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4.02 AVERAGE
4.02 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Purity, ethics, risk in climbing - drilling bolts only by hand, by lead climber? John Bachar. Only climbed from the ground up. Eventual outcast - climbing ethics before friendship
European sport climbing - power drilling
bolts in. Opened new climbs, rapid growth in popularity
6 month campaign in 1851 for whites to wipe out Native American population in Yosemite valley after they find it.
Over the next few years, Ahwahneechee survivors trickled back into the valley, including Tenaya, who was allowed to leave the reservation. (The US Senate never ratified the treaty that Tenaya had signed.) By 1860, hotels had sprung up and tourists began to outnumber the natives. The hotel owners hired the Ahwahneechee to pose for photos with their guests. But they asked them to dress like Plains Indians, in tasseled buckskins and feathered head-dresses, because this better fit the stereotype of what an American Indian should look like.
THERE WAS ONE LAST LOOSE end to take care of before we packed up camp and headed home— exit interviews. Jimmy and Renan had shot hours of video, and Conrad, Kevin, and I had given them plenty of material with which to develop the theme of young and old. We all said basically the same thing: It had been motivating to climb with a young gun like Alex Honnold. Every jaw-dropping lunge, every inhuman pull-even every rookie mistake-had served as a potent reminder that the fire that we saw inside Alex still burned inside us, too.
But for this theme to work, Alex had to acknowledge that he had actually learned something from the silverbacks.
"So?" asked Jimmy, as the cameras rolled
Alex, sitting atop a boulder on the outskirts of camp, stared back at him blankly.
"Alex, come on. Conrad is one of the most accomplished all-around climbers in the world. He's been on more than forty expeditions. Can you honestly say you haven't learned anything from him?"
"But he's not really a climber," replied Alex. In his narrow view of the sport, which he was now revealing for the first time, if you couldn't climb 5.14, what you did in the mountains was some weird type of adventure hiking. And he wouldn' pretend to be impressed by it. He would later say that he d felt like jimmy had teed him up and then said, "Okay, now dance, monkey?"
"Who the fuck does this guy think he is?" said Jimmy after Alex had left camp. "I was so incredibly respectful of my elders when I first came on the scene."
"Yeah, me too," I replied. "I still am."
"Well, I can tell you one thing," said Jimmy as he packed away his camera. "I'm never working with him again." Alex ended up hiking down alone. Jimmy and I hiked down together, talking about Alex most of the way down. The guy was a cocky, elitist son of a bitch, and his failure to acknowledge that he might have learned something from the silverbacks was downright offensive. But then why did we still like the guy? Alex's smugness, his condescension, the way he would look at you while you were cutting him down to size and just smile— it was lovable. You knew he was thinking, Dude, don't you realize what a fucking badass I am? Do you realize how foolish you sound, trying to tell me what's what? In most people, this attitude would be insufferable, but in Alex it was somehow endearing, probably because he could actually back it up. Compared to the false modesty so common in climbing, his brashness was refreshing. He wore his ego right on his shirtsleeve like the logo of one of his sponsors.
A few minutes from the trailhead we came upon Alex sitting by the side of the trail. He had left camp an hour before us and he's a fast hiker, so he must have been waiting for a long time. "I've been thinking," he said. "You guys want to do another quick interview?" I left Jimmy to do his thing, knowing that Alex wouldn't want an audience while he was saying nice things about us.
THIS wASN't THe fiRST time the world had waited on the edge of its seat to see if climbers would succeed on the Dawn Wall. A similar scene had played out forty-five years earlier. Back then they called it the Wall of Early Morning Light, and its first ascent in 1970 (accomplished with the conventional aid-climbing techniques of the time), by Warren Harding and Dean Caldwell (no relation to Tommy), marked the culmination of the greatest rivalry in the history of the sport.
The 1950s, a period known as Yosemite's golden age, saw the first ascents of the valley's grandest formations. Rock climbs of this magnitude, what came to be called big walls, were so tall that a climber would have to sleep on the side of the cliff on the way up.
And since no one had ever attempted to climb cliffs of this magni-tude, those who would pit themselves against these monoliths had to invent the sport along the way. Of the handful of climbers who were most active during this period, there were two men-Royal Robbins and Warren Harding-who, by the nature of their diametrically opposed personalities, would come to represent the yin and yang of the golden age.
Robbins was a serious man, a Berkeley intellectual who carried around leather-bound notebooks to record ideas stirred by the heady books he always seemed to be reading. He kept his hair in a military-style crew cut, was usually clean-shaven, and wore tortoiseshell eyeglasses. He was tall and powerful, with an athletic build and a commanding, almost imperious presence. A gifted free climber, he established the country's first 5.9-rated route in 1952— Open Book-at a crag called Tahquitz in Southern California, when he was only seventeen.
Robbins was a purist. For him it was not about getting to the top of the mountain; it was about the style in which he got there.
He espoused a minimalist ethic: a climber should leave as small a footprint as possible. It was a standard to which he held not only himself and his partners but all climbers. At the time he came of age, cracks were being permanently scarred through the use of pitons, which chewed away holes in the rock as they were repeatedly hammered in and out. Climbing needed rules if the diffs were to be preserved for future generations, and as the sport's leading light, Robbins felt it was his obligation to make sure people knew what those rules were.
Harding was, in every respect, the polar opposite, a wild man who oozed charisma and had a ribald sense of humor. He drove fast cars, boozed with abandon, and was often in the company of beautiful women. His eyes seemed to be eternally twinkling with the knowledge of some diabolical plan in the offing. Short and wiry, with a high-pitched voice, he wore his hair long and often slicked with Brylcreem. He rarely shaved. His friends called him Batso, a nickname he garnered because he seemed to spend most of his time hanging upside down.
For Harding, climbing was anarchy. Anyone who didn't like the way he did things could go to hell. He called Robbins and his followers the "Valley Christians." And to counterbalance their vir-tuousity, he founded the Lower Sierra Eating, Drinking, and Farc-ing Society (LSED&FS), which was dedicated to gluttony and sloth. Their motto was "Semper Farcisimus." I once attended one of their parties—-a celebration of Batso's seventieth birthday— which took place at a remote, obscure climbing area on the east side of the Sierra. I remember Warren, with stains of red wine all down his white T-shirt, staggering toward his tent shortly after dark. Later that night, after his cronies warned us several times to quiet down so they could sleep, they attacked us. One of my friends got beaten up by an old guy with a shovel.
Dean Potter - rival free soloist, moves into free BASE climbing, then wingsuit/human flight. Misjudges rocky outcrop, 100mph crash into rock face. Body parts scattered everywhere
IN THE FINAL ANALYSIS, what may be most remarkable about Alex is that he is both a "super sensation seeker" and, at the same time, an individual with an unusually high degree of emotional regulation. These two traits are often antithetical, but the fact that they coexist within Alex may have a lot to do with his ability to tread so close to the edge.
What concerns Joseph is that a high-sensation seeker like Alex may find that he constantly needs to up the ante, to bring himself ever closer to the edge of his limits in order to get that hit of dope-mine his brain is accustomed to getting. Evidently, her test wasn't tuned high enough for Alex's nucleus accumbens to fire—-perhaps not even close—but it's fair to assume that Alex is a reward-driven individual. As MacKinnon points out, everybody climbs for the reward. Why else would we do it if not for some psychological payback? The problem with getting caught up in an endless game of one-upmanship, even if it's just with oneself, is that it can lead to addiction and other pathological, self-destructive behaviors. In her lab, Joseph sees this most often with drug users and gamblers. but it's easy to imagine how it could happen to a free soloist.
Alex had survived because he tempered his drive to explore his limits with sober premeditation, diligence, and patience. If he didn't have control of his impulses, he might have gone for El Capitan without a rope years ago. Joseph didn't know about Alexs secret plan (neither did MacKinnon, although he had his susp cions), but she did have a parting word of advice for Alex: "Don't let the impulsivity win out over the conscientiousness."
For a brief moment, I thought Alex was about to give me some kudos for making it as far as I did.
"This is like when they let a normal guy into the pool in the Olympics," said Alex.
All I could do was laugh. "You really can be a dick sometimes," I replied. "I thought I was doing well."
"Well, for a middle-aged father of four, you're doing great."
An intriguing book, far more broadly ranging than its pitch suggests. While this is partially Alex Honnold's story, it is more prominently the story of Mark Synnott, his climbing career, and his relationship with Alex Honnold. (Synnott would say his friendship with Honnold, although there's a weird tension there sometimes and I'm not at all sure Honnold would reciprocate. At times Synnott comes across as a hanger-on, although that's unfair/unkind given Synnott's own legit climbing bonafides.) There's plenty of climbing history and stories about other contemporary climbers as well. It's a bit of a hodgepodge, and can be a little hard to follow all the jumbled timelines and geographical movements.
The central story - Honnold's free solo of El Capitán - is really interesting. I haven't seen [I]Free Solo[/I] yet but I'm really looking forward to it. The rest of the book is a bit mixed, as some stories are stronger than others, but ultimately an absorbing read.
The central story - Honnold's free solo of El Capitán - is really interesting. I haven't seen [I]Free Solo[/I] yet but I'm really looking forward to it. The rest of the book is a bit mixed, as some stories are stronger than others, but ultimately an absorbing read.
adventurous
hopeful
reflective
tense
slow-paced
If I believed in half stars, I would give this a 4.5. It was really good, but not mind-blowing amazing, probably because I had read Alex's book and seen Jimmy's movie before finally picking this one up. I really really liked how this book talked a lot about the history of climbing and how everything coalesced to allow Alex to do this climb in this place at this time. I'm definitely interested in reading more about the history of climbing and some of the early greats in Yosemite. I was very happy that this book was about so much more than just the free solo of the Dawn Wall, and I think that really sells the book, especially to anyone who isn't in the climbing community but likes an adventurous story.
basically every climber is an asshole, and this is just a bunch of mega-assholes who are really really good at climbing.
nothing but love for alex honnold and his massive eyes. also angst soloing ?? i’m so in love with him
nothing but love for alex honnold and his massive eyes. also angst soloing ?? i’m so in love with him
adventurous
inspiring
medium-paced
adventurous
emotional
informative
inspiring
tense
medium-paced
Excellent read. The criticism the author deviates from Honnold’s story a fair bit to talk about his own adventures is valid, but these are just as interesting and exciting as Honnold’s epic feat.
adventurous
inspiring
medium-paced
adventurous
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced