It actually has to do with grip on the rock. Was mentioned at least once in the Dawn Wall documentary, which is also really good.
— Alan
I was able to view The Nose Speed Record (all 3 parts) on the Redbull channel on my Roku, all 3 parts for free. It rocked.
Today I watched The Alpinist on Netflix, which I’d been wanting to see for awhile. My local climbing gym did a screening a few months ago and everyone I know who saw it raved about it. It’s worth the raving. Some really spectacular video of this guy Marc-Andre Leclerc doing some amazing solo alpine climbing on mixed media: ice, snow, rock. My palms are now permanently sweaty. And the filmmakers captured a real human story here too. My favorite scene was the hula hooping, which was just so great. Really enjoyed this one.
Speaking of Netflix: 14 Peaks is about a guy from Nepal who attempted to climb the 14 highest mountains in the world within 7 months.
Thanks for the tip! Going to watch this soon, finally.
And it looks like I have some stuff to watch next time I have Netflix.
I just watched this movie yesterday in a movie theatre (since it just released here in Germany) and I have to say I enjoyed it a lot.
I only knew of Marc-André Leclerc from listening to other climbers (like Alex Honnold who is featured in the movie) talking about him in podcasts around 2016-2017 etc., so I had no idea what to expect.
I found this to be a gripping watch that had me vaguely terrified for most of the climbing sequences.
The nature shots are of course also great.
I have no idea why I turned on The Alpinist a few weeks ago and watched. It was wonderfully gripping. I’m kind of in awe of these people who do this and when asked why they do not use gear just to be safe and they react like the question is in a foreign language or simply makes no sense. Fascinating.
How do you coach someone into free soloing?
“God’s got you on top rope.”
I lived over in Bend, OR and did some bouldering at a little rock area down from Central OR CC and then did a little bit over at Smith Rock State Park. At just our bouldering area, a buddie dropped 8 feet and broke his right ankle. Was doing some mantle move and fell awkwardly. It was the same little route he went up so many times but just once he slipped and suffered. Big wall free solo…uh, no.
I worked with some guys who did Winter ascents of mountains up in British Columbia. Asked me one time to join them. Uh, no.
Dont know if I had a better understanding of how precious life is or just not as brave as these guys. I’m here still, so, I’m happy.
I’ve been watching this in 3-4 minute chunks throughout the day as that’s all I can take. HARROWING.
Yeah, watching Alex climb he’s always so cool and confident that even though your palms sweat, you don’t really get nervous about him. Magnus in that video is clearly freaked out and you can see that about 1/3 of the way up he’s thinking “What the hell am I doing?” His nervousness makes us as viewers nervous. And then Alex is like “Maybe I’ll try climbing while holding the camera.” Like an asshole. I love Magnus’s panicked “I really wish you wouldn’t!”
I will say that this video is probably the best “interview” of Alex I’ve ever seen. He’s in his natural element, doing what he loves. And crucially, he’s filming himself, which I don’t think there’s another example of anywhere. He really is a good coach too.
“I wonder if I can film and climb at the same time…” Nope nope nope.
The grade was quite low, I think his text said 5a for the 200m climb they did. That’s a 5.7ish on the US scale and a 15 on the Aussie scale. When I was gym climbing in my youth, that’s like a staircase. The camera angle also makes it look more vertical than I think it actually is in most places.
At my best form, I’d flash climb (success first attempt) 21’s (6b, 5.10d’s) and would usually be able to complete most 23’s (6c, 5.11c). But they were 15-20m climbs in a gym with a top rope or occasionally a lead.
Alex said Magnus was climbing 8a’s last time they met. That’s a 30 in Aussie language, or a 5.13b US. That’s fucking insane, crazy, crazy good climbing. I knew guys that would climb 27’s and would be like “WTF, how is that even possible!”. 30’s is Peter Parker level shit.
Now the reason I say that, is that if I would have walked up a 15, Magnus would have sleepwalked up it backards with one hand and a bung knee. Yet you can plainly see what effect leaving the rope in the car brings to the equation.
I would never have free-climbed, not in a million years, so huge kudos to Magnus for taking on such a mentally straining challenge, and for Alex’s amazingly cool and therefore oddly calming and encouraging demeanor. It takes a very special and rare kind of person to be able to put those fears out of you mind and do this sort of stuff.
Yeah, Alex said 5.9 at one point. I’m fairly confident watching the climb that very mediocre climber that I am, I could probably do this route no problem, probably without falling (although endurance would be an issue for me.) Magnus is a 5.15 climber and crushes V10 boulder problems without issues. This climb wasn’t any kind of challenge for him, but yeah, leaving the rope in the car definitely pulled his confidence out from under him. If he’d been roped in, he’d have leaped up the face.
Magnus: “Who do you free solo with here?”
Alex (staring off into the distance): “I don’t have many go-to partners anymore.”
Hard Cut
On Amazon prime, I can highly recommend Ocean to the Sky. It is an update of 1977 documentary, featuring a pretty well-known mountain climber Sir Edmund Hillary.
Sir Edmund decide that would be fun if he and family and friends, take the recently invented jet boats, and travel up the Ganga river to it is the source from the ocean. The first 2/3 of the movie is adventure movie, of that journey, lots of amazing footage of traveling up white water rapids. Sir Edmund was considered a minor diety in India, so his reception has to been seen to believed.
The last 1/3 is about mountain climb, with some surprising results. It is interspersed with interviews of the participants including his son.
How do you top El Cap? How about a wall 1,000 feet taller and that has ice and has never been climbed.
I am so in for this.
I don’t think there’s ever been anyone I’ve expected less to die from natural causes than Alex Honnold.