Alex Honnold

Everyone thinks it seems crazy, but it's not that crazy.

I don't know actual statistics, but I suspect that it's actually pretty comparable to skiing or something.

You know, because like recreational skiers die all the time, like falling in tree wells or like going off cliff spikes and things like that.

Climbing is actually surprisingly safe, which is one of the things I love about climbing.

I mean, climbing is very, it's very sort of binary where it's like either you're totally safe or you're going to die.

And the odds of you dying are very, very, very small.

But because they're there, they always keep you on.

You know what I mean?

Like it basically keeps you alert, but you're never really going to get hurt.

Yeah, I mean, for the most part.

I mean, a couple people have died free soloing.

I mean, people occasionally die free soloing, for sure.

But actually, most of the sort of cutting-edge free soloists have not died soloing.

They've, like, died in other things.

I think it was in the documentary on Netflix, Free Solo, where one of your colleagues... Yeah, Tommy is like, most free soloists are dead now, which is kind of true, but it's slightly misstated.

I mean, you know, he's just, like, speaking off the cuff, and it's not, like, strictly true.

Like a couple of the best free solos have died free soloing, though they died on very easy terrain.

But then the majority of other great free solos have died in sort of climbing adjacent accidents like wingsuit base jumping and like one got swept to sea by a rogue wave.

Like while he was out climbing a sea cliff, but he was like standing on shore and got swept out to sea.

You know, things like that where you're just kind of like, you know, obviously they're taking risks in their lives and they wind up dead.