Alone on the Wall: Alex Honnold and the Ultimate Limits of Adventure

by Alex Honnold

  In 2008, Freddie Wilkinson, who would be my partner five years later in the Ruth Gorge, and Dana Drummond completed the first half of the traverse, linking Guillaumet, Mermoz, Val Biois, and Fitz Roy, but then rapping off Fitz Roy and hiking out. They called their half-traverse the Care Bear Traverse, because they were stuck in the clouds so much of the time that they started joking with each other, “I bet all those other climbers are thinking, ‘Those stupid Americans are up in the clouds!’” (In the children’s cartoon series Care Bears, the ursine heroes live in lairs among the clouds.)

  Freddie and Dana took three days for the traverse, with two exposed bivouacs. The Care Bear was repeated numerous times after 2008, but nobody had gotten beyond Fitz Roy. The problem for all those teams was that because the second guy did so much jugging, by the time they got up Fitz Roy their ropes were pretty core-shot from rubbing against the rock.

  Tommy and I arrived in El Chaltén, the gateway town to climbing in the Fitz Roy region, on February 1, 2014. For the first nine days, the weather on the peaks was horrendous, so we climbed down low, bouldering and doing sport climbs on small crags. There’s a ton of good climbing all around El Chaltén. Sweet! I thought. I’m gonna get strong! But I also thought, Wow, these peaks are so intimidating, I’m not sure I’d really mind if the weather never gets good.

  We climbed every day, and ate out every night in El Chaltén. It was a pretty nice lifestyle.

  CALDWELL WOULD LATER WRITE about the Patagonia adventure for Alpinist in the winter 2014 issue. In his thoughtful piece, he talked about how much harder it was to climb with all-out commitment once he had become a father. “I’d had this Romantic idea,” he wrote, “of pulling my family into my life of constant travel. So they followed me from Colorado to Argentina. Then, after two blissful weeks together in El Chaltén, the wind had calmed, and I’d packed.”

  Saying good-bye to Becca as he headed for the Fitz Traverse, Tommy minimized the danger. “Don’t worry, baby, we’ll be careful,” he told her. “It’s just a rock climb.”

  But privately, “I remembered that I wanted nothing more than to live to be an old man.”

  In the same essay, Tommy recalled meeting up with Alex in the Valley in the spring of 2012 and being taken aback by his nonchalance. “Anyone could daisy-solo the Regular Route of Half Dome,” Alex claimed. “It’s not that big of a deal. . . . You know you’re not going to fall on 5.11.”

  Drawn to Alex by his skill and amiability, Tommy puzzled over his friend’s almost blasé attitude about risk.

  How could Alex talk about his climbs in such a cavalier way? . . . [H]e described free solos of routes like the Regular Northwest Face of Half Dome as if they were nothing more than particularly scenic hikes. His conversation never drifted to places of death, love or even innate beauty. It’s as if he thinks everything is either badass or boring, I thought. That’s probably part of the reason he is so good at what he does. I found Alex’s apparent indifference toward risk both exciting and terrifying. In an age of technology, he reminded me of a lost instinct. A hunter, a warrior.

  Whatever Tommy’s doubts, he soon realized that he and Alex made a superb two-man team. On their Triple Crown linkup in 2012, in the middle of the night on Freerider on El Cap, Alex had been deeply impressed by Tommy’s stemming a pitch in the dark that he normally would have liebacked. But Tommy was equally impressed by Alex’s nerve and aplomb.

  He rarely stopped to place gear, only a few pieces per pitch. Somehow, that boldness, that confidence that he wouldn’t fall, was contagious. . . .

  Tied to the upper end of the rope, Alex was simul-climbing out of sight and earshot. Above me, the cord arched past a dark off-width—clipped to nothing. My arms quivered with fatigue; my head pounded with dehydration. I hoped to God that he had some gear in. Best not to think too much about it.

  Even while they simul-climbed at a nearly perfect level together, Tommy and Alex engaged in a friendly debate about free soloing, with Tommy voicing his doubts. As Tommy would later comment, “Alex is as solid as anybody I’ve ever met on technical rock. But I worry about him. I’ve never tried to talk him out of free soloing—I just express my doubts. But he’ll turn around and try to talk me into free soloing.

  “We climbed Velvet Tongue at Red Rocks together, roped. Leading the 5.12+ crux, Alex slipped. But he hung on by one finger. Anybody else would have fallen off. I said, ‘Wow, that was impressive!’ But of course I was thinking, What if he were soloing when that happened?”

  In the Alpinist piece, Caldwell explains how completing the Triple Crown with Alex gave him the idea for teaming up to attempt the Fitz Traverse. On the summit of Half Dome, after climbing some eighty pitches in twenty-one hours,

  I’d expected the trifecta to be a test of human will and endurance. I’d wanted to see that place of survival again, where we’re reminded that human capabilities are nearly limitless and that our world still contains mysteries. But Alex was just too good. The big walls seemed to shrink to only half their size. . . . I wondered what we would be able to climb if we took these techniques to Patagonia, where the big storms and bigger mountains made fast and light climbing a necessity—rather than merely a cool trick.

  When the weather finally cleared on February 12, with a forecast of a good window during the next few days, Tommy and I headed up. The big advantage we thought we had over previous parties that had tried the Fitz Traverse was that instead of having the second jug every pitch, we’d simul-climb almost everything. That ought to mean less wear and tear on our rope.

  Just as we had on the Triple in Yosemite, we each led huge blocks at a time, upwards of 800 feet. Part of what makes climbing with Tommy so great is that we can lead interchangeably, though on this traverse he would get all the ice and mixed pitches, since he had vastly more experience with that terrain. We got up the first tower, Aguja Guillaumet, in only two very long pitches, taking a mere two and a half hours to climb the thousand feet of the Brenner-Moschioni route.

  It turns out that Rolo—Rolando Garibotti—and Colin Haley were trying the Fitz Traverse at the same time we were. Rolo’s the man when it comes to Patagonia—not only its tireless chronicler, but the guy who’s put up more routes on more different peaks than anyone else. He’s also become a kind of steward of the range, improving trails and assembling route guides. We met up with that pair on the summit of Guillaumet, since they’d climbed a different route. Rolo had had hip surgery the previous year, and now his hip was really bothering him, so, reluctantly, they abandoned their effort. Rolo was kind enough to lend me his aluminum strap-on crampons, which would turn out to be extremely helpful for the traverse.

  We went really light, figuring speed would mean safety. Our rack was seventeen cams, a handful of nuts, and fourteen slings. No pitons. We were counting on finding fixed anchors and even fixed gear along the way, to supplement the pro we’d place as we led. The real question mark was whether we could find the rappel anchors left by other parties, so we could rap most of the big descents from each tower as we moved along the ridgeline.

  We had one sixty-meter climbing rope, and a skinny eighty-meter tag line—a rope to use not for leading but for rappels. By tying the tag line and the lead rope together end to end, and feeding it through the anchor sling, we could make a rappel on the doubled rope as long as sixty meters, then pull the ropes down to use on the next rappel. For the ice, only one ice screw and a single ice tool—a Black Diamond Cobra, a short metal axe with a curved shaft and a sharp, notched pick.

  We did most of the climbing in approach shoes, or tennies, as we call them. Rock shoes only for the hardest pitches. No mountain boots. We strapped our crampons onto our tennies, which doesn’t make for the most stable configuration, because the soles and edges of the shoes are too soft and flexible.

  One sleeping bag between us, and one big puffy (down jacket). A stove and three gas canisters. We originally planned not to bring a tent, but on one of our “training” days during the bad weather, we’d spent the n
ight in our Black Diamond First Light tent and realized how comfortable it was. It’s a pretty amazing shelter, because it weighs only one pound. At the last minute, we decided to take it. It turned out to be a godsend.

  We were determined to go light enough that all our gear, stove, fuel, and food could fit into one fifteen-pound pack (for the leader) and one twenty-five-pound pack (for the second). For a multiday alpine traverse, that’s pretty frickin’ light!

  Afterward, some clueless journalist asked us if we’d had a film crew along. As if! But Tommy had been given a very light camera, so we tried to take video clips of each other as we moved along the traverse—footage that might eventually be spliced together into a film documenting the climb. We also had iPhones to shoot photos with. Actually, my iPhone was one of my most important pieces of gear, because I had about sixty topos of the various routes on the various towers loaded onto it.

  From the summit of Guillaumet, we ridge-traversed over to the Aguja Mermoz, topping out at 5:00 p.m. Four hours later, we set up the tent right on the crest of the ridge and settled in for our first night’s bivouac. I got the puffy that night, and slept nice and warm. It was only a few days later that Tommy confessed that he’d basically shivered through the night. In fact, I hogged the puffy for three nights, thinking that as a suburban California boy I needed it more than a Colorado hardman did. At last, Tommy’s reluctant admission of how cold he was made me stop being selfish and give him the puffy.

  We got off at 8:30 a.m. on February 13. It took a long, long day to climb over the Aguja Val Biois and up the Goretta Pillar via the Casarotto route. There we found some of the finest rock climbing on the whole traverse, with free moves up to 5.11d. That stretch, which I led, was one of only a few passages on the whole traverse where we switched to rock shoes. We French freed whenever we could, either grabbing and pulling on fixed gear or popping in a cam or nut and pulling on that. Still, we did very little aid on the whole traverse, nothing that we’d rate harder than A1.

  It wasn’t until 7:45 p.m. that we stood at the base of the final headwall on the north pillar of Fitz Roy itself. We were pretty darn tired after more than eleven continuous hours of climbing, but this was no place for a bivouac, so we decided to try to get up the headwall and camp on the summit. We also thought that the colder snow conditions of evening would be safer than waiting till morning, when sun on the wall might send all kinds of stuff falling down on us.

  We could see at once that there was way more ice and snow on that headwall than we’d expected, thanks to one of the wettest summers in recent years. It was Tommy’s turn to lead. As he forged his way up into that mess of ice, snow, and rock, we faced what would turn out to be the crux of the whole traverse. And here the climbing got really scary.

  • • • •

  Crusted up with rime ice, that headwall would have been tough enough to lead with a pair of ice tools, a good supply of screws, and crampons firmly strapped onto mountain boots. For Tommy, with only the one screw and the Cobra as his sole tool, and crampons wobbling on his tennies, it was a nightmare. As he worked his way up into the rime, he uncharacteristically shouted down, “I don’t know about this.”

  I tried to encourage him. “Dude, you got this,” I shouted up. “You’re a total boss.” But I had my own doubts and fears.

  A waterfall was springing out of the ice, as Tommy put it, “from a hole in the mountain that resemble[d] the mouth of a dragon.” He later captured that incredibly dicey lead in his Alpinist piece:

  I let the pick of my single axe pierce the sheet of flowing water and strike the new-formed ice beneath. The point glides around for a moment and then sticks in a small slot. I have to move now. In another thirty minutes, that cascade will freeze and coat everything in verglas. Our few cams will skitter, useless, out of the cracks, and the aluminum crampons strapped to our tennis shoes will be more like skates. My hand trembles. . . .

  I enter the waterfall, and I gasp as the cold flow seeps into every conceivable opening. I slot my single tool in a fissure, pull up and place a nut. . . . I look down: a large, dry ledge extends like an island below me. A growing chill reminds me that it’s already too late to retreat. The only option, now, is to keep moving. I’d wanted us to have an adventure, but this is a bit too much.

  For the next half hour, Tommy flailed around, as he described it, “like a hooked fish in a rapid.” Finally he leaned off his tool placement far to the side and got a tiny cam partly slotted in a crack. He wasn’t sure it would hold, but he grabbed it with both hands and swung over. Soaked to the skin, he was shivering, on the verge of hypothermia, but at last he was on dry rock.

  The sun had set a while before. Tommy switched on his headlamp and aided up the crack. At last he took off his crampons and free climbed beyond. As he later wrote,

  Coarse rock grates my skin. Blood splatters on stone. My clothes freeze. With each move, ice cracks off my jacket and chimes down the wall. The rope becomes as stiff as a steel cable. I climb faster, trying to create more body heat. . . . Occasionally, my only option is to chop through the rime that blocks our passage. Debris showers on Alex’s head. Large chunks hit his back and shoulders with a guttural thud.

  “Are you OK?” I shout down.

  “Yeah, man, you’re doing great,” Alex says, but the words sound forced.

  All this time, I was wearing both of our jackets, the big puffy in addition to Tommy’s light puffy. He was leading in just his hoodie and hardshell. It was amazing because after he got soaked, he climbed a lot farther, then eventually dried out and got warm again. Since I was doing nothing but belay for forty-five minutes at a stretch, then jugging for fifteen minutes, I was getting kind of chilly. It was impressive that Tommy could keep it together in such cold temps. Total hardman.

  Finally the angle of the headwall relented. But now, in the dark, Tommy led a 600-foot pitch of snow and mixed steps. You’re just scrambling, except that it was really snowy. Since we only had the one ice tool, he was leading with it, which meant that I wound up simul-climbing in strap-on crampons with no tool. Since the rope just disappeared into the night and I didn’t know if he’d gotten in any pro, I was seconding with only Tommy’s pick marks to show me the route. And just generally clawing at the mountain with my hands. It was scary.

  We didn’t get near the summit until 2:00 a.m. Just below the top, we found a nook shaped by a cornice that gave us a lee space to set up our tent. “What a day!” said Tommy.

  We got ourselves inside the tent and shared our single sleeping bag. Once again, since I had the puffy, Tommy shivered through the night without complaining.

  I’ll have to admit that, on that headwall, I was way outside my comfort zone. That was one of my hardest days of climbing ever.

  After only three hours of fitful sleep, we packed up camp and hiked to the summit of Fitz Roy. We didn’t spend long there, shooting a few photos, still dog-tired. But from here on, we were pushing beyond the Care Bear Traverse that Freddie Wilkinson and Dana Drummond had established in 2008.

  To get off Fitz Roy and down to the col between it and the Aguja Kakito, we had to make twenty rappels down the Franco-Argentine route. The route was like a waterfall. Three days of sunny weather on a south-facing wall had melted everything in sight. The ropes were like sponges and we got massively wet—not that that was a big problem, since it was sunny and nice out. An acquaintance of ours, Whit Margo, had just successfully guided a client up one of the ice routes on the other side of Fitz, and we ran into him near the summit. He gave us good beta for how to find the rap anchors, which was really helpful. But then, as we were rapping the face, his client’s ice axe came tomahawking past us at about a million miles an hour. He’d accidentally dropped it and it went the whole distance down the wall. It was kind of a weird encounter.

  From the col between Fitz Roy and Kakito onward, though, we were in largely uncharted terrain. We managed to weave our way over and around the various spiky summits of Kakito. But it was 6:00 p.m. before we stood at
the base of the north face of Aguja Poincenot. Here we faced our second major rock climb, as we started up the route pioneered by Dean Potter and Steph Davis in 2001. It’s a serious, 1,000-foot route with some bad rock and poor protection on a few pitches. Dean and Steph rated it 5.11d A1.

  Our three days of nonstop climbing were starting to take their toll. The skin on Tommy’s fingers was starting to be really painful, it was rubbed so raw. On Poincenot, I led the whole wall, but instead of simul-climbing, Tommy jugged up second to save his fingers. I short-fixed—tying off the middle of the rope to an anchor so he could jug while I soloed on—as often as I could to make it less arduous for him.

  For one of the few times on the traverse, I switched to rock shoes. Then I managed to lead the whole thousand feet in only three and a quarter hours. There was only one pitch of truly bad rock, up at the top, but it was easy. And there was some semi-unprotected face climbing at the bottom that was spicy. But basically the route followed nice splitter cracks and I just charged along. I really felt like I was at home in the Valley. Really comfortable climbing.

  Wasted as we were on the summit of Poincenot, we were still getting along great and climbing as efficiently as we knew how to. Throughout the traverse, we’d found time to take short breaks as we shot video clips on Tommy’s camera. For voice-over, we added commentary about the whole undertaking. At one point, for instance, Tommy said, “This has gotta be the most scenic thing in the universe.” On the summit of Fitz Roy, I’d seen other climbers maybe five hundred feet below us on a different route, and I couldn’t help blurting out, “There are humans down there! We’re going to go down and hug them!” Now, with the camera rolling, Tommy said, “Tell us where we are.” I dutifully answered, “We’re on the summit of Poincenot!” Corny, maybe, but who knows what a good film editor could do with that stuff.