Mark Synnott - The Impossible Climb: Alex Honnold, El Capitan, and a Climbers Life

Jimmy Chin took a deep breath, puffed out his cheeks, and exhaled slowly. Theres something I need to tell you, he whispered. Can you keep a secret?

We were in the giant red tram, traveling four thousand feet to the summit of the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, standing chest to chest and surrounded by a hundred other ruddy-faced skiers all looking forward to a long powdery run from the summit. Jackson Hole, located in western Wyoming next to the Grand Teton National Park, is famous for its difficult terrain, deep powder, and the many world-class big-mountain skiers who call it home. The highest peak in the range, the Grand Teton, tops out at 13,775 feet and welcomes thousands of climbers annually. Climbing this jagged, craggy peak is considered a rite of passage for any aspiring mountaineer. Skiers get a glimpse of the dark, pointed pinnacle of the Grand as they exit the tram and click into their skis.

It was February 2016, and I was with two of my sons, ages seventeen and fourteen, for their February school vacation. They were huddled together a few feet away, ignoring me and trying to catch a glimpse of the mountain through a foggy Plexiglas window. Wed run into Jimmy a few minutes earlier in the tram line. This was the first time Id seen him in almost a year.

Of course, I whispered back. Whats up?

Jimmy leaned in until his face was a few inches from mine. His eyes grew wide. The Hon is going to solo El Cap this fall, he said.

What? Youre messing with me, right?

I swear.

I looked around to see if anyone had overheard, but everyone was grooving to the music that was blasting from a speaker overhead. Jimmy stared back at me, his mouth hanging open.

He told you? I asked.

Yeah. Chai and I are making a film about it. The only people who know about this have all signed nondisclosure agreements, which means we are not allowed to talk about it, so please keep it on the down-low. Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi is Jimmys wife, and, like him, shes an award-winning documentary filmmaker. Jimmy and I had known each other for more than fifteen years and had been on many expeditions together, so I wasnt surprised he was letting me in on his secret. Oftentimes, I would write the stories of our expeditions and Jimmy would take the photos, so we made a good team.

Is he doing Freerider? I asked, referring to the route up El Capitan that is composed of complex crack systems on the southwest face of the wall. It is a merciless mix of height and steepness that takes even the most experienced climbers several days to complete.

Yep.

When?

Probably in early November.

As the reality of what I had just been told sunk in, the core of my body quivered. El Capitanthe worlds most majestic cliff. Without a rope. Whoa.

I had climbed Freerider. Or, I should say, I had attempted it. I got to the top after several days of brutal effort, but not before the climb spit me off several times. And most importantly, I had ropes and protective equipment arresting each fall. On a few of the hardest parts, the cruxes, I simply couldnt hang on to the fingertip jams, and my hands would slip from the flaring cracks. I had been forced to use aid, meaning I hung on mechanical devices I slotted into cracks in the rock. I cheated. Freerider got its name because its a free climb, which means it can be ascended with nothing more than your hands and feet, but climbers use a rope and harness to act only as a safety net, in case they slip off. The very best can scale Freerider without aid, but I couldnt think of a single person who hadnt fallen at least once on the way up.

So what in the world was Alex Honnold, affectionately known as the Hon, thinking? El Capitan is three thousand feet of sheer, gleaming, glacier-polished wall. And he planned to attempt it alone. Untethered. No equipment. No fail-safe. Hoping for precision in each grab, in each step. One slip, a toe placed a centimeter too high, a shoe angled off a few degrees, a hold grabbed with the wrong handand Alex would plummet through the air as the ground rushed upward at 120 miles per hour. If he fell off the Boulder Problemwhich is the hardest section of the entire route2,100 feet up the side of the wall, he could be in the air for as long as fourteen secondsabout the time it would take me to run the length of a football field.

A young Alex Honnold on the flanks of Mount Kinabalu. This was Honnolds first international climbing expedition.

I knew it was Alexs dream to be the first to free solo El CapitanI just never thought it would actually happen. When I took him on his first international expedition to Borneo in 2009, he confided in me that he had been thinking about it. Borneo, a large island in Southeast Asias Malay Archipelago, offered a new kind of big wall terrain and demanded a different kind of climbing than Alex had ever experienced. Borneo proved to be a good stepping-stone on Alexs path toward a ropeless ascent of El Capitan. In the ensuing years, Alex joined me on more climbing expeditions to Chad, Newfoundland, and Oman. Along the way, I witnessed many classic Alexisms, like him explaining at the base of the wall in Borneo why he didnt climb with a helmet, even on dangerously loose rock (he didnt own one), or the time in Chads Ennedi Plateau that he sat yawning and examining his cuticles while Jimmy and I faced down four knife-wielding bandits (he thought they were little kids). Perhaps the most classic Alexism of all occurred below a 2,500-foot sea cliff in Oman, when he strapped our rope to his back and told me that hed stop when he thought it was appropriate to rope up, and instead climbed the entire way without ever even looking back to see how I was doing.