A climber tries to scale a very tricky, near vertical mountain without any ropes etc.
Amazingly this Oscar winner (for best doc a few weeks ago) is on TV tonight. As far as I’m aware it was still in cinemas only last week. Reviews suggests it’s the tensest, most terrifying thing you’ll ever see as its 90 minutes of real life live or die endangerment. One misplaced foot or hand hold and he’s dead.
It’s on National Geographic at 8pm.
I thought it was a remake of Return of the Jedi.
….I’ll get me crampons.
I saw it last weekend when NG broadcast it.
It’s quite remarkable. Alex Honnold is such an unprepossessing man. He’s very self-contained and quite matter-of-fact about what he does; something which to me is totally inconceivable.
I could look at a sheer granite face and see nothing whereas Alex can see toeholds and gripping points in tiny irregularities in the surface. I visited Yosemite six years ago and as I sat looking up at El Capitan, the thought that four years later someone would climb it with no external aids other than his climbing shoes and a pot of chalk dust was in the realm of fantasy. Yet Alex did it.
The film contains some scenes where I was gripping the edge of the sofa. The magnitude of the difficulty is revealed in shots of the face of one of the guys on the ground who is unable to watch. You can see the fear in his face. He knows Alex and he knows of his ability and capability, yet he’s also aware that sometimes things can and do go wrong (during the making of the film news comes through of the death of Swiss climber Ueli Steck, someone who like Alex was a free climber). Alex has no such qualms. He is the utter professional and knows what he’s doing every inch of the way. I heard him interviewed on Today a couple of weeks ago and he said he could still recall every part of the climb, even now two years on. He said it’s analogous to an actor learning lines. He learned his route and it remains with him.
His climb was a monumental achievement in more ways than one. With all the hyperbole that surrounds sports’ commentary, here was a guy who completed one of the greatest sporting challenges on the planet (something so challenging that very few people even realised that such a challenge existed) quietly, with no fanfare but with supreme expertise.
It was a task where a single mistake could very well have been a genuine tragedy. Gravity is unforgiving and there are no second chances.
Alex didn’t need them.
It’s an astounding and outstanding film. I highly recommend it.
I’ve been in the lodge at Yosemite in the early evening quite a few times, grabbing a shower and some grub from the great little refectory they have. In the lobby there’s often a gaggle of climbers, back from the rock for the day, buzzing and discussing the next day’s adventures. Sometimes however, you see past the adrenaline, past the chutzpah and into the eyes of someone who has, that same day, confronted fear in depths and quantities unknown to most people; mortal fear, existential threat with kapital letters. I’ve seen it in the eyes of men and women, impossibly child-like, spectacularly frail looking youngsters with huge skeins of climbing rope over their shoulders, scabbed hands and a shivering look that tells of hours on rock faces, up in the wind, a moment’s loss of concentration away from terror. They are all mad. Mad for the thrill, mad for the relief, mad for life. I salute them.
Yes we had a few nights in Yosemite (one highlight was Mrs. T being trapped in the loo by a wandering bear at 4 am while I slept blissfully unaware in the tent). We chatted to some guys who were sussing out El Capitan and had come down for a bite to eat and a beer. They intended to re-climb the bit they’d worked out – in the dark – and sleep on the rock to get a good start in the morning. As you say, crazy, driven amazing people.
A friend of mine is into rock climbing (or was) and I watched him and another guy climb a particularly dodgy sea cliff on Anglesea. His mate fell a couple of times – no problem, the ropes did the business. They walked down and another spectator on the beach commented to him that it must be annoying to fall off but luckily he had the ropes. To which said mate replied “well I’d better not fall off this time”, walked straight over and redid the climb, solo. One of the most tense 30 minutes of my life. He did it, by the way!
I did a little bit of climbing myself, as a relative nipper. Scared myself a couple of times and decided records were more my kind of thing. Then I took up motorbikes….
Do I need to pay some Oz gangster to watch National Geographic, or is it hidden away in the higher reaches of Freeview?
I think it’s behind the Sky paywall. Looks like it’s free on Amazon Prime Video so that’s me sorted.
Is it? Just looked and it doesn’t appear to be on prime. You can pay £9.99 and stream it (but not yet). There’s something with a similar title free on prime.
Yes I saw that message. Not had chance to fully investigate yet.
A kind of companion film called “The Dawn Wall” is available on Netflix (in the UK) now.
That’s about Tommy Caldwell, a friend of Alex Honnold, who features frequently in “Free Solo”. It’s an account of his climb up El Capitan, but using ropes.
We saw this in the cinema, a terrifically well-made and nail biting movie. No-one yet has mentioned his girlfried Sanni who Alex has unsurprisingly an up-and-down relationship with, and whose motivations are less explored inevitably. Hanging over everything they do is the spectre both of imminent death (possibly), and the unspoken thoughts about their being no old free climbers and thus a choice between dying – as happens in the film, or walking away from it. Ever climber he talks to is negotiating this with themselves – when they will stop, who has and hasn’t stopped, what will cause them to stop, what they want to accomplish before they stop, but ultimately one fears for them all.
@Carl and @moseleymoles.
Great posts.
Watched this over the weekend and it was probably the most terrifying 90 minutes of my life. My bare feet were sweating almost throughout.
The bit where he recites the climb at a certain point, over footage of him actually on the wall, doing it, reminded me a lot of top class road racers. It was said that Joey Dunlop could do a 20 minute commentated (“5th gear, cross the white line, over the manhole cover, aim for the phone box, down to 4th, touch the bakes, lean in gently” etc etc) lap of the TT course with his eyes closed to within 5 seconds of an actual video of him doing said lap. I’ve no doubt the current crop can do similar if not the same. There’s similar footage in the Guy Martin TT film of him doing exactly that.They just know the lap inside out, and that’s how Alex did it. Practice, practice and practice. Know every next move.
The footage of the more scary bits (the karate kick or jump move bit especially) were especially astonishing. What possesses free climbers to do “jump” moves is just beyond my comprehension.
The more surreal bits were the entertainment of the film. Alex and Sanni buying a house and Sanni measuring up where the sofas etc could be despite never having used a tape measure in her life by the looks of it were bizarre. Alex should surely live in a bedsit, where he doesn’t have to think about much but climbing. In effect that’s what he’s been doing for years, living a seemingly uber basic day to day life in the back of a transit van, eating his tea with the implement he cooked it with, out of the pan he cooked it in.
He’s certainly wired up differently to the rest of us. But you find yourself rooting for him, despite what he does being totally self absorbed.
A quite astonishing film.
See it at almost any cost.
(I did like the quote from one of the cameramen when they realised he was attempting it. “Let’s hope it’s a low gravity day…”)
I’d forgotten the DLR song. His first solo album came out as I went to Uni and JLP and Yankee Rose were a staple of every rock disco for years after that. Almost perfect pop/rock. And Steve Vai on geetar.
Here’s Diamond Dave doing it. The famous route involves climbing up one side, fixing a role, abseiling down 70 odd feet then running backwards and forwards swinging across the rock face until you can grab a crack on the other side to continue the ascent. You see Dave attempting this in the video. Apparently he is a climber.
Never let it be said that Diamond Dave ever turned down the opportunity to grab a crack…
Arf
I watched it this weekend – one of the most astonishing documentaries Ive were seen. Some comparisons with Man on a Wire I guess. The lead up to the climb is well done, you get to know the people and builds the tension but nothing prepares you for sheer audacity and gut churning nerve of him actually doing it. I felt throughly exhausted by the end. Its a ‘must watch’ from me.
Definitely on my list to watch. I’m only aware of this from seeing the Goggleboxers discuss it last week [and now here] the clips they showed were incredible and the comments were similar to some here – trying to find toeholds in the sofa!
I’ve been intrigued by the very idea of this, in a heart in my mouth way, sine @LOUDspeaker posted the OP. I’ve just had marketing email from Channel 4 to say it is streaming on All 4 now, so that’s Saturday evening sorted.