Over the weekend, Alex Honnold, 31, became the first person to ever free solo Yosemite’s 3,000-foot El Capitan wall. That means his did the three hour, 56-minute climb without rope or any other safety equipment.
So, how did he spend the night before the most difficult climb of his life? He slept in his van, according to National Geographic. Prior to that, he did a little bouldering to break in his new shoes, hiked with his mom and her friends, and finally turned on a movie to wind down.
His mom, by the way, had no idea what he was up to the next day.
“I haven’t talked to her yet,” he told National Geographic immediately after the surreal climb. “I don’t even think she knows what this whole project is about, you know? I feel weird about it. I’ll call her in a bit. Though I don’t even know what to tell her. ‘Hey, by the way…’ She might think I’d already done it. She’s really bad at differentiating between free climbing and free soloing.”
Honnold spent more than a year training in secret for his history-making climb in different climbing locations across the globe.
So, who is the man behind the strong fingers and toes? 60 Minutes did a segment on him when he was 26 years old to find out what, other than heights, makes him tick.
