FAQs with Alex Honnold. Photo: YouTube//Screenshot
Alex Honnold is a living legend. He’s done many things no one else has done, but the most famous of them all is his free solo ascent of El Capitan, which was made into a film that won an Oscar. He recently sat down with WIRED to answer a few questions posed to him by random internet strangers and, as always, delivered some interesting responses.
I had an interview with Honnold a while back. It was on Zoom or Skype, or one of those comm. apps, and I was struck by how incredibly calm Honnold is. Not that he needed to be nervous, but he had an air of serenity around him that I assume might come after doing the most extraordinarily dangerous things all the time and living to talk about them. Dangling thousands of feet up, untethered above a stomach-churning drop likely changes the way a person processes fear, and Honnold admitted that he does feel fear, just like everyone else.
“I think we’re more similar than you might think,” he told me when I asked him about his motivation and whether he feels frightened before embarking on a climb that could kill him. “When I look at something like that, I’m also intimidated by it. We’re sort of awed by it. I mean, I’m an experienced climber, so I see that it’s possible, but I think that, for me, part of the pleasure is to look at something that seems so daunting like that, and then to actually be able to achieve it. You take something that seems impossible and then, through a long period of hard work and effort, make it possible. It’s not like I look at it and am like, ‘Oh, that looks trivial.’ I’m like, ‘Wow, that’s really intimidating.’ I like finding things that are right in that sweet spot where it’s challenging enough to be daunting, but still possible, hopefully.”
This isn’t the first time Honnold has joined WIRED for a sit down. This time, the video ended up being 20 minutes long, over the course of which Honnold answers everything from what’s the difference between bouldering and rock climbing to how he falls asleep on the side of a rock face.
