Alex Honnold

00:01should I do you headphones it doesn't matter yeah I like headphones I kind of hate hearing myself that longer why sound good why did he hear yourself do you try to pull this sucker up like about a fist from your face good to see you again man that's been a long time it has been what's a guy like you it's always nice to see you're still alive oh you know the best do you get tired of here and like that I don't care I mean do you get tired a lot the weirdness of like interviewing with people and they're like you know and you know you could die is this scary yeah yeah that's all right though I mean the thing yeah it's funny touring with the film we've been doing queue days every night you get the same questions from the audience all the time you know and part of that is tiring but then part of it like people ask some questions because they're obvious because

00:43everybody wants to know this is things and I'm like I understand that one of the weirdest parts of the film is when they're showing all the guys who have died from free soloing and they're yeah though actually they didn't all die free soloing oh that's actually one of the that's probably the only thing that I take slight issue at the film it's slightly hyperbolic is two of them dead BASE jumping and one of them tightrope champagne they all were free soulless which is kind of what the film is saying that they're all free soulless who have died but they all died in the mountains doing Mountain related extreme activities you know that's not that doesn't make the story is good you got that's like poetic license yeah you got sneaky well you know I mean they all were free soulless but yeah that's not the same no yeah no exactly I preferred the other way to look at it is

01:32the no free solist has ever died doing anything cutting-edge that's my favorite statistic that I mean like no free solace has ever died doing heart so line like basically get free a few free solos have died falling off easy turn or just falling out sort of routine or you know I don't know just falling off the mountain but none of them have ever died while doing something cutting-edge something that had never been done before or something that was you know hardcore hmm do you think that's because when you're doing something that's a little bit easier you relax I think that's probably part of it but also I think part of it is just a numbers thing you spend so much time doing easy stuff and so little time doing really hard stuff mmm that you know it's just districts how much how important is it when when you're free soloing to have that edge to be like really talk cognizant about how

02:19intense this is like if you got to calm to relaxed no I think that's I think that is kind of the concern for sure and I've noticed that in for myself anyway and I try not to do very much easy soloing anymore because there is a certain complacency that over time you know you just do so much mileage on easy terrain and then you're like this is so easy this is so easy and then you slip and you die well you know you know fighters look at things that way too like they did a certain point in their life they don't want easy fights because they need to get challenged otherwise they won't train properly and then they wind up losing yeah you should take it seriously yeah well the difference between a fighter say when they're not trained and not in camp and just their skill and what their body can do without without going through a camp it's probably only like 70% of what they are

03:10when they actually go through everything with full intensity eight we order two times a day you know physical therapy massage visualization conditioning all the other things that make them who they are the day they step into the cage like when you free solo it's funny that's so that's yeah I mean if you saw the film that's all exactly the level of preparation that went into it do you take time off before a big free solo do you like you really the opposite it's Luke no it's the opposite it's sort of ramping up to it right but do you is there any concern that maybe you haven't given yourself enough recuperative time like for the day of know what so for me anyway it was always sort of the opposite because the real challenge of free soloing is the psychological side the mental side of it it's not so much the physical like I don't necessarily have to physically perform it the

04:06absolute limit of what I'm capable of but I have to mentally perform at that level and so and the mental side of it comes so much from confidence and feeling you know feeling prepared mm-hm and so I don't know so when I when I free solid I'll cap I kind of knew that I wasn't actually like I'd probably already started to decline a little bit physically over the course of the season the two months and he somebody's just kind of gruelling on her body like it all the time I spent going up and down on the wall and preparing it's very very tiring and so I kind of realized that I was starting to get sort of deeply 15 I was sort of a week away from like having started a slump like no I'm kind of pooped but the thing is I knew that that because of all that preparation you know psychologically I was as good as I was ever gonna be so even if I was physically starting to be a little bit

04:48tired it's like time to you know it's kind of the different curves you have to hit it right at the right moment now is your psychological preparation just you getting your mind into it or do you have like specific technique to use or a form of meditation or anything that you specifically concentrate on when you're visualizing success or know when it's not even necessary visualizing success or visualizing for me it's visualizing the experience I sort of imagining what everything will feel like imagining what it'll like to place my foot on a hold or what you know grabbing like the sensations of it and the exposure of it you know thinking through what it'll feel like with so much air around me and no rope you know just that basically to make sure that nothing is surprising when I get there - mines are sweating just talking - I'm not kidding feel that feel that gross right

05:37have a clamp I realized it like when I'm talking I'm thinking about you doing this and my hands started sweating yeah I started thinking about thousands via air and you're like stop thinking about chalk and powder and and that like that have you ever gone to like a sports psychologist or have you ever like actively tried to coordinate a program from mental training or anything like that no not really I mean so with with free selling I'll cap I found that I needed to create enough space for it's not so much mental training but um but create enough empty time so that I had so that I was able to sort of process so I don't I sorted like stopped running email I erased my social media like sort of freed up my life and then actually my girlfriend left was sort of the week ahead of time so that was just totally by myself and my band with nothing going on like no

06:33distractions and so that's not exactly you know mental training but it was giving myself the free time that I could just sit around and think about things you know I could process like it in my own terms in my own time when was the last time we talked how many years ago was that it's so long at least for right oh no it's like six or seven I was it I think so I think it's like 2012 or something during that time how much has changed in your life in terms of the way people perceive what you do and the amount of attention that you get I would imagine that having that alone time now yeah it's much harder yeah yeah no totally it's it's funny I mean I've tried to not let my life get busy over time but it just sort of naturally happens I mean well with success yeah exactly there's some one more times you and yeah when I was reached out to you I reached out to you

07:21a couple times but I was like this guy is probably getting with all the time like someone's probably always poking at you and you're just trying to get a foothold hold on no I mean no I mean I appreciate all the opportunities that have now and you know I mean I'm very happy with the way my life has changed over time but certainly when I look back at ten or twelve years ago and I was just a single 20 year old man living in a car like I had nothing going on you know if if I had like one interview in a month I'd be like well it's a big month for media you know and then now on a film tour it's like completely outrageous it's totally an other end of the spectrum now when you do in this film - when does the film actually come out the films like out it's in theaters so you can go see right now but you can't get on iTunes oh yeah yeah so so it did a month of festival

08:10circuit and you know earlier in the end of the summer and then it came out in theaters at the end of September so it's right now I think this weekend is its widest release it's like 400 theaters all over the country right now Wow but and then in theory it's through National Geographic so I think it'll be on television on the channel at some point and then eventually they'll stream somewhere I don't know is it strange all this attention yeah I mean well I don't know it's in some ways it's a natural extension of all the the stuff I've had over the years you know like having a 60 minutes piece and many years ago was a bit of a lie was like was a flurry of attention and so that kind of sort of prepared me in some ways you know but yeah I mean it's grimy well you've dealt with this real life I mean it's yeah but I'm asking like an interesting yeah but I feel like it comes with what

08:56I do I'm in show business you know that's you know the REO is very you're you're a climber yeah and the most radical kind of climber well free solo you think when I think of what you do I think of quiet tension yeah that's that's kind of fair yeah because it should be it should be sort of meditative and relaxing and quiet but then obviously you're also sometimes straining your entire body you know like trying very hard physically and yeah well I remember one of the things you said to me the last time we talked was that it's it's very mellow because if it ever gets intense something's gone wrong yeah no that's that's I still feel exactly the same way I mean that's yeah that's always the challenge is to keep it keep it relaxed but for a guy like you my perception of a guy like you who's that that person who's doing that activity then to sort of juxtapose that

09:55with this media tour type environment and dealing with all these people that that seems to me like it would be really annoying I mean yeah it's very different than my normal normal lifestyle I guess but the thing is you know it's sort of an adventure it's an experience in its own way I've been I've been kind of calling it an expedition film tour because I've done a lot of expeditions in my life like last winter I went to Antarctica for a month and and it's not exactly the type of climbing I'd normally do and I don't really like being cold we sort of like oh it is a once in a lifetime opportunity to go somewhere you know it was like going to Mars or something it was this totally outrageous experience we're climbing big rock walls on in Antarctica you're just living on the glacier and it's totally different totally crazy he camped out on a glacier yeah we're just in a tent on a glacier

10:38from my office when you do that how thick a pad do you use really thick they're really in a very very thick sleeping bag warm yeah yeah yeah yeah in your sleep mat it's a negative 40 degrees sleeping bag I mean it's pretty good job but but anyway I mean so that kind of experience you know in some ways it's very comparable to a film to where I'm like this is gonna be a once-in-a-lifetime thing you just embrace it you go with it you know it's different than the way you normally choose to live your life but that kind of makes it understand you know it's something well I could imagine it would be very interesting yeah the the Antarctica thing sounds like a trip yeah like were you traveling on established corridor it was no no it's what some people had climbed in the region before but but we actually did tons the first two sons like routes and summits that had never been climbed Wow

11:26yeah it's pretty cool now when you do something like that do you map it out in advance like I mean well not really because I mean they're photos of the formations and people like I said it climbed some of them some Norwegians had sort of pioneer there in written a book about it but um but then it's not until you get there that you can really decide what you're gonna climb and how it looks I mean ultimately you have to look at the rock and see if it's climbing bone so you basically just have to ski up and then touch it and see what you can do and then try to climb it you ski up well yeah cause even living on a glacier I mean you have to ski every way Wow it was cool I I did I did a month wearing only ski boots or climbing shoes or or my bedroom slippers are on camp would you feel like oh no we're in really thick socks and then keeping everything as warm as possible but but yeah I mean

12:13we're in climbing shoes and that already goes pretty chilly yeah actually there's a film about that coming out in a couple weeks I think as part of the real rock tira it's like a big climbing film festival thing or film tour and that sort of shows around the world but so it's like a 40-minute short of 30 minutes for I'm actually I haven't seen any of it those shoes that you wear on a normal climb are very flexible or those lost port Eva's yeah that's what I said I want you they're very they almost look like a sock with like a rubber bottom to it we could really kind of grip yeah it depends so some are super soft like that it depends on what you're trying to climb that some are really rigid that you can step on a really small holds and it supports your foot so like what I was wearing free soloing on cap is like quite rigid actually it's like I'm bored

12:59like a platform so that you can put just the tip of your toe on something really small on your foot was to stay stay flat more like a mountaineering type of yeah kind of but still also very precise because the mountaineering boot you think clunky and big right a climbing shoe is like a ballet slipper like precise and tight but then also rigid sometimes and then also I don't know you know when you're climbing cracks you put your foot into the crack in any torque it sideways to like lock it into place and so the stiffer the the shoe is the more can you know the more that you can lock the shoe into place as opposed your foot you basically have to use fewer muscles that way are you starting a trend are there are other people that are following your footsteps now actually what do you think I think probably yeah you think yeah you honestly think that yeah I think there's probably some

13:44people that look at what you're doing and young kids that think it must be you know I here's what I think most people look at the path that the average person takes in life you know onna sell cars I'm gonna be an insurance guy and they look they look at it like it's deaf if they look at a kid a young kid who's like enjoying playing with his friends or doing sports or playing video games or reading comic books and then you look at what could be the average path that the average person takes in life and sitting in an office all day under fluorescent lights it looks like death it looks like a slow aching death but then I look at someone like you I'm like wow this guy is living of special life this is a special life we're so ideally though somebody would look at it and see that like this is somebody living a very intentional life or having chosen a certain path yes not necessarily free

14:38solely I mean I would love to inspire people to live an intentional life that they care about yes I don't necessarily feel like people all need to go free so like right well I think that's that's a very good way of describing it and very good way of putting it because I think you must certainly have influenced people in that regard but I think also people must be influenced in in the sense that they see what you're doing is man there's moments that you must experience while you are climbing these incredible faces that are kind of magical when you're up there you're a thousand feet up there the view is spectacular and you're doing it and you get to the top of these things though the rush and the feeling of accomplishment and the euphoria and just the glory of nature from the effective yet I look at this you could wash your clothes on the sweat that's in my hands right now

15:35man that's not pictures insane we're looking at it what is the the name of this photo Jamie it's the Endura corner come on cap that's actually that's the movie poster dear man so me so that that that is not sitting in a cubicle that is not fluorescent like with that that is the end of a very long path that you have to choose and in a really cultivate you know I mean that's that's for me 23 years of sort of going in or 22 years there's something of going down a very specific path very specific you know and you're still you have a different van are you still in the same van I'm gonna better man the last time I was here that's pretty exciting and I have a house now actually a real person oh I live in LA I live in Las Vegas now do you realize yeah yeah Las Vegas dude the best best for season climate in the country we love Las Vegas yeah there's climbing everywhere and

16:34it's super accessible and it's easy and it's like cheap cost of living easy you know no traffic like everything is easy about I love Vegas that's cool yeah whenever I go to Vegas I always look at the mountains outside of it except they're right there nobody even looks at them yet from my driveway you can see 2004 I mean you can be climbing on a 2004 wall you know 25 minute drive 20 minute drive that's interesting yeah a lot of people like to run those mountains to run those hills there's a lot of trail runners at living yeah as well yeah totally yeah the west side of town you're like in the mountains I mean I can go mountain biking I can go hiking I can go climbing on you know 20 minutes kind of a misunderstood place yeah no really is everyone just thinks the strip but it's like it's not really the strip it's like the mountains all around it yeah Vegas is like in a bowl of mountains I

17:18mean all sides of it are surrounded by mountains well Nevada in general kind of gets a weird yeah because the way yeah I know people people think of the desert in Nevada but really it's mountains I mean it's like series of mountain ranges all the way across the state yeah really yes I have a buddy who lives in Reno he lives outside of Reno and if you went near where he lives he'd be like where are we Colorado yeah exactly exactly no I mean Tahoe yeah like tacos right there and yeah and Truckee like Donner I mean there's a bunch of climbing areas right there they're great and freaking you know whether it's pretty cool how old you know I'm 33 do you feel any difference in the way your body responds to doing this on a regular basis now maybe a little bit I mean I hate to say I'm getting old and everything but uh but I think especially right now at the film toward the amount

18:03of travel like I'm more intentional about my diet and stuff now and trying to get enough sleep and things like that so in the you know 10 years ago I could just eat a whole tray Oreos and be like alright I feel great let's go climb in the gym it'll be fun you know yeah now I'm like aw man I want my green smoothie I want to get my nights leave but right you know yeah I saw that you're you're not eating meat anymore and then you eat a lot of vegetables and do you get your blood work done or do you do you have work with nutritionists no you need eggs yeah good yeah I mean I have cheese and stuff and and and I mean even meat so I mean I give up eating need for environmental reasons mostly like basically impact on the earth and so I'm not fundamentally PO you know like I'll eat meat from time to time certainly for for cultural norms like you know I was in Japan earlier this

18:52year and sorry you'd fish there a bit just because I felt like I was part of the sort of Japanese travel experience if someone hung about it would you eat it yeah yeah sometimes but the thing is I just don't feel like I need to intentionally kill another creature for me to survive and so if somebody was gonna go hunting for me to eat I'd be like no that's fine right right like I need that but then like on an expedition to Antarctica I ate a bunch of random meat just because it's like it's already there you know the other team members have already brought it I'm sort of like well I'm hungry I mean whatever right you know mollusks are actually a good thing for people to look into that are vegan or vegetarian and they don't want to eat meat because they're actually more primitive even than vegetables they're not like so yeah like clams and scallops they're incredibly primitive

19:41they they have no feelings they don't feel anything they have no that there's an argument that could be made that plants communicate far more than mollusks like Lobster like oysters rather mussel barnacles yeah they're crunchy but there's a protein to them that's similar to an animal protein but incredibly primitive what I mean insect protein I think is sort of a potential future of humanity - yeah yeah I know I'm not fundamentally opposed to eating insects it's just you know they're rarely served but I would would just imagine that particularly as you get older like nutrition would be a major factor making sure you get the proper amount of essential fatty acids and making sure that because your brain must be like you have to fuel your brain in terms of like giving your that your brain the building blocks for neurotransmitters and all these different things that you're you're

20:39using when you're you've got this intense concentration for many many hours at a time and you're not eating when you're doing these things sometimes you do stop and eat yeah yeah I mean you have to I mean if your friend or some flowers sometimes little bars or you know a nut butter fair amount or not yeah I have those f-bombs do you ever take those enough that heads what is that oh they're great I have a whole box of them will give you some they said yeah it's called it's called f-bomb like fat bomb it's all like nut butter and oils and it comes in a packet just rip the top of the package off and squeeze it in your mouth at 3 yeah this morning oh wow that's really good it's really hot either one sitting around to have cures are nice do have them in the back that's interesting yes that is it tell Jeff there's a box of them in my office over there you know

21:32where the boxes just go you can go run in and grab them go run into that door run into the the office door and like sitting right in the front to the right hand side there's a box of them yeah that's exactly what I'm talking about that nut butter rice I eat the out of those things I eat three or four of them in the morning when I'm out headed out the door with a cup of coffee I like a lot of that's a lot of fat though there's just a lot of calories out there I'm doing this sober October fitness challenge with my friends I've been working out I'm not not no as much as five hours in a day because I'm trying to win this we have a WWE style championship belt it says intercontinental champion so we're up to intergalactic champion so the sober part though does that mean you're not no pot no booze no nothing yeah here's so you're just clean living for all of

22:20October and training your freaking brain out yeah well we're nice well wearing these these belts that measure your heart rate and they also quantify your performance like how much calories you burned and there it is he could take that that's just a what flavors that one macadamia pecan with sea salt fantastic stuff I love the chocolate and sea salt one two yeah I'll look through a sample yeah those are good that's cool it's a real healthy it's you know just what you it's really what you need actually the ingredients oh yeah yeah no that seems awesome and you just tear you smush them up and you tear the top and you squirt it in your mouth yeah I do that climbing a lot I kind of prefer that to too you know gels are goo or whatever you want to call it because the best pure sugar I'd kind of prefer to have pure fun yeah certainly for climbing it's just not

23:14like an it's not like running or cycling or something where your agent is just burning non-stop where you kind of need to just like pump sugar into it yeah so it's kind of a longer slow burn you can even eat fat for sure do you ever mess around with nootropics at all I don't know I never even heard that word nootropics are are the building blocks for human neurotransmitters it's like they're they're they're supplements that enhance cognitive function some of them are like standard what you would get at like GNC you wouldn't think of as a nootropic but they're finding out they are like creatine they're finding out creatine is actually a pretty potent nootropic that actually enhances cognitive performance but there's one called alpha brain that my company has I'll send a bunch of it to you there's another company called neuro one that makes a great one you

24:00know bill Romanowski is I'm not sure former NFL player who you know took a lot of his Patriots on the Broncos yeah yeah Savage crazy and during his day you know obviously sustained a lot of head injuries and wanted to find some sort of natural way to replenish his brain function so he created this company called neuro one and that's this is how I found out about nootropics is through his product it's fantastic great stuff it's just powder you put it in water shake it up it actually has protein and a bunch of different neurotransmitters in it but it's really good for enhancing functioning yeah I wonder if it actually works yeah it does well alpha brain the my company we we had two double-blind placebo-controlled studies with the Boston Center for memory that showed improvements in verbal memory in reaction time in peak alpha flow state so with my what is peak out for poster

25:05that's a good question you have to like okay it's different dive into it yeah their baby although if you go to on it calm all the tests are available you can go over like what it means but what what you find from these another one called true brain that what does that guy's name that we he was a guest to the podcast dr. Andrew no that's Andy Galpin there's my point is besides my company there's a bunch of companies and making really good ones and they're they're fantastic if you have to give speeches or if you've talked if you do any of the things like that I do like commentary thought you just get straight cocaine you don't fire it up you just give a great talk anything you're like means you know you just get all fired out that's a question I had for you to like how many people that are doing what you do are on either adderall or they take things like beta

25:57blockers that's honestly I thought I was sorry I think nobody but I mean a lot of climbers smoke a lot of weed or you know and nowadays I don't even know what you do with it because you turn about to smoke it I just yeah he just yeah you like drink it and stuff I don't know there's so many like cannabis things now but uh but no I don't know so I've never really done drugs I don't I'm not totally understood so I don't really know anything about it but um I don't know it's interesting because it's not like anyone's drug testing climbers and unless they're competing at the World Cup level or it's actually meeting the Olympics in 2020 but yeah climbing is demonstration so did they have an event like in terms of like a pathway that you have to go through no so it's uh what's a World Cup climbing breaks into three disciplines like lead climbing which is like Sam's into a wall

26:41and then bouldering which is shorter without a rope you know you just climb 12 feet or whatever and then speed climbing where it's like a preset course everyone does the exact same course but you just go as fast as you can just against the time line and so normally there's a three disciplines for the World Cup but the Olympic format combines all three into one competition because they're limited by how many medals and whatever because it's like a demonstration sport they're just sort of you know it's it's smaller scale than than some of the other sports in the Olympics but so um yeah so basically climbing competitors just have to do all three disciplines and see who wins I was watching something on YouTube where they have this climbing competition where they like ready said go and then they like shot yes exactly that's the speed coming and this lady who's wearing a

27:23burqa she is she like famous or something no I don't know but um but there are a bunch of really strong Iranian speed climbers and so I wouldn't be surprised if if it's part of that hot ran up it like a spider was crazy to watch yeah for whatever reason speed coming is really big in Eastern Europe and then there are a couple really good Iranian speed climber ISM yeah they're just it's like it's heard of its own little niche sport coming out of certain parts of the world that is well there's some strong genes over there and around like a lot of great wrestlers because I don't know I don't know if the woman you're talking about is from there I'm thinking of one specific dude who's so much do is portrait in speed ireenie oh yeah farah naaz spell that s miles I think you pretty much got that yeah well I want to see the videos I want to see the video over because she's a

28:20Spider Man she runs up the side of that hill he's gonna browse the Internet yes he could find out yeah anyway but so with the with the new Olympic style climbing I mean obviously the dopey drug testing and with the World Cup there's drug testing but it's funny with the but nobody really uses performance-enhancing drugs I don't think they likes one on theory I'm good thank you one one World Cup climber had a metal taken away for having used recreational coke and he was like oh I'm really sorry you know I'm sorry I did coke but he was like it was more for the partying than the performance you know she is look at her I mean for a guy like you is that impressive like what see that play that from the beginning does it's that's pretty fast that's not as fast I mean if you watch some of the more elite times it's it's faster for sure women are men both I think so I mean I don't I don't think

29:14that's her than that I think so I don't know wow I don't know man well you're you're the guy who would know to me that's damn impressive just look up a world record I mean I think the male records like 5.7 seconds there's six seconds it's like something really really fast now do they know this path in advance yeah so that's exactly the same route for everybody always same distance same holds and so you basically memorize the sequence and then you just perform it as fast as you can so here we go here's a world record how's this feel so you stand on that thing yes if the timer starts when your one foot comes off the timer on the ground and then it ends when you slap the thing on the top yeah look at that five point whatever seconds oh my god that doesn't look real like doesn't it look like he's just running you're like on the sidewalk it's okay camera flat and they're

30:07they're faking it yeah for the camera yeah no it's totally now do these guys free solo or they specifically concentrate on there no no I mean imagine if you were free so like like this you would die for sure that beta-blockers would be something that someone who free solos would want to look into I don't know yeah I don't know that it's beta-blockers or something that blocks your your brains production of adrenaline oh but I mean I don't know if you'd want that though because the things if you have an adrenaline spike it's because something weird went on and you probably want to when I got had a I've had a couple times where I like broke a hold off or something like all of a sudden your whole rips off and then you have that like superhuman surge of all have you grabbed back on yeah you don't want to be mellow at that time yeah exactly you don't be like I'm so

30:50relaxed as I fall all the way to the valley floor you know it's like you want to freaking hold on one of the things in the film was one of the guys who fell and I guess eventually died he was doing any fell and base-jumped yeah with a parachute yeah he called it freebasing he sort of pioneered that sport as it were but there seems like a good thing to have on your back well not really so yeah I mean the idea makes sense that if you're gonna fall off a cliff have the parachute the thing is that you need to be on a very specific kind of cliff like what he was on where was overhanging so that when he fell he cleared the wall and he like floated out into space but the thing is in Yosemite all the walls are slightly less than vertical in general and so it means that you just tumbled on the wall you know and the other thing is that even if you have a parachute parachutes function as

31:36a wing you know they have a direction to them like air comes into them and you fly in a direction which means that you have to be facing away from the wall when you open your parachute or else you just fly right into the wall and crash yeah so it basically means that if you fall off unexpectedly you then have to track away from the wall right yourself in midair you know correct for everything and then make sure you're facing the right way it was like basically there's a lot of things that have to go right for the parachute to help you but yeah I mean it's really lucky why's that they're like oh why don't you wear a parachute and you're like well it's basically this 10-pound training wait that doesn't really help you much that guy just jumped on purpose yeah this is oh well yeah it's good so this is on the Eiger though it looks like I think and you can yes he's like

32:20jumping away he's getting a nice control to opening he's like flying away from the cliff it's like everything is going right for him but imagine if one of his footholds just broke and he started pinwheeling down the wallet so you never get the separation from the wall it was astir let's just watch extreme sports videos not just commentate on them all right well this guy is surely gonna have a disaster well one of the things from the video when they were talking about all the people that have died that every essentially everyone from the past that was a free soul or is dead and you're saying there's other things that they were doing like base jump yeah like BASE jumping and and even there are a couple older soloists I mean in the film Peter Croft is like a legendary soloist and he's a childhood hero of mine and he's you know I don't wanna say pushing

33:0760 cuz I'm not sure how old Peter is but he's you know he's an older he's a distinguished gentleman and he's living in Eastern he's climbing all the time he's like loving life with his wife and actually he's in Greece on a sport climbing vacation right now just climbing for two months just fun climbing with a rope having a great time and so you know I look at something like Peter and he was free soloing it at the very cutting edge for 20 years basically and and it's still just a happy climber now but does he free solo anymore it just climbs what so it's funny I so I had dinner with him a couple years ago I was like aw Peter at what point did you quit soloing it's sort of an elite level you know like when did you sort of back off the grades and he was like well actually I didn't want to technically by the numbers I did one of my hardest free solos a couple

33:46years ago but it was like a sport route at his local crag so like a route that he'd would routinely climb for fitness they just happened to be a pretty hard number you know like climbing grades are all sort of categorized and so he was like yeah technically one of my heartis Olos was just recently but it's like a hard number but not nearly as much of an undertaking as some of the big solos that he'd done in the past like some of the walls that he had sold at any some of you back in the day you know and so he was like well it's all just kind of how you define difficulty you know now when when you say that there's a number system that sort of rates what like how difficult my free solo path is well know that rates climbing in general with a rope or without a rope is just it just rates how hard to climb is what does El Cap well so the route that I climbed is is 512 D for whatever that means

34:31or maybe it's 13 air depending how you depending on what you want to call it but um what does that mean yeah exactly so the the climbing climbing grades are defined I don't know so it's in in America it's by the 70 decimal system and it's a classification of terrain from 1 to 1 to 6 where how many decibels decimal system you know why do yes but it's it's other parts of the world have different systems and like in Australia is just an open-ended numbers from 1 to 38 or something whereas I gate they get pretty harder yeah climbing great comparison defriend that's interesting to what I'll do with because climbing culture grew up in all different parts of the world right and climbing culture I guess is a big part of Yosemite yeah well yeah I mean climbing as a sport in the u.s. is sort of birth from you somebody I mean the the history of albinism or climbing rock

35:31climbing anyway certainly comes from me somebody in the US is it just because the paths are so cool they just drew people to it or yeah partially I mean yeah the summit's are so striking and I think a lot of it also just had to do with just culture cuz a big part of it was people from LA and the Bay Area who probably had some sense of classical alpinism from the Alps you know people who had traveled to some extent and then wanted to you know climb other mountains and then they happen to live near one of the most iconic areas in the world and so then I don't know but anyway so it winds up being called the Simon Decimal System but but yes it basically it's the the its categories of terrain so one being walking on a normal trail to being like scrambling a little bit three being like scrambling with your hands and feet up you know rocks and then fourth class being like sort of

36:18like climbing be easier and then fifth class being an actual rock climbing and so then it was five point one through nine depending on how how hard things are you know so five point one being pretty easy five point nine being pretty hard like you're rock climbing now and its technical and then a certain point that system wasn't adequate so they had to start adding you know 5.10 and then they subdivided into a b c d and then 5.11 a b c d and the 5.12 and so now it's an open-ended system that right now goes up to 516 visiting whoa but an L cap is really complicated you have a so L cap is 12 D or you know 5.12 D or maybe five point 13 a which is the next grade up it's all sort of but so basically that means that it's it's elite like that's very difficult and something that like obviously an average person can't do but it's definitely not close to the physical limit of what's

37:09been done in the world but that's with a rope on and that's after you know years of practice and what's the physical limit like what is the peak of well right now the hardest grade in the world is 15 D which is extremely hard I mean it's totally crazy but so one guy this Czech guy has done one route that he called fifteen D and so it hasn't been repeated so it's not like an established consensus but there's several fifteen seas in the world and they're there many fifteen B's in the world where's this fifteen D it's a cave in Norway I mean it's uh yeah that's the kind of interesting thing about climbing grades and climbing difficulties that they're all spread around the world the very specific cliffs because it requires just the right combination of angle and holds you know there have to be enough things to hold on to but not too many or else it's easier right and so I for you know alley

37:57climber and they're basically searching the world all the time trying to find that right mixture of rock Wow what a strange exists yes it's really it's really really neat yet very unusual now when you hear about it but it's also kind of elemental in a way you know because rocks are just out there and you're basically just going and exploring nature until you find the right kind of challenge well yeah there's got it there's some sort of a primal satisfaction that comes from climbing something right yeah so I'm where there's a certain yeah there's an elemental quality for sure where you're like this is something that just exists in the world and you just yes yeah this is yeah this is this is that a monitor this check it climbing 15 no it's already out it's it's a short online actually on silence yeah the route he put up he called silence but if this is

38:40the film just scrub all the way to the very oh that's the greater-than yeah yeah so you can see he's climbing feet first through some of it it's totally extreme so this guy Adam Andra is is for sure the strongest climber in the world right now like physical yeah physically so he's he put up the world's first 15 C and the first 15 D so he's basically pushed the edge of difficulty for the last several grades Wow and he's just freakishly strong is that something that you would have to be to do what he's doing like a regular climber couldn't do what he's doing is almost like acrobatic involved yeah yeah look what he's doing right there it's like that so this is the world's first 15 C so slightly easier he did this several years ago but it's like and then yeah but that's where he has a rope you know and he tries that over and over you know but yeah he's he's an amazing

39:31climber he's really he's like a polymath he's like he's great at every discipline what else does he do was so he have you heard at the dawn wall on on cap no so Tommy Caldwell you know who he is another professional climber he's he's he was I don't know yeah he's basically one of America's best climbers he did this route called the dawn wall which is also a film in theaters or was in theaters last month is sort of random that too big climbing films came out exactly the same time but it's just one of those freak things but so the dawn wall was considered the hardest climb in the world to some extent it's this thing it was a seven-year project for him up up the right side of El Cap the thing I climb is on the left side I'll Cathy he comes something on the right side which is much harder but he was using a rope and put seven years of work into it and anyway yeah and then this guy Adam

40:20hunter who were watching a video of he he did the second ascent and he put like a month to work into it and repeated it and there's like wall he's really really strong Wow so when you see a guy do something like that does that make you think about doing it or do you go that's only something that someone can do with rut with ropes oh yeah no I mean they're whole categories of climbing that can only be done with a rope because the moves are way too insecure you fall off way too often I mean anything that guy fall off doing that like hundreds or maybe even thousands of times oh I mean for so for him to for him to do something at the whole I mean to climb at the very highest levels of human person I mean so think about a gymnast or something's at him right there yeah that's oh he's free soloing no no no he has a harness on okay yeah no I mean look at what he's holding

41:11Jeremy is one finger no well I think his other one might be onto but but it's basically like a tiny tiny tiny edge this is the crux or one of the pitches on the Don wall that is so insane that guy could probably crush your head by just grabbing it when certainly the he has a certain ferocity he has an intensity where you can try with like 115 percent it's like so I'm pretty sure if you grabbed your head I've tried his hardest it would just pop like I'm a little melon the grip strength he's holding on such tiny tiny little things yeah he's he's very very strong Wow so a guy like that when when you see him do these paths these paths are paths you can only do with a rope yeah yeah does he free solo as well I don't think he ever has but it's not really his thing and the thing in some ways it's really hard to do both at a high level and I think or at least to some extent it's hard to do

42:08both at a high level because so for him for him to climb something that hard he needs that intensity he needs a 115 percent effort but if you're trying to free solo well you definitely should never be giving anything even remotely close to 115 percent effort or else he will die for sure because you're so close to that razor edge of failure when you're trying that hard but with free soloing you have to always keep it sort of within your comfort zone because you don't die doing it so I mean I think that I've always sort of kept my my personal like you on your personal barometer of effort I sort of lived between 4 & 7 let's say or like you know three and a half and seven maybe where it's like you're never too relaxed but you're also never going to the absolute death we're sort of like in the four to six it's a sweet spot where you like I'm climbing I'm having a good

42:51time but I'm not like trying too hard and I'm not relaxed but so somebody like got a monitor Tommy Caldwell like I've climbed with Tommy a lot over the years he's a great climber and I've really seen this because he like I've seen him just randomly fall off many times because he was just like slip he's like oh I'm so relaxed it's so easy and then I'm like help I slipped and that's kind of like an effort of one where you're like your body is so relaxed that if anything happens then you fall and with it with a rope on that's fun in some ways that's the more efficient way to climb because you know you're so relaxed most the time that you're saving a lot of energy over all that every once in a while when you fall it's like who cares the Rope catches you it's no problem but you have to trust those little things you stick in the crowd yeah but that's all so that's like I mean that's yeah

43:31that's that's coming what is he doing there he's uh he's counter pressure in his leg into this crack to rest he's basically like pushing his knee into the rock - in order to relax his arms for him but he's his whole body is leaning backwards yes oh he's hanging upside down basically every muscle in his body is relaxed except for his calf and his calf is forcing his knee into the rock which holds him in place so he's just had about one here that is so insane that photos so insane yeah that's a really efficient way to rest wood to rest to rest your arms well because it's really hard to hold well you know I mean for him it's like for him to be able to rest like that for one minute is an amazing way to rest your arms for a minute yeah but then it sort of stops your core and it makes his calf tired obviously now there's a guy like that does he lift weights or anything to

44:16prepare for these things personage s I don't know what he's doing he's he's on his own program yeah but it's it's really climbing specific he's mostly doing things with his fingers thing yeah he's pretty jacked is that even him that's crazy that's a weird yeah it's the same it's the same route that's interesting I've never seen that photo but I mean I guess you just get jacked from doing that too though just constantly pulling yourself yeah yeah for sure there's a climbing wall just like local kids place and I told my daughter give her a hundred bucks if she can make it all the way to the other side I think it's pretty difficult and so she's become obsessed was trying to get over there to get a hundred bucks that's that's definitely Jack I mean look at that he's Jack your daughter's gonna wind up super ribbed it's hard to do me like really fit I tried to do it

44:59and I couldn't do it I was like wow this is really hard difficult to do I bet I bet if you if you tried a bit I mean just because you have such a background of movement and fitness and everything I bet it wouldn't be that hard for you no instruction yeah I'm pretty heavy though for someone who's short though that would be an issue is hanging I'm - yeah but so in theory climbing should be more in your legs anyway you should be driving with your legs because no matter what your legs are always bigger and stronger muscles in your arms so like that's always what drives you upward yeah and then your arms should only be holding your weight in and keeping your keeping you balanced over your feet basically that's interesting that's something that they've figured out fairly recently with grappling over the last like 10 15 years with like jujitsu and things along those

45:41lines that your legs you it's really important to use mostly your legs when you're yapping totally I can see that I mean that's what's driving you forward and pushing the whole you know rolling your opponent and manipulating your opponent doing stuff with your legs do you do anything to cross-train no I mean I do other mountain sports a little mountain biking or skiing or things like that we do it for fun yeah for fun and then the only real cross-training to do is just sort of like a push up in core type routine you know like opposition training just to maintain healthy you know healthy body oh because you're constantly pulling yeah exactly I'm always pulling for my sport so then I try to do a little bit of pushing in core just to make sure the things state balance down now is that something you talk to physical therapists about or no that's just I mean that's just basic

46:29physiology I mean if you only pull you have to push sometimes or else you wind up all in balance right and injured well I saw that one of the things in the film was when you were recovering from your ankle sprain mm-hmm and you know you had said that you really hadn't been injured in years then all sudden you have this girlfriend and she doesn't climb and you get injured yeah yeah that actually is just freak freak timing God's luck yeah it's just unfortunate because I think really it just shows that I've been really fortunate for 20 years that I've had very few injuries climbing and then you know at some point you just have a few in this I mean that's just life to some extent but when you do have something like that and you feel sort of the vulnerability of your tissue and your do you think about like hey what if this happened halfway up some insane

47:17path you know the bigger thing is in the film I have a back injury earlier where I get lowered off the end of the rope and fall I only fell maybe 10 or 12 feet you know sort of like the height of this this room basically and but I landed sort of like folded over this rock backward it was like totally horrible like these jagged boulders and so I didn't go that far but I was like oh you know I got worked and it was really sobering because it made me realize that if I fell from you know 40 feet climbing you know you could it could be yeah I mean it'd be a disaster basically it made me realize just how fragile my body is because I'm like oh I only fell little tiny ways and it like really hurt you know it's like really bad I was like man if you fell much further you could you could yeah anything could happen yeah people step off stairs wrong and yeah break your leg

48:07yeah very strange the body's so fragile it's really amazing it's funny but it's so fragile but then also so robust in some ways I mean it's amazing what the human body can adapt to or withstand but then yeah I mean some things just can't yeah that's why I was asking you about your age like as you get older are you seeing a difference in the way you recover are you seeing a difference in the way you know like but your body what you feel like your potential is I yeah it's hard to say I think yeah I don't know I mean those those are the tough questions I mean you know sure you sure you think about that stuff too plus a fighter a fighter at your age 33 he said yeah that's when you start tailing off like whining daddy for 35 when the fighter hits like 36 like Yanks huh is that is that like old for a fighter yeah that's pretty old it's very rare there's only a few guys who've been

48:59able to compete at a world-class level past that and MMA Randy Couture stands out and boxing Bernard Hopkins stands out how old is the Floyd Mayweather for whatever he's 40 yeah is he still considered like fighting an elite level well you know when he fought Conor McGregor Conor McGregor was nowhere near his level cuz Conor McGregor wasn't really a box he's not a boxer yeah and so Floyd just kind of worked him but he hasn't really fought at a world-class level for a couple years because you know he beat Canelo Alvarez several years ago he made Canelo drop a ton of weight when he beat Manny Pacquiao Manny Pacquiao was quite a bit past his prime and had a shoulder injury so you're probably dealing with like three years or so since he's fought like real world-class competition huh when you say he made him drop punch wait does that mean like - how's that word clever

49:53you know he he wanted him to fight at a lower weight class you know cuz Floyd really Floyd started off his career I want to say it 130 then he fought it won four or five yeah and you know he's real isn't he big how big is it he's very small sorry the five six five seven five seven yeah in tiny little hands very small hands but recently they hit very hard well he's not an artist he's just a genius boxer probably one of the best defense probably if not the best definitely top two or three defensive boxers of all time well it's only been really hit hard to the point where he's been wobbled like maybe like four four times in his entire career yes it seems like that's that's the kind of boxer you want to be exactly you want to be like the rocky Bob poet styled boxer that just gets beaten to death and then you was boring yeah really that's like freaking and watching

50:46Annabelle games with good defense and you're like oh man it's like not the team you want to watch but it's probably the better team well especially with boxing because the consequences are so grave yeah hit a lot there's a horrible video that I put up on YouTube are on Twitter rather that I retweeted someone sent me and it's boxers when they're young talking verses after injuries and you're watching you're like whoa it's it's stunning that's like and I felt stuff too I mean mm-hmm it's funny I mean people talk about that with climbing with like all such a dangerous sport but the thing about rock climbing is that it's basically a completely safe sport right up until some kind of accident may happen and then and then you potentially die but so the thing is you can basically climb at a high level for 50 years and never have any issues or you could maybe die doing

51:34it but it's kind of a fundamentally safe sport for the most part as opposed to what we're talking about like fighting or you know football or things like that we're like or even mountain biking where you're for sure gonna get injured like no matter what just by just by playing the game you know what things like football and fighting they creep up on you like the injuries start a pile well but basically just even in practice you are getting injured constantly you know and so it's I mean that's kind of messed up it's like just the price of entry is is going to be you know freaking head injuries yeah I went to a football game the other day a high school football game and when I was there I had a really hard time watching it because everybody's cheering and I'm and I was talking to my friend I'm like you're looking at brain damage ya know it's messed up these kids are getting brain

52:19damage and this is like a really nice private school where they pay a lot of money to get the kids into this program and then the kids are playing football like these they're they're all getting brain damage he goes really I go a hundred percent I could you see that collision that's brain damage that's definitely brain damage it might not be a lot they might be okay but how many of those do they do in a day how many do they do it yeah you how many a month how many like what are ways to human potential right there it really is I mean the problem is it's such a grand part of our history and our cultures what doesn't really need to be I mean now you know football has existed that long yeah no I agree dude I watched a rodeo from like very very close basically like from the commentators box like above the the pen for the fourth of July ready on Wyoming uh like two summers ago and that was

53:12something I was like this is messed up I mean and I'm not like huge animal rights guy but I'm vegetarian obviously and I sort of care and I was like oh you know you're kind of abusing these animals for sport and that's like that doesn't you sit that well with me but what was even worse is always like all these young men are getting worked just like for the entertainment is totally like Roman gladiator type stuff and I'm just like and it's weird because it's so cultural you know because and and you know I mean I can I can empathize because obviously I'm doing something that's also sort of blood sporty to some extent and and sort of for the same reason you know you're a teenage dude looking to do something interesting and engaging that's that'll hopefully get you laid you know like you just wanna I mean if you're from small town Wyoming and you're like oh I'm good

53:53at riding bulls like that's for sure gonna be your path and I'm like oh it's just too bad that that's your path it's just like path I mean we watch this guy get frickin thrown off this bowl and and I think he was fine he land on the ground but then the bull frickin it was charging him and the guy like I've never seen human terror like he basically just turned and ran as fast as he could but he ran straight into this post like headfirst into this freakin steel post like the edge of the because he just didn't you know it was like the Bulls coming at him he like turns and runs and he basically like knocks himself out against this post then thankfully the clown's distracted the bull and then the hermit is like that you believe there was a frickin ambulance basically parked on the other side of the fence from what your head do and so they basically like lift him over and put him straight on

54:34the stretcher and like take him away you know but I was like dude and you know the crowds don't like your head and you're just like that guy's like messed up like that you know everything about it made me like feel kind of gross you know yeah it's like I would never want to pay to watch somebody hurt themselves I'm just like I don't know what's weird that's culturally acceptable but like bullfighting is not yeah when they're totally yeah bull riding it's like they're freaking tasing the bowls they're like aren't they tying off their balls and they're doing all kinds of bad things I mean would though people argue that the Bulls have great lives you know though they feed them well and they get a lot of exercise and they're very happy bulls and you're like dude I'm pretty sure they'd rather be roaming the open plains like inseminate encountered once that a professional rodeo guy and his

55:21shoulder was like a topographic map it was just had so many scars in his shoulder and he told me his shoulder would just pop out just like he could just pop it out left but right from just being destroyed like gored by both falling and getting it ripped apart all riding poles yeah yeah I just I just don't get that it just wasn't working anymore I mean he had a bunch of surgeries and they tried to screw it back together and tighten things down but it was just destroyed I'm sure I'm sure a bull rider would look at free soloing and be like what a crazy dude you know everybody looks at another sport I like that's great and honestly I look at fighting and I'm like that seems totally outrageous I'm like why would you want some other dude beating you to death in cage like that's that's great he's outrageous it is outrageous but if you can get good enough or you can avoid yeah getting

56:07seen on damage yeah and then the tool and the damage it's kind of the same but even landing the damage to a certain extent you're like oh you're hurting somebody else for the pleasure of the crowd you're like that's kind of messed up ya know you know it's a very weird feeling knocking someone out is one of the weirdest feelings because part of you is happy that it's not you but part of you is like looking down at that guy that's just got flatlined you know like whoa that could have been made how much the fighters like hold back you know because I feel like you kind of have to be like go to the death but then if you actually like punch somebody so hard they died or something I mean obviously you feel horrible right well you don't look back at all with that so I'm saying but so it's like you don't hold back at all but then if you actually killed somebody wouldn't you

56:51feel horrible it's very rare that someone dies in mixed martial arts believe it or not well yeah no I mean I know that but it's possible and it has happened and it's sort of like it has happened very very rarely in mixed martial arts never in the UFC but in boxing it happens more often and with one of the reasons why it happens more often in boxing because you're only punching in MMA you're taking people down yeah people are tapping out because they're paying weird grades yeah well it's also there's more options to defend yourself you're not just getting battered against the ropes they're also nowadays much better at stopping a fight when a fighter is clearly compromised when they're there up in the old days they used to let guys just get battered they used to you know that doesn't sit well with me I'm just like oh yeah but that's not I'm not a fighter

57:40well it's like that's thing about this thing about climbing is there's this real elemental appeal to just you in the mountain and its nature and it's beautiful and it's like very peaceful and calm it's like so different than having thousands of people screaming at you as you punch them down the face over and over just like dude that's just that's not my scene well did you see the Conor McGregor khabib nurmagomedov fight where there's a bigger fight outside the cage oh is that the thing where the guy bolts out of the cage and like starts brawling or I was like yeah it's like WWE or whatever it's like when they start breaking tables over people crazier than that because it was real oh yeah exactly I was like this is totally outrageous but what's funny is it became chaos because a fight erupted outside of the parameters of the fight it was just more fighting yeah it seen fighting like

58:28this isn't what we paid for this isn't okay right everybody it's like fighting in the cage fine this is lovely but he comes out of the cage oh my god he's out in the wild that's like I'm in the world fighting isn't that got a messed up yeah it's definitely mad feel like he's a professional fighter he's fighting like that's what he does it's weird that's the whole listen this is coming from someone who's been involved in this my whole life it's weird it's I absolutely see all the arguments against it and yet you still want to go traitor punch people in the face well I don't punch anybody in the face anymore I still choke people but uh I think that's totally fine then huh well the thing about the jujitsu aspect of it is you you really can tap out and stop and you don't really get hurt yeah only time you get hurt training jiu-jitsu is accidental for the most

59:13part especially trained with you're actually better off training with a black belt then you are with a white belt totally because ya know I get that blacks they have more control they'll be fine with you they'll just they'll just tap you and you're as a white ball accidently kicks you in the face like ah it's really strong especially if you get a white bones like a crossfitter it's jacked I just really thought we were just grappling and then as a harm came out I don't know what to do with it so I threw it away I don't know yeah really a unskilled guy who's extremely strong whose learning technique and it's also like a spazz is very dangerous to roll it so yeah you don't wanna teach me jujitsu swear he said if she did with me we'd be fine but if you did it with someone who's a real beginner who's you know but no I'm saying I'm the strong beginner yeah but this drug had no idea

60:03what I'm doing it's like yeah the real problem would be if we were both beginners yeah I guess that would be the real problem the like a strong spaz is not really they're not gonna work against the black belt that's a guess that's the learning curve for climbing too you don't want to beginners going out and trying to like climb a mountain together yeah I would worry about that like if you're climbing do you ever climb like is there a chain like one person in front of you yeah yeah I mean soaps yeah when you climb with the rope it's basically two people one goes out first and then brings up the second because you're limited by the length of the rope so basically one person goes at the end of the rope brings out the next person that person climbs through brings it up the second so are you dependent upon the holes that they put in when they put those bolts into the cracks and

60:46also bolts bolts and things are put in by the first ascension it's of the very first person to have ever climbed the route but then everybody thereafter is able to just clip their their equipment into the bolts or you know use pre-established anchors things like that so all the all the routes are already established and you can like read a book that shows all the different routes so like El Capitan has something like 112 different routes of it and Wow and of those 112 only 15 or so of them can be free climbed which is different than free soloing free climbing meaning just using your hands in your feet and you're still using a rope you're still clipping into protection as you go but you're only using your hand in your feet to get you up as opposed to like putting gear and then pulling on the gear which would be considered cheating so of the hundred routes on El Cap you know something like

61:3090 of them you have to pull on the hardware you have to like clip little ladders into it and step on you know you have to hammer Pitons in and then clip into them and stand on them and hammer another Pete on and step on that which is no yeah yeah there's just nothing to hold on to it's too hard so then so then there yeah something like 10 or 15 free climbing routes where you can climb it and so with my big goal of trying to free solo El Cap to climb it without a rope I was limited to just those 10 or 15 routes that are possible to climb just with your hands and and how did you establish the one that you wanted to proceed on yeah so basically I just wanted to doing the easiest one because um basically it's really hard to free climb El Cap by any means and so the easiest one wound up being the most secure the the best one for me how many I'd look done it well free solo

62:15or free climb free solo free stolen I mean nobody only yeah the only one yeah I mean that's why there's the film and everything it's it's a and nobody's ever even thought about it you know nobody's consider it's not like something that people are trying to do now that you've done it other other people that are considering it I really do I mean I think it's almost more the opposite now that I've done it people are like oh yeah I don't need to do that ever I mean there's nobody even playing this game right now really there aren't that many high end free solos don't know how many other two one or something really no no no I don't know if they're any others really right now this is a guy Brad go bright and I'm an American guy who's been free soloing at a pretty high level but definitely he's a really good friend of mine so I'm not like slandering him but um but definitely at a very

62:58different level than then like he would never even dream of solving all cab so he's sort of starting out well it's nothing he's turning out I mean he's a very good climber he's been climbing a long time and he's done all kinds of very difficult things but in terms of free soloing I think he just doesn't need to push it as that hard so he's almost like he dabbles in free soloing yeah well I mean I dabble in free so long as well I mean mostly I'm climbing with my friends doing other things you know I mean I think most almost all climbers only dabble in free so I mean free soloing is sort of like one discipline of climbing like we were talking earlier about the Olympics having multiple disciplines you know there are many types of climbing and most climbers do all of them to some extent and free soloing always represents sort of this small specialty like extra style so you do free climbing

63:45and then you also do the kind of climbing where you have to put in those posts and stand on them yeah yeah our aid climbing artificial climbing so i free-climb my aid climbs sometimes I don't like to because it's too much work it's too much like construction you know you're like nailing things and standing on it's like engineering yeah but I do that because sometimes that's what it requires to get up big mountains and we don't do that and you nail things and stand on them do you take them all yes yeah the second person takes them out so the one person uses them to get up and then once the Rope is secured above them second-person joins them and removes them all and then you have all your gear back and then you're able to do it again for the next section how much weight is that stuff well it depends so it can be a lot and certainly back in the day when

64:21people were doing the first descents of El Cap I mean it's something like 40 pounds or 50 pounds of iron hanging off them geez nowadays it's all a lot lighter and you can use better gear but um but yeah I mean it's a lot but that's kind of the appeal of free climbing or even free soloing is that you have nothing on you now how secure is that stuff that you're hanging it depends it depends I mean there's certainly stories that people falling and riffing all the stuff back but but but sometimes that's okay because if you're if you're thousands of feet off the ground you can take that hundred foot fall and not touch anything and it's fine yeah but still not really earlier this summer uh counting on the thing we I mean so it's all well-founded I mean you just gotta trust it here now earlier this summer I was talking about Tommy called oh one of the best

65:07climbers in the country so the two of us did the speed record on El Cap earlier this year and so that's the two of us are tied together we're using a rope we're using equipment but where anything goes you're cheating as much as you can it's just trying to get from the bottom El Cap to the top as fast as possible this is on a different route than the one that I free solid in the film and so we were trying to go sub 2hours and we ultimately did it in 158 and it was pretty awesome we were really psyched but along the way Tommy took a hundred foot fall at one point he just I was talking about him with the whole one to ten effort he was climbing something that's really really easy and he was probably giving an effort of like two and he just slipped you know and I was like oh but anyway he freakin whipped you felt like a hundred feet just straight down the wall didn't

65:47touch anything because El Cap is like a very clean vertical sheet of rock how long does it take to fall hundred feet that's not like syrup yes several second second no no no no like four or five or something but you accelerate very quickly - yeah long enough to be like oh my god I'm gonna die yeah no no no long enough so the reason he fell so far is because we were doing this sort of complicated maneuvers normally I would have a belay device on basically I would be attached to the rope earlier to like catch him but I'd taken my belay device off and I was just tied into the end so basically he fell on all the slack whipped through until it hit me at the end of the rope but so when he yelled I basically had time to be like oh my god he's falling like brace for impact like knowing that in a second the rope is gonna come tied against the end that I'm tied into basically jerk me Wow

66:33but then thankfully there's enough drag in the system that it didn't turn me off the stance that I was on or else I would have gotten pulled like 50 feet across the wall and it was all my stuff so when he's falling and you're realizing that you're gonna get yanked by his fall are you like digging in to the right ya know basically I was like oh my god you know he's like brace yourself like I was in this position I was actually like facing out away from the wall like facing out towards the meadow because I I was in an open corner like if you looked at the corner of the room imagine one leg on each side facing outward like pushed into this position because it's like I was about to have to untie my knot and retie and do some things and so I was basically like all ready to do some things and all of a sudden I hear that he's falling I was like oh my god and then thank God is

67:17able had just sort of like the stick in there geez but my point is just that taking big fall I mean if you trust your equipment and everything it it can be okay to take big falls like that you obviously try to avoid them because you know had he hit a Ledge or something then potentially he could have died but because it was it was clean there it was okay so if he was in a situation where there was a slight angle and he fell that far that's where it's really dangerous yeah I mean worst case scenario would be if he fell a hundred feet and 75 feet down there was a Ledge sticking out half the width of this table because then you would just clip it you'd break both your legs everything would explode and you'd still fall yeah what do you do if you fall and you break something and you're half way up dude so ok same route the the nose of a cab which we were trying to do the speed

68:01record on this friend of mine who I actually previously held the speed record with this older guy Hans Florine who actually wrote the book how to speed climb that I learned how to speed from from many years ago so he freaking exactly what I'm describing sort of worst case scenario he took this 20 probably a 22 foot fall but he was unlucky enough which is totally fine he had a rope you had gear everything worked exactly the way it's supposed to he just fell always which is normal but the bummer was that there was a little ledge probably twice the size of that box right there like that little wooden box just kind of this little thing sticking out from the wall about this far basically he fell 20 feet hit that broke both of his ankles and then and then went off another two feet and so the rope caught him and you know the fall was exactly as expect all his gear

68:45held everything's totally normal except that he happened to hit that thing right at the apex of you know at the full force of his fall you know I had that ledge bent two feet below him it wouldn't matter at all he would just hit it and jumped off into space but because he'd already fallen 20 feet broke both his ankles and then it was kind of horrible I was actually up higher on the wall that dad come in from above to just rappel in and work on something and I heard him yelling but I thought he was just hooting and hollering like hey you know how's it going type deal and then I like it climbed out to the summit and then when I hiked halfway back down I got a voicemail from him saying that uh you know being like oh hey it's Hans I think I just broke my my tib fib you know I'm basically like oh can you can you help her but he'd already called search-and-rescue and so a rescue was

69:27already mobilized but search and rescue in u7t it's really lead they're really fast but it's still sort of by the books you know it still takes kind of a lot of time and so I was like oh man like maybe I should run back up and rappel down and like help my buddy rappel down the wall again or something should I like get him out of here faster just because when search and rescues mobilize it's like a long time and I was like if he's in a lot of pain that sucks you know yeah though as it I really has died I wound up calling search and rescue and talking to through them to see if there was anything I could do to help but ultimately I want it just coming down because there wasn't really anything for me to do so he's essentially just suspending for a while waiting for them to get him yeah so he basically just sat on a Ledge with two broken legs for you know six hours or 12

70:09hours or something and then eventually they managed to haul him up to the summit and then I think that helicoptered him off the next morning oh because it was already dark by then yeah I know it was kind of horrible but he's sort of recovered by announcement it's been five months or something so he's back at it always climbing he's the manager of a climbing gym he's you know yeah well I mean it's two broken bones I mean yes worse yeah it seems like no super grim I was like but that's an example of sort of worst-case you know it's bad luck well that's actually not worst case right know that yeah that's not worst case that's just bad luck young that's like when you're sitting there if you're sitting there hanging off a ledge like that with two broken ankles for six hours I mean there must be grim but if you don't get to you the season swelling and yeah so I think he and his

70:56partner actually repelled down 100 feet to a slightly bigger ledge so that he could lay on it and elevate his legs and then I think there were some other climbers around that gave him a jacket you know so he could sort of bundle up and like lay there and sort of manage but yeah I mean it seems extremely character building the life you choose you know yeah no it's really I'm like that is he that actually kind of makes me feel really bad you could just because of that like that kind of thing is really close to home you know it's like because he's a friend and it's just so like that's bad yeah now I can only imagine you know when when you think about your life and you think about the stuff that you do do you deep is there a point where you feel like you won't do it anymore or a point where you feel like you won't free solo anymore or do you look at like your friend who you

71:42were talking about who's older who's still free soloing and doing difficult pass do you think this is just your life forever no I don't know I honestly I'm not sure I don't think it's my path forever necessarily just because there just aren't always bigger and harder things to do you know I mean El Cap represented sort of the end of this very long road for me I mean I sold many many things that were all sort of leading towards El Cap and then I finally did that and in at least right now I can't really imagine anything more inspiring to me in terms of free soloing I mean there plenty of other climbing challenges that I'm interested in like I was just saying doing the speed record is something that I did you know this summer but it's just like winning a big hand in Vegas we're just like okay we got all the money let's get the out of here no because that's that that it's

72:30too much luck you know I mean it's like it's more like realizing a life dream and you're sort of like okay yeah I've seen but I mean you know it's it's a similar idea where you're like okay well no it's not even I mean it's yeah yeah it's about now yeah no no more big crazy risks yeah but that's the thing is that it's not even I was never seen as a big crazy risk you know I wasn't what was or wasn't rolling the dice I was sort of training for this thing and then I did it and I'm just not sure if there's a bigger thing that's worth more effort you know so I don't know I mean you know as you see in the film like I've the relationship with my girlfriend and she's we have this nice life together and there's so much else and climbing and you know I mean maybe I'll never never seek out big free soloing challenges again I mean we'll see now you're still relatively young in

73:18terms of life itself do you do you think maybe there could be something that you would enjoy as much as you enjoy climbing well I mean so no matter what I'll climb my whole life I mean I'm forgetting I love climbing I'm even on the foam tier I'm climbing in the gym every day just for the movement of it just to enjoy climbing but um I don't know I'm I have a foundation that I've worked with for the last five or six years supporting solar around the world and so I could see putting more and more effort into that I mean that's something dissatisfying in a way that climbing sort of isn't because it actually has a real tangible impact on the world you know I mean climbing is really fulfilling personally but when it's all said and done it's like it's just me going rock climbing it doesn't really matter but but at least working with the foundation it's like actually doing

74:02something real what is your foundation it's just the Honnold foundation but it's a we've been supporting solar all this I mean if you want the the longer version it's basically you know I was like looking for some way to do something positive in the world and so I was looking to support environmental projects and then I was like there's no real point in supporting environmental projects that they don't also support in like increased standard of living that like help people in need and that sort of led me to solar projects basically solar energy access and so that's what we in support in the last five six years and so what do you do with this project well so domestically it was that mostly it's just been my way of donating my money to two other projects that that support solar so I'm domestically in the u.s. I've been supporting this group crude alternatives for example in so I

74:48mean I've done a few ins installations with them and in Sacramento in my hometown where basically low-income family just gets a free home solar system on their house and so it saves them the energy bills and then also in terms of you know carbon emissions it's just it's good for the planet you're slowly greening the grid but um and then the bigger potentially the bigger impacts have been projects we've been supporting in Africa to give access to like solar Lantern solar lights being able to charge cell phones disney-like small-scale systems or it's just panel a battery in a few LED lights and a phone charger but um but those kinds of things can fundamentally change somebody's life because you know East Africa people can spend up to a quarter of their income on kerosene there's just too light their home which is totally outrageous I mean imagine spending that

75:33percentage your income just to have light after dark you know in like in equatorial regions the earth it's dark for 12 hours a day I mean imagine if when the Sun Goes Down your productive hours are done you're just like no I'm just gonna sit in the dark for 12 hours it's crazy you know yeah I mean they're they're a billion people on earth living without access to power and I mean it's hard not for I mean I kind of see that as a waste of human potential to some extent like it's just an unfortunate thing to think there's so many people living without access to power I mean it's crazy it is crazy and it's really crazy in California there's not more solar when you think about how often it's sunny yeah yeah yeah I know I mean it's it's totally though I mean at least it's it's growing very quickly in California at least but I mean really Solar should be powering the whole earth

76:18I mean enough sunlight hits the earth every I don't know that the terms it's every like 10 or 15 minutes basically to power the earth for like the year if you're able to harness all that energy it's kind of like it's just such a cleaner simpler way of power in the earth you know yeah it really is and I mean one can only hope that that's going to it's going to keep continuing to continue to evolve the thing the thing that drives me absolutely crazy is that it it's totally obvious that in a hundred years the earth will be run through solar and things like that because there's just so much energy spilling onto the earth and it's free and so right the technology is only improving everybody's adopting it like in a hundred years no question everything will be run from the Sun the thing that drives me insane is that there's so much resistance to it from utilities from from you know consumer

77:08ignorance from whatever else but people just don't totally get it and sort of opposed to it and so you know half the world will be dragged kicking and screaming into the future and you're sort of like if you just embrace it and get there in 15 years instead of a hundred years all all the arguments about climate change all the arguments about you know environmental degradation all those kinds of things would be mitigated to a large extent you're sort of like is there a downside to that you know like even if you don't believe in climate change even if you you denial the science behind it you think it's all BS it's like is there really a downside to just adopting the future sooner freeze like yeah it's like one of those things were sort of like if it's gonna happen eventually let's just do it now and save all the freaking hassle again there I think it's the

77:48momentum of the current system it's very difficult for people to just abandon establish ways of doing things especially young we're so hooked on fossil fuel I know but like it's just such a bummer that the status quo is such a thing you know people like oh well that's the way we do it let's just keep doing that it's just weird because there's so many things in life that change so frequently you know like I mean the world is constantly changing you're like let's just embrace the changes that matter the most and just do them faster well you're talking about a guy who lives in a van and climbs rocks yeah business people that have thousands and thousands of employees and millions if not billions of money of dollars invested in these things yeah well yeah that's the problem Gemma Doyle the current system I know it's just too bad yeah but it's it is but it's inevitable

78:32I agree with you it's inevitable that we will embrace it and change I think that's almost more than frustrating though is because it's inevitable and yet it's gonna be dragged out so long you're sort of like why can't people just embrace the inevitability of it and just move forward well I think they slowly are but things like that take time I think one one big thing is going to be if they can ever figure out a way to solar power cars as you're driving them so you never really have some things that I'll ever be a thing well Fisker figured out how to do it with your stereo they figured out how to do it with your radio system and that's one different car it's like a lot less energy but it's just the roof panel the roof panel isn't it didn't we they they're a weird company though that's the company that many years ago there was a big storm that hit the East Coast

79:20and they had a bunch of cars parked at a dock and they all exploded when the water hit them and they realized wait wait wait wait you can't get your things drenched in water like when the water hit a certain level like they had a severe flaw and so they burst into flames and exploded and there's this whole like dock filled with these fisker karma z-- that blew up and they called them Karma's even more hilariously watching us exploding that's pretty bad that's like that's all bad all the way around yeah I think they've since fixed that but yeah it was a big flaw that's I was just actually reading I was reading this business management book but um we're talking about the Ford Pinto with having freaking gas tanks to close the back bumpers basically the gas tank protected by an inch of plastic and you know yeah speaking of explosion cards but that actually I think killed lots of people

80:12because you know they were actually put into production and then there tons of accidents and the cars explode and you're just like man that's speaking of bad decisions that in auto manufacturing yeah the Pinto was a disaster it wasn't good but yeah I think what what they what they're capable of doing right now I think you're right I don't think you can power a car with solar panels completely I mean you certainly can from your house that was their initial claim when they announced it that it would power the whole car and everyone was like that's that's definitely two years ago they said they could power the whole car with the roof August of 2016 huh I'm trying to find the updates but that seems that seems totally outrageous cuz also I mean the future of cars is born like a smaller car with no tree like a glass roof like Tesla style where it's sort of a national ad right here

81:03so a roof create enough energy to power the car no other vehicles sold in the US had ever offered this capability well I mean so that might be true if it just sat parked in the Sun for 12 hours and then you drove home right away yeah you worked at night yes it turns all day and your commutes really short but the numbers totally don't work yeah well you would know better than anybody if you're involved in solar yeah I don't know but I mean the solar panels of today I mean I have a buddy of mine who does a lot of backpacking and he carries around this it's like a foldable solar charger for his phone and he you know folds it up and lays it out and then puts a charger there and then he uses that charger to charge his phone but he did you know like he'll go 20 plus days with just this thing yeah I mean so I mentioned our expedition to Antarctica last winter

81:54so that's 24 hours of sunlight because you're you know in their summer and our entire expedition was run from solar and so we'd actually taken a generator and the other guys on the trip forgot oil for the generator basically and so it wasn't gonna work and so we're like oh I guess we'll have to try to use the solar which had sort of been our backup system and it actually we ran the whole trip on solar everything worked and so they were filming so they're a bunch of cameras bunch of batteries laptops backing up drives and then they were flying a drone quite a bit for aerial footage it was all kind of beautiful so I mean they basically ran this whole operation off solar one of the one of the camera guys that's got Pablo he's a good for a month basically just had to wake up you know every two hours to move the panel's around the tent as the Sun tracks are on

82:34the sky you know so that it's always in full Sun right but um and you get to sleep with the batteries and things to make sure things stay warm enough but otherwise I mean with us I mean because I'm really cold yeah it's funny because you put your laptops and stuff into coolers like into ice chests to keep them insulated enough to stay warm as opposed to cold well no because the outside temperature is so cold but it was cool though because you know that way we didn't have to run this like loud stinky annoying generator and like you just have your panels working full time yeah that's one of the weirdest things about like Tesla's when you drive it and like there's no noise yeah no it's awesome yeah yeah so much more peaceful yeah I mean but that's the future it's like if you imagine a city that's all silent electric cars with no emissions I mean imagine how much more pleasant the

83:14pedestrian experience is yeah when it's not like diesel exhaust right next you on the city streets yeah you don't hear the car that runs you over well you know no you still do that because uh something like 30 percent of the noise is the tires yeah it's like you still hear of cars yeah but then it's just so much more mellow you don't hear like an engine like ripping right by you yeah I think it's inevitable that we figure out a way that you can just power everything from solar and including cars as you're driving them I mean the only make sense as the technology improves yeah we'll see see I mean uh there's development and solar film sort of in Windows like so imagine office building where the windows are all producing power I mean if you think about that with the car if it's just like a glass dome over you but it's all sort of producing power yeah nobody I

83:58mean it's pretty amazing I have a watch that was on solar power that's not a lot of power yeah but still I mean you don't really need any batteries for it yeah I see oh yeah yeah I did when I was a kid I don't like that yeah yeah that's pretty that's pretty straightforward though that's a small amount of power that's drawing when you got involved in this how much preparation did you do I mean what was what was the the motivation like having fur the foundation yeah I mean honestly like I said I was just looking to do something positive for the world and so my exploring options you won so I was gonna start donating significant percentage of my income to to environmental nonprofits and then I decided that I should do it in sort of a public facing way and in the form of the foundation just because I felt like you know I'm never gonna have nearly as much money as as real philanthropic

84:46organization you know like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation like I'll never have it I'll never have real dollars like that but I do sort of have this platform like some sort of public you know persona whatever so I was like well at least if I donate things I can sort of leverage that and the right way to contribute I don't know basically try maximize the good that I'm doing and so yes of them I just started researching organizations that I felt like we're doing great work and that led me to solar basically does most your income come from sponsors and from public appearances it was mostly sponsors and then it sort of has shifted into sponsors and sort of one-off things so like I published a book a few years ago and so there's an advance from that and like the film has made a little money the you know random little things and then now it's also sort of split with

85:33like corporate speaking type commercial opportunities as well so sponsorship is still probably the biggest thing for me so like the North Bay's being my biggest pond sir and most important sponsor for me but then now it's sort of split between a bunch of different sources this is so the public speaking things these corporate appearances you just go and get just talk to them about free solo climbing and yeah talking about climbing talk about preparation or I mean depends on what somebody needs really depends with organizations I've spoken to a bunch of venture capital type firms about risk-taking and risk management or how that's interesting you know so they just look at you as like sort of inspiration yeah mix things up for the company yeah I mean I'd like to think that it's a slightly more interesting talk than the average business speaker you know and it's

86:17certainly more beautiful images you know like if I if I give a nice slideshow on chat for a bed it's on you know I mean it's beautiful it's different and but I think that it still gets back to some of the same elemental issues you know talking about the yeah I mean how do you manage risk in your life and and what's worth it and how do you choose it's it's a smart move to for a company to just kind of like vary the kind of input that gets to the the employees like give them something that's kind of spectacular and interesting and yeah now when you look at the future do you do you have a map of what you would like to be doing do you are you just sort of enjoying your experience here or do do you have grand plans yeah I don't really have grand plans I mean I've never really had a grand plan it's always been that I love climbing I want to do it well I want to push myself and I think

87:09that's kind of my grand plan I mean I'm I'm still trying to be a better climber I'm still trying to grow the foundation do something more significant through it I'm actually hired a full-time executive director this year this woman who's running a for me we're just kind of awesome so we're actually sort of ramping it all up a little bit that was slightly in response to the film because I sort of figured that you know this is like a moment that I should try to take advantage of and use it to do something more positive and so that's that's all sort of exciting for me and it's definitely not a grand plan but it's you know it's just sort of all incremental incremental progress so when you're doing all these climbs you have a lot of time when you're it takes time to do these things yeah so is this when you start thinking about these ideas about thinking about like how much you enjoy

87:51being out here in nature and what yeah for sure yeah for sure I mean I spend most of my time in the most beautiful places on earth I mean spending Westmont time in national parks and public lands in general and so I mean all these beautiful places and it's like yeah I mean I care about them I want to you know if I have a family someday I want to be able to take my kids to these same places and have them appreciate the land in the same way I mean yeah so like you somebody the last five years freaking the entire forest has basically died from from pine needles while all the pine trees have basically died because of pine beetles and so like just in the last five years let's say the Yosemite Valley floor has sort of transformed from like a dense pine forest to sort of this open oak forest it's like totally different character because all the pine trees have died and then they've been

88:35cutting them all down to reduce fuel load so they're basically logging trucks with pine trees leaving the park non-stop which you know which I'm which I totally support I'm not like anti logging the dead trees because like you may as well use them if they're already dead and you I definitely don't want to see you so many valley I'll burst into flames so it makes sense but at the same time I mean you know that's a real that's a very direct result of climate change I mean it's ten years of drought in California combined with with the shorter winners it's like you just have these beetles decimating the entire forest and I don't know I mean that's the sucks you know like I don't I don't want to see the whole for his die and it's not an invasive beetle or yeah beetle yeah well I think it's invasive in that I don't know specifically with you Simon I could be wrong about this

89:16but with a lot of the pine beetle problems in Colorado and that's more to do with a shorter winter and and warmer temperatures because normally the larvae would die through the winter like they would freeze mm-hmm but you know basically they're not freezing it's the same extent and so the population explodes and then you wind up with all the trees dying yeah we were there and we were in Big Bear a few years back when they were having a real issue with it and they were having real significant fire scares young it was it was nerve-wracking you somebody was like on fire for most of the summer is this crazy for the whole southern part of the part was like burning for months and that's you know I mean fire is a natural part of the ecosystem and the you know to some extent you're like that's normal but it's like it's not normal right now because the fuel load is so high it's

89:59like so dry it's just it's too much you know and I just would love for my kids someday to be able to appreciate the park the way I have for so long and I just don't want to see it don't burn yeah when I was when we were in Big Bear that's my feeling it was it it was it was sad that you're seeing something that was probably this rich green lush forest that's now really weird gray and dry but it was also like you're around kindling like you're basically in a big stack of dry wood before it gets lit on fire and you're surrounded by and there's you know any of it hits up there it's I mean I've we've been evacuated where I live several times twice actually and come close a couple other times and it's it's terrifying because in Southern California when it goes it goes yeah and there's just no stopping it no I mean that's ya know it's nice I mean that's so like yeah this is why I'm

90:51like this is why we transition to soul sooner you know because it's like if it helps at all with these kinds of issues then it's like worth worth the effort you know yeah if it's gonna happen anyway it's like you may as well just do it now so this thing we were doing in Antarctica you're filming something there's well do you do a lot of that now well for a trip like that for an expedition I mean that was a North Face expedition and so that's where they get a lot of their brand content and so it makes sense to film a trip like that and we were somewhere that nobody ever goes we were doing first ascents at Peaks that have never been climbed so it kind of makes sense to document that to some extent but in general I think I try to balance my just pure climbing with with filming yeah I was gonna ask you like you don't wanna yeah you don't want to film all the timing everything that

91:36stuff drives me crazy I'm not into that but but when you're in the most beautiful place you know sometimes it makes sense well we're something especially for someone like North Face I mean their whole company is about really exploration yeah when when you're in that sort of situation where you're filming these things like is it difficult to be to act normal to be to be yourself well no I mean if you if you saw free solar you know that I only have one mode and that's just that's just me which I mean when when I see the film a lot of them like oh maybe I need to censor myself a little more like maybe you should be a little more thoughtful about what I say but but um no I mean I'm pretty much always I just I just do me and the people are filming or not they just get I mean I'm more mindful of profanity and a few things like that if I know that I mean filmed I know I'm

92:26being watched then I try to be you know slightly more respectful especially if I see kids in an audience I definitely tried not to curse right but um but overall I'm like not just I just always stay my mind you know well that's what I was talking about earlier when I was asking like the difference between you when you're I mean you're your love of this is your love of nature and of being in these beautiful national forests and public lands and experiencing these amazing environments but then sometimes that gets sort of perverted when you're filming everything and you've got people just everything becomes this sort of presentation and everything becomes professional and I mean I think that's the risk with filming I think with with free solo I think they did an amazing job of maintaining yes the the character you know the nuance like not perverting in any way no I think it was amazing

93:19yeah I mean I think I think they did a really good job of that like it's still it's still sort of understated you know even though it's like this spectacular feat it's still sort of subdued in its own ways this just sort of lays it out beautifully unless you just sort of judge for yourself and just well you know it's impossible to be anything but spectacular so you don't really have to dress it up yeah yeah well that's the beauty of filming anything you summit is that it's just I mean it's honestly this is one of the most beautiful places like putting a pretty dress on a Ferrari leave it alone you've already got it have you ever thought about doing some like livejournal from the field or some sort of a podcast or something along those lines no I mean should I yeah sounds like so much work well podcasts would be easy I don't know but you have to be able to interview people properly

94:08and know you don't know you don't think my friend bill burr has a podcast where he just talks he does it's great he's a comedian Monday morning podcast but you just sitting down I mean you could go off notes you could go off of and just I think people would love that if you just you never thought about it I mean in some ways I do have strong opinions about a lot of things like if I just ranted about environmental issues and similar things that I care about that actually would be kind of fun like you'd have a significant impact too especially you have a such a large platform now I don't no no no the I'll consider that's the first time anyone's ever mentioned I'm sort of like I couldn't you know think about that I'm notorious for trying to talk people into progress but I really think in your case it'd be a great idea I mean you really like I tell everyone to do it but you should really

94:56do it well people get mad at me you keep telling people do it but I think you if you had a portable unit like a freaking plane yeah really oh yeah recording your phone is very easy you could you I mean we've done a bunch of them we're just the voice notes from the phone just talking into the voice notes from the phone you can make a podcast off that and it's really easy to upload but just sayin maybe that's my future sitting in your van you know afterwards and just talking about things you're working on with your foundation talking about spectacular moments during climbs where you're seeing things and you know talking about what it's been like doing this tour for free so you know ya know I'm like that's all I'll think about it I mean that's interesting yeah interesting way to put it out there I mean I think it's a great idea man huh get it out yeah you send me a little mp3

95:54recorder but we could also help you like from I can promote it for you put it on Twitter lipomas yeah we'll see if I ever actually do anything like that but uh no it's an interesting idea I mean it's an interesting way to like share share ideas better well it's but the reason why I'm saying this is because you have this very specific very unusual life and you also have all these ideas about the environment and have all these ideas about using it for positive reasons and and and all toasting them yeah hoping to fricken make the world a better place and having making an impact with your foundation I really think you could pro look you're the best thing with your foundation would be to make make it exposed to more people and it would most certainly do that yeah ya know it's uh I'll talk to my executive director about that here I mean that would be an interesting way to

96:46- yeah at least it's fair the idea yeah exactly yeah and it'd be kind of cool you know like like you at the base of a mountain just talking about this and climbing and your personal thoughts in that moment like it could be douchey you know but it has to it has to be well done you have to be a douche bag for it to be douchey well that's the danger that's the danger it is never I mean nobody thinks that they're the douche you know oh do you think you'd become a douche well you just never know you never know when you're like I'm just gonna record monologues and me rambling about ideas that's that's when you start to trend towards douchiness perhaps well the slippery slope you could always review it or have your girlfriend review it yeah that's that you don't have to do it live just you know and then she could say okay that part we use rant and rave about diesel might want to

97:35yank that no I mean well yeah or maybe not yeah no I feel stronger but I'll ran rave about diesel for it yeah that's just not for us yeah I mean imagine when electric trucks you know like long-haul truck you know Mike Wright was already on there on the ball with that yeah well hopefully I kind of don't care who comes to market first that stuff I just want somebody to start selling a lot of them she was like I just want the change to happen quickly it doesn't matter who does it or how it's like it just needs to happen you've got a very significant voice right now you know I really think that you can make a big impact with a lot of people and the thing about these impacts it's sort of like the butterfly effect right it's like you never know what it doesn't change is no idea how many people are gonna hear you just from this podcast and the things you're saying about solar and about and and

98:19people thinking about like yeah maybe maybe I can do something and then boom it just makes these little incremental steps and then they carry on momentum and you never know mm-hmm well that's very that's the positive way of looking at it you know yeah just cool to like notes from wherever you are just I mean he doesn't you don't have to have the beautiful thing is to it doesn't have to have any kind of structure you don't have to have any time you do one for 15 minutes if you want people will listen to it you could do it for an hour know that that might be a little micro hits you know like little rambles for sure do it as long as you wanted it looked the like I said the beautiful thing about things like this is that there's no there's no real structure to it where you have to do something yeah yeah you just decide in a lot of ways that's that's the nature of climbing to where

99:10you never have to do anything you just find what inspires you you work towards that you do when you're excited about it yeah I'm totally into that kind of thing because it's actually that's I've always contrasted climbing from other mainstream sports like that because with climbing it's like the objective is always that you're always inspired by it you do it whenever you're ready yeah as opposed to having to perform on the right day at the right time you know it's like I love that lifestyle where he's like you know today is my day or today is not my day right like make it count if like leading up to you free soloing El Cap if there was sort of a documented audio journal in his trial money just go watch the film this is you're just wetting their appetite I mean it's a beautiful film it's fantastic but there's getting people like two or more stuff understand

99:55and it's it's entirely up to you what you want to share don't want to share and especially if you do it this way you don't have an executive producer you don't have directors with that I definitely can handle this too much just you just you just talking about stuff and your specific vision of the things that you'd like to talk about your specific message yeah that's one of the things that people really really enjoy about something like a podcast is that they know there's no one telling you what to say or what to do that you know here's the part sitting in his van you know drinking a cup of tea just with the iPhone talking mm-hmm it's hard to imagine people would find that understate tell them tons of people tell them people would be listening to it people I know I appreciate that but I'm slightly worried I'm gonna be I'm gonna miss my plane okay thank you very much

100:52thanks for being here really appreciated excellent yeah it's fun to chat again I remember the last time I was on the show is that it was a full experience for me one of the first times I've done anything like that and it was like it was pre mega I was like well have no idea what I'm doing this is so much and like now I feel so much more comfortable and fun to Chad you know I'm like it was Greg's awesome it's great it was really great days where I'm saying it feels like coming of age to come back and shout again yeah it's really not it's beautiful all right cool I appreciate it thanks Alex appreciate you yes when I remember last time