-to-day little challenges.

Cause you're super well practiced.

Well, I'm actually, I feel the same way with public speaking now, but that's after years of practice.

It used to be, it used to be so stressful for me.

Like, so yeah, no, I was, I was so shy.

No, I mean, exactly.

That's why I hate all this stuff.

It's like, oh, you're just wired differently.

So I'm like, no, I know that, you know, like, yeah, public, like speaking in front of a class in school was like mortifying.

But now after years of doing keynote speeches to like giant groups, I'm sort of like, no, no, it's super chill.

But, you know, that's all learned.

With that particular scanning in the fMRI, they show you a bunch of black and white pictures, and it's like whether or not that triggers the fear response.

And I was like, well, obviously looking at pictures isn't going to trigger my fear response.

But I'm like, had they thrown a snake into the fMRI with me, that would have triggered my fear response.

If there were giant spiders crawling over me, that probably would too.

And so I was like, no, obviously I feel fear.

I just, I'm just not afraid of black and white photos.

Right.

That's what they used?

It wasn't even faces.

It was like random stuff, like, I don't know, like a gun and then like a light socket, you know, some things that are like neutral, some things that are whatever.

Well, I think it was a standardized thing, I think.

Yeah, totally, than in VR.

But this is, I think, one of the real values of climbing is I think that as a climber you spend all your time thinking about risk and managing risk and mitigating risk and all those kinds of things.

And so I think that, I don't want to like toot my own horn too much, but I do feel good at evaluating risks like that.

You know, like what is the actual dangerous thing?

Like what's sketchy about the situation?

And it just often isn't the thing that people are looking at.

You know, and that's what I was talking about earlier with like people watching video free-soling or whatever else.

They're like, that's sketchy.

And I'm like, well, you know, might be in some ways, but probably not for all the reasons that you're thinking.

You know what I mean?

Like the obvious visual thing is probably not the –

the big challenge.

Yeah, because either way you're going to die.

Either way you're going to die.

And you may as well die having done a lot of things you're really excited about than die.

regretting all the things you didn't do totally I mean I think that that actually that exact mindset really helped inform my whole climbing journey in a way is like my father died when when I was 19 and he died of a heart attack unexpectedly just freak thing running through an airport at age 55 and you know and I think for a young for a teenager that makes an impression where you're sort of like oh like this could end at any moment and actually in both my grandfathers had just died like at roughly the same time so I think for an impressionable you know

teen, you're sort of like, oh, everybody dies.

Like, do you get to do all the things that you want to do before you go?

And, and I think my father, my father was a community college professor taught language and, uh,

You know, he ostensibly lived a risk-free life, you know, like relatively sedentary.

I mean, he traveled widely.

He was great.

But by any risk perception thing, you'd be like, oh, he's a professor.

Like, he's fine.

And yet he still died young and probably would have preferred to do a lot of other things before he went.

I'm sort of like, you know, it's just a reminder that you got to do all those things.

Yeah, no, I totally agree with that.

I mean, and you say we know that, but I actually think that we don't talk about that enough.

You know what I mean?

I think most people live with a little too much open-ended because nobody wants to talk about death.

Nobody wants to talk about, you know, like the consequences of like, because people think it's morbid or it's just not.

The thing is like, we're all going to freaking die.

It's like, are we going to be proud of what we did before we died?

I don't know.

I mean, yeah, we'll see.

It's kind of cliche to be like, oh, better to die young and burn brightly and all that kind of stuff.

But to some extent, I think there's a middle ground where you're like, it's better to try hard and do things that you're proud of.

you know, either way you're going to die.

It's their quarter life crisis.

Like all my friends have gone through a quarter life crisis.

Well, like 25, you know, 27.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was just lucky to get into climbing when I was 10.

So this is something that I've just been into forever.

And I was psycho about my Legos.

Yeah.

Like I didn't have a bed in my room because I had Legos covered across the whole floor.

Basically I slept in a corner and I just had Legos all over.

Awesome.

Kind of psycho.

Do you see some of this in, in your kids?

Not quite that yet, but they're pretty young, so it's hard to tell.

But yeah, we'll see.

We'll see.

I kind of think, you know, it's all about having personality, like do a thing, do it well, like get excited about things.

I mean, there's just so many people on Earth and they all do different things.

Like you may as well be the person to do that one particular thing and just like really do it.

I've literally spent my whole life basically like all in on climbing.

Yeah.

And I'm still, I just love going rock climbing.

You know, it's like, I mean, I think that's really the goal of parenting is to help your kid find something that they're that psyched about, like something that they can commit to and something that will drive them, something they're passionate about.

And so, you know, I mean, we'll see with our kids, but it's like the idea is just to let them experience enough things that they can find whatever they, whatever gets them out of bed every day.

Yeah.

That's maybe the best sports memoir ever.

That's like, that's a great, uh, that's a great book.

Great book.

Yeah.

His dad was like a boxer and basically trained him in tennis like a boxer.

No, we're, we're, we're taking the light handed approach for sure.

I mean, our kids will obviously know how to climb because that's what we do all the time.

And, um,

But so far we just go hiking.

Like we haven't forced them to climb.

We have a little bit of a home gym at home, like a little climbing garage.

And so the girls can, you know, play on the wall whenever they want to, but there's certainly never any pressure to do anything.

And you went to Cal?

So you were climbing up the back of it, which is anything but, uh, well, actually I was mostly traversing the bottom of it.

Um, there's tons of like, basically you can contour the whole base of the rock.

And so you can climb for, you know, a couple hundred feet basically without touching the ground.

So you just go back and forth doing laps and.

Yeah.

I mean, from where I was living at Berkeley, there's only like a 30 minute walk to Indian Rock or something.

So I basically wasn't going to class.

I was just strolling to Indian Rock and traversing the wall back and forth.

And and then that's why I dropped out after one year at Berkeley.

It's kind of like I don't know why I'm at university if I'm not actually.

Actually, it's more complicated than that because that year I got into the youth worlds, like an international thing.

And so I was going to take the semester off to go to worlds and travel and climb a little bit.

And so now I've just taken, you know, whatever, like 35 semesters off or something.

No, I think after some point they were like, you're done.

Yeah, I think they closed that.

Yeah.

I mean, it's just hard to know with that stuff, though, because obviously for most people, they probably should get an education and get a job of some kind.

Like, even if you're a really passionate climber, I mean, most people probably aren't going to make a living as a professional climber because it's just too small an industry.

And, you know, the.

depends on your level and everything I mean I think I got kind of lucky I mean in a lot of ways I got lucky also just because I like soloing and it's like such a niche and not that many people do it and the and the level just wasn't that high and so you know I sometimes joke it's easy to be the best if you're the only one doing it you know it's like it's easy to compete is the only person in the field and you're kind of like well it makes it chill and so you know I think I got lucky in a lot of ways like that and so yeah most people probably should finish university and and climb as they can

That said, I mean, if you love doing a thing, it makes sense to maybe build your life around how you can do that thing as much as possible, just because it keeps you energized and fired up and, you know, it makes the rest of your life better.

Yeah, I mean, if you have nothing, then you drop out and you just go play video games in your basement or something like that.

That's obviously not better than going to school.

Like, you're better off going to school and broadening your horizons and doing whatever.

Yeah, I mean, I thought I was just taking some time off, and I thought that eventually I'd become a mountain guide or something or, like, teach at summer camps or I don't know, you know, because especially at the time the climbing industry was so much smaller, there wasn't any money.

Like, I didn't think you could make a living as a professional climber.

And so I thought it was just kind of a fun thing I was doing in the van for a while before I'd, like, find some kind of job or something.

And then, thankfully, the climbing industry has kind of scaled at the same rate that I did as a climber, and so it all worked out.

No.

Well, so, I mean, I mentioned that my dad died, so my parents had just gotten divorced.

And so my dad had left enough for, for my sister and me to finish college.

And so I took that money and put it in bonds.

I'm just like, I don't know what that is.

But, you know, so I was making like a couple hundred bucks a month in bonds.

And then I stole the family minivan.

Like I said, my grandparents and my two grandfathers had died before.

So like basically my mom had inherited this little car.

So she was driving my grandpa's car.

I took the family minivan.

I was making a couple hundred bucks in bonds.

Basically, that just kind of covered any of the pressure, like the financial pressure, whereas like that gave me enough of a buffer that I was like, well, for several years, at least I can just kind of like live in this minivan and see what happens.

And then after a couple years, I was sponsored, I was getting free product, I was getting it like a very, very small amount of money, but some amount of money, which is enough.

sort of justify the whole thing we're like oh companies are paying me to do this thing I should see how well I can do it and then and then it all kind of took off from there but yeah I mean it I mean that's one of the ways in which I was very lucky as a climber you know there was like just enough financial cushion that I could try to do the thing as much as I wanted for a couple years and see how it played out and it just happened to work out well

with with your mind your mind's eye like do you have like like clear recollection of like i'm gonna i'm gonna snap a shot of this like keep this one no i can't remember no i mean to me it's more the living there day in and day out like you know with freestyling el capo let's say i mean we i spent months on the wall and it's like just every day you know you're going up before sunrise a lot of the time so you're watching the sunrise over half dome and it's like super beautiful and then you're going down at sunset and you're watching the moon and it's just

I mean, it's just day in and day out.

It's the most beautiful place on Earth in all these amazing conditions.

You know, sometimes it starts snowing.

Sometimes it's raining.

It's like there are clouds swirling and mist or whatever.

And you're just like, oh, it's amazing.

But I don't really remember any specific, you know, like a snapshot of that.

It's more just the overall.

You're like, oh, it's just this amazing place.

It's a pretty awesome existence.

Yeah, like the freaking – what is it with Yosemite Falls?

Have you ever seen the moon rainbow thing?

No, the firefalls is a different thing.

That's like with the moon and that's a different time of year.

In like May or June, if you get a full moon –

Oh, the moon bow.

That's what it is.

It's like when Yosemite Falls will cast a moon bow, like you'll be able to see a rainbow from the moonlight in the waterfall when it's at peak water.

It's totally insane.

My wife and I went for a romantic walk to go look at the moon bow one season because it's just there and you're like, that's pretty cool.

You know, it's like it's a rainbow at night.

Amazing.

It's really cool.

I still think it's crazy that you've climbed Clouds Rest more than once and never climbed Half Dome.

Because you have to go past Half Dome, and Half Dome is the much more famous cousin that's closer and easier and kind of more spectacular.

Oh, I'm way less impressed.

Oh, okay, good.

No, going from the valley floor is really hard.

That's so funny because you were talking about rucking a heavy bag up there, and I was like, man, that is a hard walk from the valley floor.

Because I'm thinking everything from the valley floor because I spent so much time in Yosemite.

But going from the valley floor is really tough.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's because I had one season Yosemite where for whatever reason I wasn't really motivated for climbing goals.

And I called it I said that I retired and I was on a trail running season.

Though it's funny because I actually I supported a bunch of my friends on things and I was bouldering with all my friends.

And so, you know, I said that I have a climbing journal.

So by the end of the season, if you look through the journal, it would look like a normal season where like almost every day I was climbing with somebody.

I was doing something.

And then by the end of the season, I actually did a couple of things I was kind of proud of.

But the mindset going into it was like, I don't care.

I'm just here having fun.

I'm trail running and I'm supporting my friends on things.

And that's it.

And one of my big things that season was that I ran Clouds Rest from the valley floor.

But to me, that was like a triumph of trail running, you know, because that's like a pretty big.

How long is that?

I don't know.

It's like.

5 000 feet over or six i don't know it's like so far yeah uh let's see because it was like the hardest thing i'd ever run yeah you're probably going at least three to four thousand feet from the valley floor up to the meadows and then another two thousand up to when the valley floor is four and top of clouds this is ten something so you're doing six yeah yeah so it's like okay for me i was like oh that's a that's a lot that's a trail right yeah and you bring it and you're carrying water you get yeah i just had like a little bottle and i don't know fill in the rivers and

No, actually, I don't think there is that much climbing in Glacier National Park, but, uh, I've actually biked past on, on the way to Alaska for this like random, random journey I did.

Yeah.

But, um, but no, I haven't, I haven't done much in there.

Yeah, she's climbing El Cap in a day, like free in a day, this route called Golden Gate.

Yeah, actually, surprisingly, I'm in that film much more than I thought because I supported her on each of her attempts.