Alex Honnold

um mikey was the photo assistant for this photo he was like holding the photos and he did the whole shoot just like looking into the wall like he just never looked at any of the things happening like jimmy chen was taking the photo and mikey was like did all the the rigging and the lights and everything and mikey did the whole shoot just like looking into his arm like looking the other way he was like i am not part of this i'd like to see his brain scan

He was stressed, but he, I mean, he's an elite climber himself and he's, he's amazing, but like basically watching free soloing is stressful and nobody wants to do it if they don't have to.

Oh, it's actually, I've had several moments, but actually mostly with ropes on.

That's the thing is that because when you're free soloing, you generally keep it within a healthy margin or you practice ahead of time, you know, basically because you're going to die, you make sure that you can do it.

But when you have a rope on, you're way more willing to push into the unknown because you're kind of like, surely I'll get some protection eventually.

I'll just keep looking.

I'll keep looking.

And so like I've had – I was on an expedition to Antarctica actually in 2017 and did a bunch of climbing that was very extreme but like with a rope.

But, you know, it's Antarctica.

It's really freaking cold.

Conditions are challenging.

The rock is crumbling.

Everything is scary.

And you just keep hoping that it's going to get better, and it just keeps getting worse instead.

And eventually you're sort of like – because the thing is having a rope on doesn't mean anything unless you get good protection, which means you have to be able to put gear into the rock.

And if you can't find places to put gear into the rock, then you can go – you know, the rope is 200 feet long.

If you go 200 feet without getting good gear, then you're looking at taking a 400-foot fall before the rope catches you.

Uh, which is almost certainly fatal.

You know, I mean, if you fall that far, even though the rope will catch your corpse, you know, but you're still just going to hit the wall after 400 feet, like you're screwed.

So anyway, my scariest experiences have all been situations like that for the most part.