Free Solo, the movie, Alex Honnold Free Solo of El Cap

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Jimmy Jam

Big Wall climber
Naples, Florida
Aug 15, 2018 - 08:43am PT
Very cool how the trailer ends with it moving over the top of El Cap. This is sure to be an awe-inspiring and visually amazing film.
Caddy

Trad climber
Folsom, CA
Aug 15, 2018 - 09:44am PT
Movies like "Free Solo" are encouraging kid climbers to free solo and risk death. A few weeks ago, I had to talk a young lady out of free soloing a route she said "Someone told me about" in Tuolumne Meadows. I basically said "If you can't find it, don't solo it", it will be more fun to come top-ropeing with my handsome sons and swimming in Tenaya lake afterward. Of course that wasn't "Evolutionary" enough. The truth is if you want to be an "Evolutionary" wise senior climber who can hang out at the T-Meadows store enjoying smiles and sunshine decades later, "Use a Rope."

Captain Curt
Ed Hartouni

Trad climber
Livermore, CA
Aug 19, 2018 - 08:39pm PT
this has been posted upthread a lot, but here it is as a windowed link:

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Ed Hartouni

Trad climber
Livermore, CA
Aug 19, 2018 - 08:41pm PT
Who was more nervous, the crew or Honnold during the filming?

talking to two right after, the photogs were mighty nervous
JerryA

Mountain climber
Sacramento,CA
Aug 20, 2018 - 08:24am PT
Is Mike Hoover's 1972 documentary "Solo" the only climbing movie ever nominated for an Academy Award ?
Don Paul

Social climber
Washington DC
Aug 20, 2018 - 08:34am PT
Nat Geo has reached a new low point. We were better off in their Rudyard Kipling days gawking at the topless pygmies.
Flip Flop

climber
Earth Planet, Universe
Aug 20, 2018 - 09:29am PT
I saw Chief do some wild shenanigans at Donner Summit. Here's a serious guy, running a movie production team, taking a ropeless run on 5.hard during snack break. Who skips snack time?

The nuance will always be the balances between risk and reward. I prefer the fun and farcical to the frightening and final. Too many idjit kids it wheelchairs. Now, my life has been climbing, ski mountaineering, surfing, swimming, kayaking, biking, skating and a career in construction,I'm no stranger to risk. I probably ski way better than Honnold. Can he even surf yet? A lot of kids from Sacramento don't swim. Which is hella ironic.
None of these things are really that hard. I hear that the Triple Lutz is easy, with enough focus😂😂😂. (The Triple Lindy is actually pretty impossible)
Most importantly, nobody really cares. If you take it too seriously, the next thing you know, somebody gets whacked in the knee with a blackjack.

In the wise words of Rodney Dangerfield " We're all going to get laid!!!"

Edit: in the post truth era of fake snews it's important to show references.
1. Tanya Harding
2. Back to School
3. Sacramento River, American River, California Delta


Jan

Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
Aug 20, 2018 - 10:18am PT
I just attended a show in Boulder this past Saturday by Peter Mortensen, director of Caldwell & Jorgenson's movie who said the The Dawn Wall and Honnold's are both coming out within the same week in September.
JLP

Social climber
The internet
Aug 20, 2018 - 10:29am PT
^^^I notice they just dropped the trailer. I'm so burned out on hearing "Dawn Wall", they could at least have chosen a different name.

It will be interesting to see how 2 climbing movie releases do at the same time. What sport ever has had 2 movies out at the same time in mainstream theaters?
AP

Trad climber
Calgary
Aug 20, 2018 - 10:40am PT
Will the theatres sell chalk next to the popcorn?
AE

climber
Boulder, CO
Aug 23, 2018 - 02:09pm PT
The Caldwell comment is not far off, when you consider Bonatti, Messner and Croft stand out as the exceptions. Uli Steck, one of the most remarkable alpinists in a generation, gone. Those who gradually phased out the most cutting edge solos for whatever reasons are the ones who lived, or are still living.
Some like Hermann Buhl seem destined to die in the mountains, and others like Haston seemed driven to take risks because the last adventure had already grown stale and bored them. There is a window of time in which such inherently risky pursuits can be balanced with the other elements in a life, but as time goes by, the learning curve has flattened, the body hints at fallibility, and many other concerns intrude into the spaces where only absolute concentration and focus must rule in order to persist in the quest, over, and over. Even then, it sometimes is not enough.
Even when I could admire the accomplishments, I always felt that dying climbing was nothing noble, in fact a sort of sign of failure. When the elite of the sport collectively shiver watching Alex make his ascents, and friends reveal the hope that he can move gracefully and graciously into other less risky realms, it is clear how razor-thin the margins have been. Some of us on the sidelines really appreciate Honnold not just for his soloing, but for his humility, and his ability to delve into serious examination of the paradoxes in pushing a solitary vision. Many I'm sure harbor a secret hope that the film can represent a fruition of his dream, and possibly begin the next chapter, rather than leaving us in the wings, biting our nails dreading the epilogue.
To quote another late climber, Tom Patey, there are old climbers, and there are bold climbers - but there are no old, bold climbers.
the Fet

climber
Tu-Tok-A-Nu-La
Aug 23, 2018 - 02:26pm PT
Many I'm sure harbor a secret hope that the film can represent a fruition of his dream

I think the nature of his accomplishment is the fruition of a dream and a logical conclusion. Really after you've soloed El Cap what else is there? It's an incredible high mark with no reason to try to one up it. A harder route on El Cap... why?

He's also 33 years old now. I noticed a shift when I reached my 30s that I was able to start focusing on other priorities. There's other avenues of climbing he can explore that are less risky but just as challenging, as we saw with him reclaiming the Nose record, (not that that's safe).

He's got a really good head on his shoulders. I suspect he will never give up easier soloing (too much fun) so I just hope he always keeps his guard up, (even though sometimes things are out of our control).
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