Alone on the Wall: Alex Honnold and the Ultimate Limits of Adventure by David Roberts, Alex Honnold Page B
Authors: David Roberts, Alex Honnold
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looking me square in the eyes and without apology.
“What do you mean? You forgot it back in camp?”
Before I finish my question, I know the answer.
“Uh, no. I mean I didn’t bring one on the trip.”
“Intentionally?”
“Sort of.”
But when Alex leads the terrifying, almost unprotected crux pitch of the long climb, before the two men settle in to bivouac on a suspended platform called a portaledge, Synnott hails the prodigy’s accomplishment.
Two hours later he reached the shelter of a small roof, 150 feet above me. It was, hands down, one of the best leads I’d ever witnessed. . . .
[Conrad] Anker was right. I was learning things from Honnold. . . . He brought something to the expedition none of us anticipated. Every jaw-dropping lunge, every inhuman pull, even every rookie mistake—it all rekindled the fire that we had back when we were his age. And it showed me, at least, that the fire was still there. Later, as we settled into our sleeping bags in the portaledge, Honnold needed to get something off his chest. “You know, I’m kind of feeling like a pansy,” he confessed. “How so?” I replied. “You just did the sickest lead I’ve ever seen.” “I know,” he replied, “but it scared me. I shouldn’t have gotten so scared.”
Conrad Anker was one of my first mentors. I’d always admired the guy, not only for his great climbs such as the Shark’s Fin on Meru Peak in the Garhwal Himalaya and his first ascents with Alex Lowe of wild-looking towers in Queen Maud Land in Antarctica, but also because of the way he lives his life. Conrad calls himself a Buddhist, and he constantly preaches and practices kindness to others and doing good for the planet. The school in the Khumbu Valley he started years ago to train Sherpas in technical climbing is a prime example of Conrad’s altruistic service to others.
And it was Conrad who convinced The North Face to sponsor me,which really improved my climbing opportunities. So even though I knew almost nothing about Borneo, I was psyched to be invited by Mark Synnott to go along on the Kinabalu expedition.
All six of us got along well during that trip, and it’s true that Mark and I hit it off from the start. But it was a really long expedition—a full month from April 2 to May 1, 2009. I was used to getting things done a lot faster—one-day ascents of big walls in the Valley, for instance. There were times during the trip when our sluggish progress nearly drove me crazy. After five days in Low’s Gully, we’d gotten nowhere on the wall. I kept saying to myself
, Why is this taking so long?
The “quirky little things” that got between Mark and me had as much to do with our difference in age as with our climbing styles. Like when Mark tried to take apart my rack—that just sent me off the deep end. I liked to think I knew how to handle my own cams and biners.
As for skipping pieces rather than building up rope drag, I do that all the time. It just depends on whether the terrain is dangerous or not. And Mark’s I-told-you-so about the stoppers isn’t the way I remember it. On the whole route, I doubt that I placed a single nut, because the wall was one pitch after another of overhanging granite. He was just too old-school for my taste.
For instance, Mark led one pitch of pure choss—crumbly rock, loose holds everywhere. It was about 5.7, but Mark aided it. He even drilled a bolt. He took forever to lead the pitch. I said to him, “Dude, it’s just five-seven. Why don’t you just climb it? It’s not really dangerous if you tread lightly.” But he was going, “Oh, man, this is really sketchy!” Once he got his anchor in, I toproped the pitch in about three and a half minutes.
Mark later took me to task for an awkward moment when he wanted Jimmy Chin to shoot some film in which I would talk about what it was like to have Conrad as a mentor. I balked. Markthought this meant that I wasn’t open to being taught by my teammates. But
“What do you mean? You forgot it back in camp?”
Before I finish my question, I know the answer.
“Uh, no. I mean I didn’t bring one on the trip.”
“Intentionally?”
“Sort of.”
But when Alex leads the terrifying, almost unprotected crux pitch of the long climb, before the two men settle in to bivouac on a suspended platform called a portaledge, Synnott hails the prodigy’s accomplishment.
Two hours later he reached the shelter of a small roof, 150 feet above me. It was, hands down, one of the best leads I’d ever witnessed. . . .
[Conrad] Anker was right. I was learning things from Honnold. . . . He brought something to the expedition none of us anticipated. Every jaw-dropping lunge, every inhuman pull, even every rookie mistake—it all rekindled the fire that we had back when we were his age. And it showed me, at least, that the fire was still there. Later, as we settled into our sleeping bags in the portaledge, Honnold needed to get something off his chest. “You know, I’m kind of feeling like a pansy,” he confessed. “How so?” I replied. “You just did the sickest lead I’ve ever seen.” “I know,” he replied, “but it scared me. I shouldn’t have gotten so scared.”
Conrad Anker was one of my first mentors. I’d always admired the guy, not only for his great climbs such as the Shark’s Fin on Meru Peak in the Garhwal Himalaya and his first ascents with Alex Lowe of wild-looking towers in Queen Maud Land in Antarctica, but also because of the way he lives his life. Conrad calls himself a Buddhist, and he constantly preaches and practices kindness to others and doing good for the planet. The school in the Khumbu Valley he started years ago to train Sherpas in technical climbing is a prime example of Conrad’s altruistic service to others.
And it was Conrad who convinced The North Face to sponsor me,which really improved my climbing opportunities. So even though I knew almost nothing about Borneo, I was psyched to be invited by Mark Synnott to go along on the Kinabalu expedition.
All six of us got along well during that trip, and it’s true that Mark and I hit it off from the start. But it was a really long expedition—a full month from April 2 to May 1, 2009. I was used to getting things done a lot faster—one-day ascents of big walls in the Valley, for instance. There were times during the trip when our sluggish progress nearly drove me crazy. After five days in Low’s Gully, we’d gotten nowhere on the wall. I kept saying to myself
, Why is this taking so long?
The “quirky little things” that got between Mark and me had as much to do with our difference in age as with our climbing styles. Like when Mark tried to take apart my rack—that just sent me off the deep end. I liked to think I knew how to handle my own cams and biners.
As for skipping pieces rather than building up rope drag, I do that all the time. It just depends on whether the terrain is dangerous or not. And Mark’s I-told-you-so about the stoppers isn’t the way I remember it. On the whole route, I doubt that I placed a single nut, because the wall was one pitch after another of overhanging granite. He was just too old-school for my taste.
For instance, Mark led one pitch of pure choss—crumbly rock, loose holds everywhere. It was about 5.7, but Mark aided it. He even drilled a bolt. He took forever to lead the pitch. I said to him, “Dude, it’s just five-seven. Why don’t you just climb it? It’s not really dangerous if you tread lightly.” But he was going, “Oh, man, this is really sketchy!” Once he got his anchor in, I toproped the pitch in about three and a half minutes.
Mark later took me to task for an awkward moment when he wanted Jimmy Chin to shoot some film in which I would talk about what it was like to have Conrad as a mentor. I balked. Markthought this meant that I wasn’t open to being taught by my teammates. But
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