The Impossible Climb

by Mark Synnott

  “I started to climb and it seemed that everything was working against me,” recounts Barber in his autobiography. “I felt the cameras and all of America watching me. . . . I just kept thinking, Man, this is not where I want to be.”

  The climb quickly turned into a desperate battle. After lay-backing through the crux sixty feet up, Barber realized he couldn’t reverse the moves he had just done, and, worse, that he no longer had the heart for what he was doing. In the film, which aired on ABC’s American Sportsmen, you can see Barber shudder as he tries for a move, then backs off, realizing he doesn’t have it. He looks tight. His characteristic flow on the rock is gone. A friend of Barber’s who was at the base of the cliff became so unnerved that she had to leave. He considered calling for one of the cameramen to drop him a rope, but he knew that if he did, it would ruin the film. Why am I doing this? Barber asked himself. Is this for my ego or so someone can make a successful film, or am I doing this for myself?

  When he finally topped out into a grassy meadow an hour and half after setting off, a different cameraman asked him to climb back down so he could film him topping out a second time. Barber obliged, but he now had tears in his eyes. When they finally turned off the cameras, he took off his shoes and threw them as far as he could. “I was beaten,” he recounts in the book. “I wouldn’t do anything like it again.”

  * * *

  —

  DIFFERENT TIME, different circumstances. Same conundrum. With the inherent pressure to make a good film, how does the free soloist venture right up to the boundary of his limits, when there is zero margin for overconfidence? When I was Alex’s age, we called it “Kodak courage”—the tendency for people to push beyond their limits when performing for the camera. Nowadays, in a world where fatal wingsuit accidents are captured by blinking, helmet-mounted GoPros, we might more aptly call it “GoPro bravado.” Even more insidious is the way social media has made it possible for people to feel pressure to perform, even when they’re alone. “Engaging in risky behavior so that others will notice us is not a new concept that has only emerged with this generation,” says Jerry Isaak, an associate professor of expeditionary studies at SUNY Plattsburgh. “What is new, however, is the nearly constant ‘virtual presence’ of the others we are trying to impress. With the development of social media and related technology, ‘other people nearby’ has been simultaneously expanded to a potentially worldwide audience and shrunk to the size and portability of a smartphone.”

  Some people thrive under the pressure of knowing their every move is being recorded for posterity, but there are others—and I think Alex Honnold and Henry Barber are in this category—who don’t feel comfortable performing in front of a camera, at least not when they’re operating near their limit. In these situations, rather than fomenting bravado, the camera creates feelings of stress and anxiety.

  In 2014, while filming a commercial with Jimmy Chin in Yosemite, Alex was on his second solo lap on Heaven, the route Dean Potter first soloed in 2006 (in 2011, Alex had one-upped Potter, again, by “flashing” the route free solo). A few feet below the top, Alex made a long reach with his right hand, which he tried to fish into a fist jam. But he couldn’t quite find the sweet spot, so he dropped back to the sloping shelf, where he dangled by his outstretched arms thousands of feet above the valley floor. Three more times he tried the move, each time coming up a little shorter. My old friend from Crazy Kids, Rob Frost, was assisting Jimmy that day, and he says he could see Alex battling to hold it together. A few seconds later, Alex called for a rope. Jimmy and Rob were too far away to assist, but luckily there were two other cameramen operating a crane a few feet above Alex. They lowered him a line, and Alex used it to pull himself over the lip. He would later admit that “technically” he was rescued, but he was quick to qualify it, saying that if he was alone, he would have just chalked up a bunch and gone for it—and he’s confident he would have stuck it. He also says he never would have found himself in that position to begin with if he hadn’t been performing for the cameras.

  Snapping back to the present, I turned to Alex. “What about Astroman? How did that go?”

  “I haven’t been on it in seven years, and it felt hard,” he said. “I almost fell on the Boulder Problem.”

  “What? You seriously almost fell?”

  “Yeah. I got three moves in and my foot slipped, and I kind of sketched. So I downclimbed to the ledge, regrouped, and then I went for it. The move getting into the Harding Slot was really hard. I was like, ‘Oh boy, it’s game on.’ I did the route in an hour thirteen, which was probably the speed record.”

  I looked around to see if anyone else was listening. They weren’t. I had the feeling Alex hadn’t told anyone else about this close call. The Boulder Problem (not to be confused with the section of the same on Freerider) is the technical crux of Astroman, a very thin crack at the start of pitch 3. It’s rated 5.11c, a grade and a half easier than the Boulder Problem on Freerider. A fall on either would mean the same thing. The only difference was how long you’d be in the air before the lights went out.

  * * *

  —

  AFTER DINNER, Croft, Gwin, and I headed back to my cabin. We opened a bottle of wine Croft had in his milk crate of provisions, and the three of us slumped on the couch.

  “Did Alex tell you he almost fell on the Boulder Problem?” I asked Croft.

  “No,” he said, “I’m really sorry to hear that. I would love to hear him say he was rock solid. The hardest stuff I’ve done, I just felt locked in. But you know, it’s not that surprising. . . . [After the aborted attempt] he honestly looked like a caged animal. This whole movie thing just doesn’t add up in terms of putting Alex in the proper head space to get this done. It’s like one plus one equals three.”

  Croft took a sip of his wine, pursed his lips, and then started in on a story about the time he made the first free solo ascent of the Regular Route on the Rostrum. He was six hundred feet up the route when he arrived at a traverse across a steep face. It was the only section on the entire climb where he couldn’t firmly jam his hands and feet into a crack, and as such it meant stepping out of his comfort zone. As he hung from the last good jam, psyching himself up for the move, he noticed an old piton off to his right with a sling tied through its eye. Croft reached over and moved the sling over to the left, so that it would be closer to his hands when he made the move. If he slipped, he might be able to grab it as he was falling off the mountain.

  “As I was finishing off the last pitches, I knew I’d screwed up,” he told us. “I figured, well, maybe I’m just being weird. But the longer I waited the worse it got.” The next day, he went back and did it again, and in that same spot, he grabbed the sling again, but this time he pushed it around a corner, so there was no possible way he could grab it. “It sounds stupid,” he went on, “but it seemed really important to me at the time, like I had to do it the right way.”

  “What year was that?” asked Gwin.

  “I don’t know. I’m really bad with numbers. Some people like Hans Florine know exactly how many times they’ve climbed the Nose, but I have no clue how many times I’ve climbed El Cap. I don’t even know what year I started climbing.”

  We all had a good laugh at Croft’s expense. “That was kind of classic the other day when Alex asked if you thought it was lame that he has a movie crew,” I said. “He really looks up to you, and I think your response kind of threw him for a loop.”

  “I wasn’t trying to be ethically pure or anything like that,” said Croft, “I just always wanted the experience to be all mine, to drink it all in completely. I didn’t want any distractions. I always felt self-conscious when there were cameras around, and you want all your focus to be on what you’re doing. I always felt like even if nobody ever found out about what I was doing, it was still the coolest thing I could imagine. And it’s really important that you’re doing it for the right reasons.”

 
; “Do you remember a long time ago when you were on that panel about free soloing with Alex at the Banff Film Festival?” I asked. “You and I were hanging out in Red Rocks a few months later, and you told me that he was kind of acting a bit arrogant. I remember him back then, and it seemed like he often intentionally tried to make people feel uncomfortable.”

  “It might have been a certain amount of insecurity,” replied Croft. “It was kind of like he thought that being arrogant was cool. Or maybe he was trying to get a reaction because he didn’t want to have another boring conversation. He was still fun to be around, but every once in a while he’d say something, and I’d look at him and be like, ‘You need to get a little more real, Alex.’ He reminded me of Spock in Star Trek, like he was part Vulcan. ‘Well that’s not logical,’” said Croft, impersonating Leonard Nimoy. “But the way he’s evolved, he’s become more human. I look up to the guy, for sure. I’ve got a ton of respect for him. He’s kind of a hero now.”

  * * *

  —

  IT WAS MONDAY OF THANKSGIVING WEEK, and the sky was covered in gray canvas. A cold misting rain drizzled out of the sky. When I got to the base of Cookie Cliff, Alex and Sanni were mini-tracking a classic hand crack called Outer Limits. Sanni was about twenty feet off the deck, with Alex attached to the rope a few feet below her. “You’re too close,” she screeched.

  “We’re fine,” replied Alex calmly.

  “It’s not fine,” snapped Sanni. “I’m about to fall, and if I land on you, you’re gonna say that I ruined your season.” The way she phrased it made me think this was a topic they had covered before.

  “Is it safe to have just one device?” she called down to me. Her voice was cracking, and she appeared to be on the verge of tears.

  “Personally, I always use two,” I told her. “It’s possible, though Alex doesn’t believe it, for the ratchet to disengage if you push against it in the wrong way.”

  “You told me about that in Morocco,” said Alex, hanging from a hand jam, “but I tested it a bit afterwards, and if you actually fall, the rope sliding through the device always causes the cam to engage.”

  Arguing with Alex on points like this can be enjoyable, but I figured this wasn’t the time or the place. So I didn’t say: Sure, but is the cam on the Mini Traxion strong enough to hold a shock load? Personally, I wouldn’t want to bet my life on it.

  “I’m not into this,” said Sanni. A few minutes later she and Alex rappelled to the ground. Most of the climbs were wet, so I put Alex on belay and he set off up an overhanging bolted route called Cookie Monster, rated 5.12a. Alex belayed me while I took a burn on toprope; then I handed the rope to Sanni and moved over to mini-track Outer Limits.

  I was halfway up when I heard Alex say, “I think I’m going to do Cookie Monster again.”

  “Okay,” replied Sanni, “lead or toprope?”

  “By my onesie.”

  From my perch ninety feet above the ground, I enjoyed a bird’s-eye view of the climb. Alex flowed up the rock, but he stopped every few moves, let go with one arm, and opened his hand, which suggested that lactic acid was building up in his forearms. At the top, he hung from the final jug hold with his right hand and brushed the back of his left against the chains hanging from the anchor bolts—the apparatus that every other climber who had ever done Cookie Monster used to lower off. It reminded me of a kid ringing the bell after climbing the greased pole at the fair—a tiny reveal of what it meant for Alex Honnold to free solo a route properly. Then he dropped back on his arms, downclimbed a few feet, and traversed across an overhanging face onto an adjacent route called Twilight Zone. He was back on the ground less than ten minutes after he set off.

  “Do you think anyone has ever soloed Cookie Monster before?” he asked me.

  “I doubt it. Will that go in your black book?”

  “Yeah, definitely. Not necessarily tonight, but I get everything recorded every two or three days.”

  We didn’t realize it at the time, but at that very moment, Adam Ondra was topping out on the Dawn Wall, eight days after he had set off from the base. The world’s best sport climber had spent about a month working the route and then redpointing it. Ondra had indeed one-upped Caldwell and Jorgeson, and the climbing press would hype this fact to no end. But Ondra could never have done what he did if Caldwell and Jorgeson had not spent years unlocking the secrets of the route. In the press coverage that followed, I was annoyed that this simple fact was not emphasized. Many of the reports didn’t even mention it.

  Ondra’s timing was impeccable. The extended forecast called for rain and snow, off and on, for the next two weeks. I’d seen the season shut down like this before in November. “This was supposed to be the one good day this week,” commented Alex as we sat on a sloped boulder at the base of Cookie Monster and watched the drizzle build into steady rain. “It’s just gross. I think Sanni and I are going to bail. I’m pretty burnt. It’s time to head south and hang in the sun.”

  “Where will you go?” I asked.

  “Sanni has some relatives in San Diego, so we’ll head there for Thanksgiving. We might come back in like ten days if the weather improves, but probably not.”

  “It does seem like the season is over,” I said.

  “Will you come back in the spring?” Alex asked.

  “I will if you’ll have me.”

  “Yeah, of course. You were low-key, and it was good to hang.”

  “We’ll miss hanging out with you,” said Sanni, giving me a warm hug.

  * * *

  —

  I WAS ON THE ROAD the next morning at five A.M., en route to Fresno, where I planned to catch a flight home. On my way out of Foresta, I stopped at the Dumpsters to drop off my trash. The temperature was below freezing. A brisk wind gave the air a bite I felt on the end of my nose. The sky was filled with twinkling stars, reminding me of the night one week earlier when Alex had set off up Freerider. For some reason, the nip in the air brought me back to some of the inhospitable places climbing had taken me over the years. Type-two fun, as someone had once described it—god-awful while it’s happening, sublime when it’s over. In a strange way, it felt like that to be heading home. A sense of relief that it was over, that Alex was still alive, but also, a tinge of disappointment. A part of me didn’t want to return to the humdrum of normal, everyday life.

  When my plane took off from Fresno, Alex was sitting in El Cap Meadow, staring up at Freerider with one of his black books in his lap. He was reminding himself of everything he had learned about Freerider over the past two months—the tiny ripple on pitch 5 that gave him something to balance his hand on while he rocked over the sketchy foot; the way the karate kick at the end of the Boulder Problem felt slightly better when he sagged his hips before throwing it; the importance of getting the perfect pair of shoes—not too tight and not too loose. But most of all, he thought about how there weren’t any showstopper moves. His dream was doable.

  It just had to be the right day.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Fun

  It was hot and stuffy in the van, but Alex didn’t seem bothered. He sat sideways in the rear-facing passenger seat, his left leg propped on the driver’s-side seat back. His size 12½ foot hung in the air, toes splayed, like a giant eagle talon. Considering the millions of feet of rock the guy has climbed in his life, and that his go-to climbing shoe size is 8½, his toes appeared surprisingly ungnarled—apart from the grape-size corn on his big toe.

  I perched on his bed, feet dangling above the floor, admiring some photos pinned high on the wall above the galley. “Sanni printed those out and put them up over the winter,” said Alex. One of them was a shot I recognized, a silhouette of Alex clinging to a wall high above the Gulf of Oman as the sun set over the Musandam Peninsula.

  A college-ruled composition book with a geometric pattern of black and white triangles on its cover sat on the countertop
to my left. A random name—Cody Quackenbush—was handwritten on its front. I later found out that Cody was a student of Alex’s mom’s at American River College. I wondered if Cody knew that Alex Honnold was using his notebook for his list of things to do before free soloing El Capitan.

  “There’s no ventilation in here, huh?” I said.

  “Naw,” said Alex. “If I open the door or a window the van will get filled with mosquitoes, and they’ll keep me up all night buzzing around my head. That’s a total rookie maneuver.”

  The door was sealed tight, and the windows were filled with pieces of foil-backed foam. It was dusk, and hardly any light leaked in through the chinks. I could see why Alex calls it “the box.” The air felt heavy.

  I hadn’t seen Alex since that day in November when we parted ways at the Cookie Cliff. Over the winter, we had spoken a few times by phone, and in early March he texted me that he was buying a three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath house in a subdivision on the outskirts of Las Vegas. He said he wanted to diversify his investments and his financial adviser told him he would save a lot of money in taxes if he shifted his residence from California to Nevada. It would also give him and Sanni a home base and allow him to finally have his mail sent somewhere other than to his mother. I called him shortly after he closed on the sale to get a tour via FaceTime. Alex walked me through the house, which was bright and airy, with a lofted walkway on the second story, hardwood floors, and a small yard. But it was completely empty. Alex said Sanni was in charge of finding the furniture and appliances and that he had spent a lot of time over the past week trying to sort out homeowners insurance. I found it hard to picture him feeling at home in such a place, and indeed Alex was still living in the van, in the driveway. He said he was in no rush to move indoors.