The Joe Rogan Experience - #1189 - Alex Honnold

Episode Date: October 25, 2018

Alex Honnold is a big wall free solo climber. A documentary feature film titled "Free Solo" captures his record setting ascent of El Capitan, and it can be seen now in movie theaters all over. http://www.honnoldfoundation.org/

Should I do headphones? It doesn't matter. Yeah, I like headphones. I kind of hate hearing myself that loud, though. Why? You sound good. Why do you hate hearing yourself? Dude. Try to pull this sucker up, like, about a fist from your face. Good to see you again, man. It's been a long time.

It has been. But the guy like you, it's always nice to see you're still alive. Oh, you know, I'm doing my best. Do you get tired of hearing shit like that? Oh, I don't care. I mean, I get it a lot. The weirdness of, like, interviewing with people and they're like, you know, you could die. Is this scary? Yeah.

Yeah, that's all right, though. I mean, the thing is, yeah, it's funny. Touring with the film, we've been doing Q&As every night. You get the same questions from the audience all the time. Yeah. And part of that is tiring. But then part of it, people ask the same questions because they're obvious, because everybody wants to know the same things. And I'm like, I understand that.

One of the weirdest parts of the film is when they're showing all the guys who have died from free soloing. Yeah, though actually they didn't all die free soloing. Oh. That's probably the only thing that I take slight issue with with the film. It's slightly hyperbolic because two of them died base jumping and one of them died rope jumping they all were free solace which is kind of what the film is saying that they're all free solace who have died but they all died in the mountains doing mountain related extreme activities you know that's not that doesn't make the story as good you got that's like poetic license yeah they got sneaky well you I mean, they all were free solos, but yeah.

That's not the same, though. Yeah, no, exactly. I mean, I prefer it. The other way to look at it is that no free solos has ever died doing anything cutting edge. That's my favorite statistic. What does that mean? Like, no free solos has ever died doing hard soloing.

Like, basically, a few free solos have died falling off an easy turn or just falling off sort of routine or, you know, few free solos have died falling off easy terrain or just falling off sort of routine or, you know, I don't know, just falling off the mountain, but none of them have ever died while doing something cutting edge, something that had never been done before, or something that was hardcore. Hmm. Do you think that's because when you're doing something that's a little bit easier, you relax? I think that's probably part of it, but also I think part of it is just a numbers thing. You spend so much time doing easy stuff and so little time doing really hard stuff that, you know,

it's just statistics. Um, how much, how important is it when, when you're free soloing to have that edge to be like really talk cognizant about how intense this is? Like if you got too calm and too relaxed. No, I think that that's i think that is kind of the concern for sure and i've noticed that in for myself anyway and i try not to do very much easy soloing anymore because there is a certain complacency that over time you know you just do so much mileage on easy terrain and then you're like this is so easy this is so easy and then you slip and you die well like whoa you You know, fighters look at things that way too. Like at a certain point in their life, they don't want easy fights

because they need to get challenged. Otherwise, they won't train properly and then they wind up losing. Yeah, you have to take it seriously. Yeah. Well, the difference between a fighter, say, when they're not trained and not in camp and just their skill and what their body can do without going through a camp, it's probably only like 70% of what they are when they actually go through everything with full intensity, eight weeks, two times a day, physical therapy, massage, visualization, conditioning, all the things that make them who they are the day they step into the cage.

Like when you free solo. It's funny. Yeah, I mean, you saw the film. That's all exactly the level of preparation that went into it. Do you take time off before a big free solo? Do you rest your body or peak? No, it's the opposite. It's the sort of ramping up to it. Right. But do you, is there any concern that maybe you haven't given yourself enough recuperative time like for the day of? No. Well, so for me anyway,

it was always sort of the opposite because the real challenge of free soloing is the psychological side, the mental side of it. It's not so much the physical, like I don't necessarily have to physically perform at the absolute limit of what I'm capable of, but I have to mentally perform at that level. And so, and the mental side of it comes so much from confidence and feeling, you know, feeling prepared. And so I don't know. So when I, when I freestyled at El Cap, I kind of knew that I wasn't actually, um, like I'd probably already started to decline a little bit physically over the course of the season. Cause the two months in Yosemite is just kind of grueling on your body. Like all the time I spent going up and down on the wall and preparing, it's very,

very tiring. And so I kind of realized that I was starting to get sort of deeply fatigued. You know, I was sort of a week away from like having started a slump of like, oh, I'm kind of pooped. But the thing is, I knew that because of all that preparation, you know, psychologically, I was as good as I was ever going to be. So even if I was physically starting to be a little bit tired, it's like time to – it's kind of the different curves. You have to hit it right at the right moment. Now is your psychological preparation just you getting your mind into it or do you have like specific techniques you use or a form of meditation or anything that you specifically concentrate on when you're visualizing success or no when it's not even necessarily visualizing success or it's visualizing for me it's visualizing the experience like sort of imagining what

everything will feel like imagining what it'll like to place my foot on a hold or what you know grabbing like the sensations of it and the exposure of it um you know thinking through what it'll feel like with so much air around me and no rope, you know, just to basically make sure that nothing is surprising when I get there. Dude, my hands are sweating just talking to you. I'm not kidding. Feel that. Feel that. Isn't that fucking gross, right?

It has a clammy. I realized it. Like when I'm talking to you, I'm thinking about you doing this, and my hands started fucking sweating. Yeah, you start thinking about thousands of feet of air, and you're like, ooh. Yeah, I'm thinking about you doing this and my hands started fucking sweating. Yeah, you start thinking about thousands of feet of air and you're like, oh. Yeah, I start thinking about chalk and powder and that, shit like that. God damn, dude. Have you ever gone to like a sports psychologist or have you ever like actively tried to coordinate a program for mental training or anything like that?

No, not really. I mean, so with, with freestyling El Cap, I found that I needed to create enough space for, it's not so much mental training, but, um, but create enough empty time so that I had, so that I was able to sort of process. So, um, I don't know. So I like stopped responding to email. I erased my social media. I like sort of freed up my life um, I don't know. So I like stopped responding to email. I erased my social media, like sort of freed up my life. And then actually my girlfriend, um, left for sort of the week ahead of time. So that was just totally by myself in my van with nothing going on, like no distractions. And so that's not exactly, you know, mental training, but it was giving myself the free time that I could just sit around and think about things. You know, I could process

like it in my own terms at my own time. When was the last time we talked? How many years ago was that? So long. I feel like it was at least four, right? Oh no, it was like six or seven. Was it? I think so. I think it was like 2012 or something. During that time, how much has changed in your life in terms of the way people perceive what you do and the amount of attention that you get. I would imagine that having that alone time now. Yeah, it's much harder. Yeah. Yeah. No, totally. It's, it's funny. I mean, I've tried to not let my life get busy over time, but it just sort of naturally happens. I mean, well, with success. Yeah, exactly. There's so many more demands. Yeah. When I was reached out to you, I reached out to you a couple of times, but I was like, this guy is probably getting fucked with all the time. Someone's probably always poking at you, and you're just trying to get a foothold, like literally.

Just trying to hold on. No, I mean I appreciate all the opportunities I have now. I mean I'm very happy with the way my life has changed over time. But certainly when I look back at 10 or 12 years ago when i was just a single 20 year old man living in a car like i had nothing going on you know if uh if i had like one interview in a month i'd be like well it's a big month for media you know and then now on a film tour it's like completely outrageous it's totally the other end of the spectrum now when you're doing this film tour when when does the film actually come out no the film's like out it's in theaters like you

can go see it right now. But you can't get it on iTunes yet. Is that what it is? Oh, yeah. Yeah, so it did a month of festival circuiting earlier in the end of the summer, and then it came out in theaters at the end of September. So it's right now. I think this weekend is its widest release.

It's like 400 theaters all over the country right now. Wow. And then in theory, it, it's through national geographic. So I think it'll be on television on the channel at some point. And then eventually it'll stream somewhere. I don't know. Is it strange? All this attention?

Yeah. I mean, well, I don't know. It's in some ways it's a natural extension of all the, the stuff I've had over the years, you know, like having a 60 minutes piece and many years ago was a bit of a,

like it was, it was a flurry of attention. And so that kind of sort of prepared me in some ways you know but yeah i mean it's great i mean well you've dealt with this your whole life i mean it's yeah but i'm asking like an interesting yeah but i feel like it comes with what i do i'm in show business you know show business that's you know i mean yeah okay that's fair fair. You're a climber. Yeah. And the most radical kind of climber. Free solo. When I think of what you do, I think of quiet tension. Yeah, that's kind of fair.

Yeah, because it should be sort of meditative and relaxing and quiet. But then obviously you're also sometimes straining your entire body. You know, like trying very hard physically. Yeah. then obviously you're also sometimes straining your entire body, you know, like trying very hard physically. Well, I remember one of the things you said to me the last time we talked was that it's very mellow because if it ever gets intense, something's gone horribly wrong. No, I still feel exactly the same way. I mean, that's always the challenge is to keep it relaxed.

But for a guy like you, my perception of a guy like you, who's that, that person who's doing that activity, then to sort of juxtapose that with this media tour type environment and dealing with all these people that, that, that seems to me like it would be really annoying. I mean, yeah, it's very different than my normal lifestyle, I guess. But the thing is, you know, it's sort of an adventure and it's an experience in its own way. I've been kind of calling it an expedition film tour because I've done a lot of expeditions in my life. Like last winter, I went to Antarctica for a month. And it's not exactly the type of climate I normally do, and I don't really like being cold. But you're sort of like, oh, it is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go somewhere. You know, it was like going to Mars or something.

It was this totally outrageous experience. We're climbing big rock walls in Antarctica. You're just living on the glacier, and it's totally different, totally crazy. You camped out on a glacier? Yeah, yeah. We were just in a tent on a glacier for a month. Wow. When you do that, how thick a pad do you use?

Like really thick. That's right. Yeah, really thick. And a very, very thick sleeping bag. Do you ever get warm? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, in your sleeping bag. It's a negative 40 degree sleeping bag.

I mean, it's pretty legit. But anyway, I mean, so that kind of experience, you know, in some ways is very comparable to a film too. Where I'm like, this is going to be a once in a lifetime thing. You just embrace it. You go with it. You know, it's different than the way you normally choose to live your life. But that kind of makes it interesting. You know, it's something new. Well, normally choose to live your life, but that kind of makes it interesting. You know, it's something new.

Well, I can imagine it would be very interesting. Yeah. The Antarctica thing sounds like a trip. Yeah. Like were you traveling on a established corridor? It was, no, no, it's, um, well, so some people had climbed in the region before, but, um, but we actually did tons of first ascents like roots and summits that had never been climbed wow yeah it's pretty cool now when you do something like that do you map it out in advance like i mean well not really because i mean they're photos of of the formations and people like i said had climbed some of them um some norwegians had sort of pioneered the area and written a book about it but um but then it's not until you get there that you can really decide what you're going to

climb and how it looks. I mean, ultimately, you have to look at the rock and see if it's climbable. And so you basically just have to ski up and then touch it and see what you can do and then try to climb it. You ski up? Well, yeah, because you're living on a glacier. I mean, you have to ski everywhere. Wow.

Yeah, it was cool. I did a month wearing only ski boots or climbing shoes. Wow. Or my bedroom slippers around camp. What did your feet feel like? Oh, actually, okay. No, wearing really thick socks and then keeping everything as warm as possible. But, yeah, I mean, wearing climbing shoes in Antarctica is pretty chilly.

Yeah, I would imagine. Yeah. Actually, there's a film about that coming out in a couple weeks, I think, as part of the Real Rock Tour. It's like a big climbing film festival thing or film tour that sort of shows around the world but so it's like a 40 minute short or 30 minute short I haven't seen it yet but

Those shoes that you wear on a normal climb are very flexible or those La Sportivas Yeah that's what I wear They almost look like a sock with like a rubber bottom to it where you could really kind of grip anything Yeah it depends so some are? Yeah, that's what I wear, yeah. They're very, they almost look like a sock with like a rubber bottom to it where you could really kind of grip anything. Yeah, it depends.

So some are super soft like that. It depends on what you're trying to climb. Some are really rigid so that you can step on really small holds and it supports your foot. So like what I was wearing, free-sailing all cap, is like quite rigid actually. It's like a board, like a platform, so that you can put just the tip of your toe onto something really small and your foot will stay flat.

More like a mountaineering type of a boot. Yeah, kind of, but still also very precise because a mountaineering boot you think clunky and big. A climbing shoe is like a ballet slipper, like precise and tight, but then also rigid sometimes. And then also, I don't know, you know, when you're climbing cracks, you put your foot into the crack and then you torque it sideways to like lock it into place.

And so the stiffer the shoe is, the more that you can lock the shoe into place as opposed to your foot. You basically have to use fewer muscles that way. Are you starting a trend? Are there other people that are following your footsteps now? Actually, what do you think? I think probably, yeah. You think? Yeah.

You honestly think that? Yeah, I think there's probably some people that look at what you're doing and young kids that think it must be. You know, here's what I think. Most people look at the path that the average person takes in life. You know, oh, I'm going to sell cars. I'm going to be an insurance guy. And they look at it like it's death. it's death if they look at a kid a young kid who's like enjoying playing with his friends or doing sports or playing video games or reading comic books and then you look at what could be

the average path that the average person takes in life and sitting in an office all day under fluorescent lights it looks like death it looks like a slow, aching death. But then I look at someone like you, I'm like, wow, this guy is living a special life. This is a special life. So ideally, though, somebody would look at it and see that like this is somebody living a very intentional life or having chosen a certain path. Yes. Not necessarily free-souling. I mean, I would love to inspire people to live an intentional life that they care about. Yes.

I don't necessarily feel like people all need to go free soloing. Right. Well, I think that's a very good way of describing it and very good way of putting it because I think you most certainly have influenced people in that regard. But I think also people must be influenced in the sense that they see what you're doing is, man, there's moments that you must experience while you are climbing these incredible faces that are kind of magical when you're up there you're a thousand feet up there the view is fucking spectacular and you're doing it and you get to the top of these things the the rush

and the feeling of accomplishment and the euphoria and just the glory of nature from that perspective yeah totally like look at this you could fucking wash your clothes on the sweat that's in my hands right now man that's that fucking picture is insane we're looking at what is the the name of this photo jamie it's uh the enduro corner cam this photo, Jamie? It's the Enduro Corner Camel Cap. That's actually, that's the movie poster, too. Fuck, man. That is so amazing.

So that is not sitting in a cubicle. That is not fluorescent light. Well, that is the end of a very long path that you have to choose and really cultivate. You know, I mean, that's, for me, 23 sort of going in or 22 years or something of going down a very specific path. Very specific. You know, and you're still, do you have a different van or are you still in the same van? I'm in a better van than the last time I was here. Oh, nice.

Moving on up. Yeah, yeah, I moved up. That's pretty exciting. And I have a house now. Oh, you live in like a real person too? No, I live in Las Vegas now. Do you really? Yeah, yeah. up. That's pretty exciting. And I have a house now. Oh, you live like a real person too? No, I live in Las Vegas now. Do you really? Yeah, yeah.

Why Las Vegas? Dude, the best four-season climbing in the country. Really? I love Las Vegas. Yeah, there's climbing everywhere, and it's super accessible, and it's easy, and it's like cheap cost of living, easy, you know, no traffic. Like, everything is easy about it. I love Vegas.

That's cool. Yeah, whenever I go to Vegas, I always look at the mountains outside of it. Like, wow, they're right there and nobody even looks at them. Yeah. From my driveway, you can see 2000 foot walls. I mean, you can be climbing on a 2000 foot wall and, you know, 25 minute drive, 20 minute drive. That's interesting.

Yeah. A lot of people like to run those mountains too. Run those hills. There's a lot of trail runners that live in that area as well. Yeah, totally. Yeah. The west side of town, you're like in the mountains i mean i can go mountain biking i can go hiking i can go climbing all you know 20 minutes yeah vegas is kind of a misunderstood place yeah no it really

is everyone just thinks the strip but it's like it's not really the strip it's like the mountains all around it yeah but vegas is like in a bowl of mountains i mean all sides of it are surrounded by mountains well nevada in general kind of gets a weird rap because yeah i know people people think of the desert in nevada but really it's mountains i mean it's like series of mountain ranges all the way across the state yeah it really is i have a buddy who lives in reno he lives outside of reno and if you went near where he lives you'd be like where are we colorado yeah exactly exactly no i mean tahoe yeah like tahoe is right there and yeah in turkey like donner i mean there's a bunch of climbing areas right there they're great and freaking skiing all winter it's pretty cool how old do you know

i'm uh 33 do you feel any difference in the way your body responds to doing this on a regular basis now uh maybe a little bit um i mean i hate to say i'm getting old and everything but uh but i think especially right now with the film tour, the amount of travel, like I'm more intentional about my diet and stuff now and trying to get enough sleep and things like that. Certainly, you know, 10 years ago, I could just eat a whole tray of Oreos and be like, all right, I feel great. Let's go climb in the gym.

It'll be fun, you know? Yeah. Now I'm like, oh man, I want my green smoothie. I want to get my night's sleep. Right. Yeah, I saw that you're not eating meat anymore and that you eat a lot of vegetables and do you get your blood work done or do you, do you have to work with a nutritionist?

No, you do eat eggs. Yeah. Yeah. I eat eggs. Good. Um, yeah.

And I mean, I have cheese and stuff and, and, and I mean even meat. So, I mean, I gave up eating meat for environmental reasons, mostly,

um, like basically impact on the earth. And so I'm not fundamentally posed, you know, like i'll eat meat from time to time certainly for for cultural norms like uh you know i was in japan earlier this year and uh so i ate fish there a bit just because i felt like it was part of the sort of japanese travel experience if someone hunted it would you eat it yeah yeah sometimes but the thing is i just don't feel like i need to intentionally kill another creature for me to survive. And so if somebody was going to go hunting for me to eat, I'd be like, no, that's fine.

I'm just going to eat that. But then like on an expedition to Antarctica, I ate a bunch of random meat just because it's like it's already there. You know, the other team members have already brought it. I'm sort of like, well, I'm hungry. I'm going to eat whatever. Right. You know. brought it i'm sort of like well i'm hungry i'm gonna eat whatever right you know um mollusks are actually a good thing for people to look into that are vegan or vegetarian and they don't want to eat

meat because they're actually more primitive even than vegetables they're mollusks yeah like um clams and scallops they're incredibly primitive they they have no feelings they don't feel anything they have no that there's an argument that could be made that plants communicate far more than mollusks like lobs like uh oysters rather muscles barnacles yeah they're real crunchy but there's a protein to them that's similar to an animal protein but an incredibly primitive protein. I mean insect protein I think is sort of a potential future of humanity too. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not fundamentally opposed to eating insects but it's just they're rarely served. But I would just imagine that particularly as you get older, like nutrition would be a major factor,

making sure you get the proper amount of essential fatty acids and making sure that, because your brain must be, like you have to fuel your brain in terms of like giving your brain the building blocks for neurotransmitters and all these different things that you're using when you've got this intense concentration for many, many hours at a time. And you're not eating when you're doing these things, right?

No, sometimes. You do stop and you eat something? Yeah, yeah. I mean, you have to. I mean, if you're coming for multiple hours. Sometimes little bars or, you know, nut butter, Fairmont. Nut butter, right. Yeah.

Do you have those F-bombs? Do you ever take those? I don't know what that is. What is that? Oh, they're great. I have a whole box of them. I'll give you some. They sell them.

Yeah, it's called F-bomb, like're great. I have a whole box of them. I'll give you some. They send them to you. Yeah, it's called F-Bomb, like fat bomb. But it's all like nut butter and oils. And it comes in a packet. You just rip the top of the package off and squeeze it in your mouth. I had three of them this morning. Oh, wow. They're really good. It's really healthy.

Is there one sitting around? I do have them. I'm curious. I want to see one. I do have them in the back. That's interesting. Yes, that is it. Tell Jeff there's a box of them in my office over there.

I would totally try those. It's on the floor. That's exactly. You know where the box is? You can go run in and grab them. Go run into that door, run into the office door, and sitting right in the front to the right-hand side, there's a box of them. Yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about, the nut butter ones.

Yeah, I eat the shit out of those things. I eat like three or four of them in the morning when I'm headed out the door with a cup of coffee. That's a lot of fat, though. That's just a lot of calories out there. I'm doing this Sober October Fitness Challenge with my friends. I've been working out. No bullshit, as much as five hours in a day because I'm trying to win this. We have a WWE-style championship belt.

It says Intercontinental Champion Sober October or Intergalactic Champion. So the sober part, though, does that mean you're not? No pot, no booze, no nothing. Oh, wow. Yeah, here's. So you're just clean living for all of October and training your freaking brain out. Yeah. Well, we're wearing these things.

We're wearing these belts that measure your heart rate, and they also quantify your performance, like how much calories you've burned. And there it is. Here, you can take that. That stuff's the shit. What flavor is that one? Macadamia, pecan, sea salt.

Fantastic stuff. I like the chocolate and sea salt one too. Yeah, I'll look through and I'll sample a few of each flavor. Those are good. That's cool. It's real healthy. It's really what you need. Actually, what's the ingredients? Oh, yeah. That seems awesome.

And you just smush them up and you tear the top and you just squirt it in your mouth. Yeah, I do that climbing a lot. I kind of prefer that to gels or goo or whatever you want to call it because if that's just pure sugar i'd kind of prefer to have pure fat yes certainly for climbing um it's just not like in it's not like running or cycling or something where your engine is burning non-stop where you kind of need to just like pump sugar into it yeah it's um it's kind of a longer slow burn you can you can eat fat for sure do you ever um

mess around with nootropics at all i don't know i've never even heard that word nootropics are are the building blocks for human neurotransmitters it's like they're they're they're supplements that enhance cognitive function some of them are like standard uh what you would get at like gnc you wouldn't think of as a nootropic, but they're finding out they are. Like creatine, they're finding out creatine is actually a pretty potent nootropic. It actually enhances cognitive performance. But there's one called AlphaBrain that my company has.

I'll send a bunch of it to you. There's another company called NeuroOne that makes a great one. You know who Bill Romanowski is? I'm not sure. Former NFL player who took a lot of hits. Is he Patriots? No.

No. Was he? He's mostly on the Broncos. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Savage. Crazy animal. And during his day, obviously sustained a lot of head injuries

and wanted to find some sort of natural way to replenish his brain function. So he created this company called Neuro One. And this is how I found out about nootropics. find some sort of natural way to replenish his brain function. So he created this company called NeuroOne. And this is how I found out about nootropics is through his product. It's fantastic. Great stuff. It's just powder. You put it in water, shake it up. It actually has protein and a bunch of different neurotransmitters in it.

But it's really good for enhancing function. Yeah. I wonder if it actually works yeah it does well alpha brain the my company we we had two double blind placebo controlled studies with the boston center for memory that showed improvements in um verbal memory in reaction time in um peak alpha flow state so what would So what is peak alpha flow state? That's a good question. You have to like dive into it. Yeah. All the, if you go to on it.com,

all the tests are available. You can go over like what it means, but what, what you find from these, another one called true brain that, what is that guy's name? That he was a guest to the podcast, Dr.

Andrew. No, that's Andrew Galpin. No, that's Andy Galpin. My point is, besides my company, there's a bunch of companies that make really good ones. They're fantastic if you have to give speeches or if you have to talk. If you do any of the things

that I do, like commentary I always thought you'd just go straight cocaine. You'd get all fired up. You'd just give a great talk. Anything. You're like thought you just go straight cocaine. You get all fired up. You just give a great talk. Anything you're like methamphetamines. You just get all fired up. That's a question I had for you too. Like how many people that are doing what you do are on either Adderall or they take things like beta blockers? Honestly, I think nobody.

But I mean a lot of climbers smoke a lot of weed. Or nowadays I don't even know what you do with it cause you don't even have to smoke it. I don't know. You just, yeah, you just, or yeah, you like drink it and stuff. I don't know. There's so many like cannabis things now, but, um, but no, I don't know. So I, I've never really done drugs. I don't, I'm not totally interested.

So I don't really know anything about it, but, um, I don't know. It's interesting because it's not like anyone's drug testing climbers unless they're competing at the world cup level or it's actually gonna be in the olympics in 2020 but climbing is yeah climbing is it's like a demonstration so do they have um an event like in terms of like a pathway that you have to go through no so it's um well so world cup climbing breaks into three disciplines like lead climbing which is like a same as the indoor wall and then bouldering which is shorter without a a rope. You just climb 12 feet or whatever. And then speed climbing, where it's like a preset course.

Everyone does the exact same course, but you just go as fast as you can just against the timer. And so normally those are three disciplines for the World Cup, but the Olympic format combines all three into one competition because they're limited by how many medals and whatever. Because it's like a demonstration sport, they're just sort of, you know, it's a smaller scale than some of the other sports in the Olympics. But so, yeah,

so basically climbing competitors just have to do all three disciplines and then see who wins. I was watching something on YouTube where they have this climbing competition where they like ready, said go. And then they like shot up the side of this thing. That's the speed climbing. And this lady who's wearing a burkaqa, is she like famous or something? No, I don't know. But there are a bunch of really strong Iranian speed climbers.

And so I wouldn't be surprised if it's part of that. She ran up it like a spider. It was crazy to watch. Yeah, for whatever reason, speed climbing is really big in Eastern Europe. And then there are a couple of really good Iranian speed climbers. It's sort of its own little niche sport coming out of certain parts of the world. That is, well, there's some strong genes over there in Iran. Like a lot of great wrestlers. I don't know.

I don't know if the woman you're talking about is from there. I'm thinking of one specific dude who is so muscular. Here it is. Portrait in speed. Iranian speed climber. Oh yeah, I think it's Iranian. Farnaz, spell that. Esmailzadeh.

Zadeh. I think you pretty much got that. Yeah. Wait, I want to see the video. I want to see your video real fast. Yeah, see if you can find the video of her. Because she's a fucking spider, man. She just runs up the side of that hill.

He's going to browse the internet yes he could find yeah anyway but so with the uh with the new olympic style climbing i mean obviously there'll be drug testing and with the world cup there's drug testing but it's funny with the but nobody really uses performance enhancing drugs i don't think they um like one i'm good thank you one uh one world cup climber had a medal taken away for having used recreational cocaine and he was like oh i'm really sorry uh you know i'm sorry i didn't coke but he was like it was more for the partying than the performance you know there she is look at her dude this place i mean for a guy like you is that impressive like what see that play that from the beginning that's that's that's pretty fast that's not as fast i mean if you watch some of the more

elite times it's it's faster for sure uh women or men both i think i don't i don't think that's faster than that i think so i don't know wow i don't know man well you're you're the guy who would know to me that's damn impressive just look up a world record i mean i think the male record is like five point something seconds or 6 seconds. It's like something really, really fast. Now, do they know this path in advance? Yeah, so that's exactly the same route for everybody always. Same distance, same holds.

And so you basically memorize the sequence, and then you just perform it as fast as you can. So here we go. Here's a world record. Oh, is this the – So you stand on that thing? Yeah, so the timer starts when your one foot comes off the timer on the ground, and then it ends when you slap the thing on the top.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. That doesn't look real. Yeah, look at that. Five point whatever seconds. Oh, my God. That doesn't look real. That looks like...

Doesn't it look like he's just running on the sidewalk? It looks like it's flat, like he's on the ground, and they're faking it for the camera. Yeah, no, it's totally... Now, do these guys free solo, or did they specifically concentrate on this? No, no, I mean, imagine if you were free soloing like this, you would die for sure. I would think that beta blockers would be something that someone who free solos would want to look into. I don't know what that is. Beta blockers are something that blocks your brain's production of adrenaline.

Oh. But, I mean, I don't know if you'd want that, though, because the thing is if you have an adrenaline spike, it's because something weird went on and you probably want to. Like, I've had a couple times where I, like, broke a hold off or something. Like, all of a sudden your hold rips off. And then you have that, like like superhuman surge of like, and you grab back on. Yeah, you don't want to be mellow at that time. Yeah, exactly.

You don't want to be like, I'm so relaxed as I fall all the way to the valley floor. You know, it's like you want to freaking hold on. One of the things in the film was one of the guys who fell and I guess eventually died. He was doing it and he fell and base jumped. Yeah, with a parachute. He called it free basing.

He sort of pioneered that sport, as it were. It seems like a good thing to have on your back. Well, not really. So, yeah, I mean, the idea makes sense that if you're going to fall off a cliff, have a parachute. The thing is that you need to be on a very specific kind of cliff like what he was on where it was overhanging so that when he fell, he cleared wall and he like floated out into space but the thing is in yosemite all the walls are slightly less than vertical in general and so it means that you just tumble down the wall you know and the other thing is that even if you have a parachute parachutes uh function as a wing you know they have a direction to them like air comes into them and you fly in a direction which means

that you have to be facing away from the wall when you open your parachute or else you just fly right into the wall and crash. So it basically means that if you fall off unexpectedly, you then have to track away from the wall, right yourself in midair, you know, correct for everything and then make sure you're facing the right way. You know, it's like basically there are a lot of things that have to go right for the parachute to help you. But, you know. Okay.

That's not good. Yeah. I mean, it's one of the, a lot of people ask that they're like oh why don't you wear a parachute and you're like well it's basically this 10 pound training weight that doesn't really help you much well that guy just jumped on purpose yeah this is oh well yeah so this guy so this is on the eiger though it looks like i think um and you can yes he's like jumping away he's getting a nice controlled opening. He's flying away from the cliff. It's like everything is going right for him.

But imagine if one of his footholds just broke and he started pinwheeling down the wall. It's like you'd never get the separation from the wall. It would be a disaster. Let's just watch extreme sports videos and I'll just commentate on them the whole time. I'll just be like, all right, well, this guy is surely going to have a disaster well one of the things from the video when they were talking about all the people that have died um that every essentially everyone from the past that was a free soloer is dead and you're saying there's other things that they were doing like base jumping yeah like base jumping and and even there are a couple older soloists i mean in the film uh peter

croft who's like a legendary soloist and he's a childhood hero of mine. And he's, you know, I don't want to say pushing 60 because I'm not sure how old Peter is, but he's, you know, he's an older, he's a distinguished gentleman and he's, he's living in Eastern Sierra. He's climbing all the time. He's like loving life with his wife. And actually he's in Greece on a sport climbing vacation right now. Just climbing for two months, just fun climbing with a rope, having a great time. And so, you know, I look at somebody like Peter, and he was free soloing at the very cutting edge for 20 years, basically. And it's still just a happy climber now. But does he free solo anymore or just climbs? Well, so it's funny.

So I had dinner with him a couple years ago, and I was like, oh, Peter, at what point did you quit soloing at sort of an elite level? You know, like when did you sort of back off the grades? And he was like, well, actually, I did one. Technically, by the numbers, I did one of my hardest free solos a couple years ago but it was like a sport route at his local crag so like a route that he would routinely climb for fitness they just happened to be a pretty hard number um you know like climbing grades are all sort of categorized and so he was like yeah technically one of my hardest solos was just

recently but it's like a hard number but not nearly as much of an undertaking as some of the big solos that he'd done in the undertaking as some of the big solos that he'd done in the past like some of the walls that he had sold at Yosemite back in the day you know and so he was like oh it's all just kind of how you define difficulty you know now when when you say that there's a number system that sort of rates what like how difficult a free solo path is well no that rates climbing in general with a rope or without a rope is just it just rates how hard a climb is what is l cap well so the route that i climbed is 512d for whatever that means or maybe it's 13a depending how you depending on what you want to call it but um what does that mean yeah exactly so the the climbing climbing grades are defined

i don't know so in in america it's by the Yosemite Decimal System. And it's classification of terrain from 1 to 6. Yosemite Decimal System. Yeah, Decimal System, yeah, YDS. But other parts of the world have different systems. And, like, in Australia, it's just an open-ended numbers from 1 to 38 or something, where it's like they get progressively harder. Oh, there it is right here.

Oh, yeah. Climbing grade comparisons. Oh, so there's Yosemite, France. That's interesting that one area. They all do it differently. It's because climbing culture grew up in all different parts of the world. Right. And climbing culture, I guess, is a big part of Yosemite.

Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, climbing as a sport in the U.S. is sort of birthed from Yosemite. I mean, the history of alpinism or rock climbing, anyway, certainly comes from Yosemite in the U.S. Is it just because the paths are so cool that it just drew people to it? Yeah, partially. I mean, yeah, the summits are so striking. And I think a lot of it also just had to do with, um, just culture. Cause a

big part of it was people from LA and the Bay area, um, who probably had some sense of classical Alpinism from the Alps, you know, people who had traveled to some extent and then wanted to, you know, climb other mountains. And then they happened to live near one of the most iconic areas in the world. And so then, I don't know, but anyway, so it winds up being called the 70 decimal system, but, um, but yeah, so basically it's the, the, it's categories of terrain. So one being walking on a normal trail to being like scrambling a little bit, three being like scrambling with your hands and feet up, you know, rocks and then fourth class being like sort of like climbing, but easier. And then fifth class being actual rock climbing. And so then it was 5.1 through 9, depending on how hard things are. So 5.1 being pretty easy, 5.9 being pretty hard, like you're rock climbing now and it's technical. And then at a certain point, that system wasn't adequate,

so they had to start adding 5.10, and then they subdivided into ABCD, and then 5.11, ABCD, and then 5.12. And so now it's an open-ended system that right now goes up to 516 basically whoa but an l cap is really complicated yeah but so l cap is 12d or you know 5.12 d or maybe 5.13 a which is the next grade up um it's all sort of but so basically that means that it's it's elite like that's very difficult and something that like obviously an average person can't do. But it's definitely not close to the physical limit of what's been done in the world. But that's with a rope on and that's after, you know, years of practice.

What's the physical limit? Like what is the peak of? Well, right now the hardest grade in the world is 15D, which is extremely hard. I mean, it's totally crazy. But so one guy, this Czech guy, has done one route that he called 15D. And so it hasn't been repeated, so it's not like an established consensus. But there are several 15Cs in the world,

and there are many 15Bs in the world. Where is this 15D? It's in a cave in Norway. I mean, it's, yeah. That's kind of the interesting thing about climbing grades and climbing difficulties is that they're all spread around the world, the very specific cliffs, because it requires just the right combination of angle and holds. You know, there have to be enough things to hold on to, but not too many or else it's easier.

And so for, you know, an elite climber, they're basically searching the world all the time trying to find that right mixture of rock. Wow. What a strange existence. Yeah. It's really, really niche. Yeah. It's very unusual. But it's also kind of elemental in a way, you know, because rocks are just out there and you're basically just going and exploring nature until you find the right kind of challenge. Well, yeah, there's got to, there's some sort of a primal satisfaction

that comes from climbing something, right? Yeah, totally. I mean, there's a certain, yeah, there's an elemental quality for sure, where you're like, this is something that just exists in the world, and you just, yeah, so yeah. Is this it? Yeah, this is Adam Ondra, this Czech kid climbing 15 feet. Good God. Documentary coming out about it, I guess. No, it's already out.

It's a short online. It's called Silence? Yeah, the route he put up, he called Silence. But if this is the film, just scrub all the way to the very, oh, that's the trailer. Just up the ceiling, yeah. Yeah, but so you can see he's climbing feet first through some of it, and it's totally extreme. So this guy, Adam Ondra, is for sure the strongest climber in the world right now.

Like physical? Yeah, physically. So he put up the world's first 15C and the first 15D. So he's basically pushed the edge of difficulty for the last several grades. Wow. And he's just freakishly strong. Is that something that you would have to be to do what he's doing like a regular climber couldn't do what he's doing it's almost like acrobatic involved yeah yeah look what he's doing right there it's like that's so

this is uh the world's first 15c so slightly easier he did this several years ago but it's like um and then you hear him like, yeah, but that's why he has a rope, you know, and he tries that over and over and over. But, yeah, he's an amazing climber. He's really, he's like a polymath. He's like, he's great at every discipline. What else does he do?

Well, so he, have you heard of the Donwall on El Cap? No. So Tommy Caldwell, you know who he is? No. He's a professional climber. He's, you know who he is? Another professional climber. Um, he's, he's, he was, I don't know. Yeah. He's basically one of America's best climbers. He did this route called the Donwall, um, which is also a film in theaters, uh, or was in theaters last month. It's sort of random that two big climbing films came out exactly the same time, but it's just one of those freak things. But so the Dawn Wall was considered the hardest climb in the world to some extent.

It's this thing. It was a seven-year project for him up the right side of El Cap. The thing I climbed was on the left side of El Cap. He climbed something on the right side, which is much harder. But he was using a rope and put seven years of work into it. Seven years? Yeah. And then this guy, Adam Onder, who we're watching a video of, he did the second ascent.

And he put like a month of work into it and repeated it and you're just like whoa he's really really strong wow so when you when you see a guy do something like that does that make you think about doing it or do you go that's only something that someone can do with with ropes oh yeah no I mean their whole categories of climbing they can only be done with a rope because the moves are way too insecure. You fall off way too often. How often did that guy fall off doing that? Oh, like hundreds or maybe even thousands of times. I mean, so for him to do something at the –

Oh, my heart. I mean, to climb at the very highest levels of human potential. I mean, so think about a gymnast or something. Is that him right there? Yeah, that's him. So he's free soloing. No, no, no. think about a gymnast or something. Is that him right there? Yeah, that's him. So he's free soloing. No, no, no. He has a harness on.

Yeah, he's got a rope right there. Yeah, no, I mean, look at what he's holding. He's holding it with his one finger. No, well, I think his other one might be on too, but it's basically like a tiny, tiny, tiny edge. This is the crux of one of the pitches on the Donwall. That is so insane. That guy could probably crush your head by just grabbing it when

certainly the he has a certain ferocity he has an intensity where he can try with like 115 percent just like ah so i'm pretty sure if he grabbed your head and tried his hardest it would just pop like a little melon the grip strength he's holding on to such tiny tiny little things yeah he's uh he's very very strong wow man so a guy like that when when you see him do these paths these paths are paths you can only do with a rope yeah yeah does he free solo as well i don't think he ever has um but it's not really his thing and the thing in some ways it's really hard to do both at a high level. And, um, I think, or at least to some extent, it's hard to do both at a high level because so for him, for him to climb something that hard, he needs that intensity. He needs that 115% effort. But if you're trying to free solo, well, you definitely should never be giving anything even

remotely close to 115% effort or else you will die for sure. You know, because you're so close to that razor edge of failure when you're trying that hard. But with freestyling, you have to always keep it sort of within your comfort zone because you don't want to die doing it. So, I mean, I think that I've always sort of kept my, my personal, like on your personal barometer of effort, I sort of live between four and seven, let's say, or like, you know, three and a half and seven, maybe where it's like, you're never too relaxed, but you're also never going to the absolute death or sort of like in the four to six is a sweet spot where you're like, Oh, I'm climbing, I'm having a good time, but I'm not like trying too hard and I'm not too relaxed. But so somebody like Adam Onder or Tommy

Caldwell, like I've, I've climbed with Tommy a lot over the years. He's, he's a great climber. And I've really seen this because he, like, I've seen him just randomly fall off many times because he was he just like slipped he's like oh i'm so relaxed it's so easy and then i'm like oh i slipped and that's kind of like an effort of one where you're like your body is so relaxed that if anything happens then you fall and with it with a rope on that's fine in some ways that's the more efficient way to climb because you know you're so relaxed most of the time that you're saving a lot of energy over all that every once in a while when you fall it's like who cares the rope catches you it's no problem but you have to trust those little things that you stick in the cracks well yeah but that's all but that's like i mean that's

yeah that's that's kind of what is he doing there he's uh he's counter pressuring his leg into this crack to rest he's basically like pushing his knee into the rock to uh in order to relax his arms from it but he's his whole body is leaning backwards. Yeah, so he's hanging upside down. Basically, every muscle in his body is relaxed except for his calf, and his calf is forcing his knee into the rock, which holds him in place. So he's just hanging there about one knee. That is so insane. That photo is so insane.

Yeah, that's a really efficient way to rest, to rest your arms. Well, because it's really hard to hold on. Well, you know. No, I mean, for him, it's like him, to be able to rest like that for one minute is an amazing way to rest your arms for a minute, but then it sort of saps your core, and it makes his calf really tired, obviously. Now, does he lift weights or anything to prepare for these things?

Honestly, I don't know what he's doing. He's on his own program, but it's really climbing specific. He's mostly doing things with his fingers. Yeah, he's pretty jacked. Is that even him? That's crazy. That's a weird... Yeah, it's it's really climbing specific he's mostly doing things with his fingers and yeah he's pretty jacked is that even him that's crazy that's a weird uh yeah it's the same it's the same route that's interesting i've never seen that photo but i mean i guess you just get jacked from doing that too though just constantly pulling yourself up yeah yeah for sure there's a climbing wall just like local uh kids place and i told my daughter I'd give her a hundred bucks so she could make it all the way to the other side.

It's pretty difficult. And so she's become obsessed with trying to get over there to get a hundred bucks. That's definitely jacked. I mean, look at that. He's jacked. Your daughter's going to wind up

super ripped. It's hard to do, man. Or like really fit. I tried to do it and I couldn't do it. I was like, wow, this is really hard. It's difficult to do.

I bet if you tried a bit. I mean, just because you have such a background in movement and fitness and everything, I bet it wouldn't be that hard for you. You need a little instruction. Yeah, I'm pretty heavy, though, for someone who's short. That would be an issue is hanging. I'm 200 pounds. Yeah, but so in theory, climbing should be more in your legs anyway.

You should be driving with your legs. Because no matter what, your legs are always bigger and stronger muscles in your arms so like that's always what drives you upward yeah and then your arms should only be holding your weight in and keeping your keeping you balanced over your feet basically that's interesting that's something that they figured out fairly recently with grappling over the last like 10-15 years with like jujitsu and things along those lines that your legs it's really important to use mostly your legs when you're grappling totally i can see that i mean that's what's driving you forward or pushing the whole you know controlling your opponent and manipulating your opponent doing

stuff with your legs do you do anything to cross train like not really no i mean i do other mountain sports a little you know mountain biking or skiing or things like that. But you do it for fun. Yeah, for fun. And then the only real cross training I do is just sort of like a push-up and core type routine, you know, like opposition training just to maintain healthy, you know, healthy body. Oh, because you're constantly pulling. Yeah, exactly. I'm always pulling for my sport. So then I try to do a little bit of pushing and core just to make sure that things stay balanced out.

Now, is that something you talk to a physical therapist about or no that's just I mean that's just basic physiology I mean if you only pull you have to push sometimes or else you wind up all imbalanced and right and injured well I saw that one of the things in the film was when you were recovering from your ankle sprain and you know you had said that you really hadn't been injured in years then all of a sudden you have this girlfriend and she doesn't climb and you had said that you really hadn't been injured in years, then all of a sudden you have this girlfriend, and she doesn't climb, and you get injured. Yeah, that actually is just freak timing, bad luck. Yeah, it's just unfortunate.

Because I think really it just shows that I've been really fortunate for 20 years that I've had very few injuries climbing, and then at some point you just have a few, and that's just life to some extent. But when you do have something like that, and you feel sort of the vulnerability of your tissue and your do you think about like, hey, what if this happened halfway up some fucking insane path? No, the bigger thing in the film, I have a back injury earlier where I get lowered off the end of the rope and fall. I only fell maybe 10 or 12 feet, you know, sort of like the height of this room basically. But I landed sort of like folded over this rock backward.

It was like totally horrible, like these jagged boulders. And so I didn't go that far. But I was like, oh, you know, I got worked. And it was really sobering because it made me realize that if I fell from, you know, 40 feet climbing, you know, you could, it could be, yeah, I mean, it'd be a disaster. You know, basically it made me realize just how fragile my body is. Cause I'm like, Oh, I only fell a little tiny ways and it like really hurt. You know, it's like pretty bad. I was like, man, if you fell much further, you could, you could, yeah. Anything could happen. Yeah. People step off stairs wrong and blow their ankle.

Yeah. It's very strange. The body is so fragile. It's really amazing. Yeah, well, it's funny, but it's so fragile, but then also so robust in some ways. I mean, it's amazing what the human body can adapt to or withstand. But then, yeah, and then some things just can't.

Yeah, that's why I was asking you about your age. Like as you get older, are you seeing a difference in the way you get older are you seeing a difference in the way you recover are you seeing a difference in the way you know like what your body what you feel like your potential is i yeah it's hard to say i think um yeah i don't know i mean those are those are the tough questions i mean you know i'm sure you're sure you think about that stuff too well as a fighter a fighter at your age 33 you said yeah that's when you start tailing off like winding down 34 35 when a fighter hits like 36 like yikes huh is that is that like old for a fighter yeah that's pretty old it's very rare there's only a few guys who've been able to compete at a world-class level past that. In MMA, Randy Couture stands out. In boxing, Bernard Hopkins stands out.

How old is Floyd Mayweather? 40. He's 40? Yeah. Is he still considered fighting an elite level? Well, when he fought Conor McGregor, Conor McGregor was nowhere near his level because Conor McGregor wasn't really a boxer.

Yeah, he's not a boxer. Yeah, and so Floyd just kind of worked him. But he hasn't really fought at a world-class level for a couple years because you know he beat canelo alvarez several years ago and he made canelo drop a ton of weight when he beat manny pacquiao manny pacquiao was quite a bit past his prime and had a shoulder injury so you're probably dealing with like three years or so since he's fought like real world-class competition. Huh. When you say you made him drop a bunch of weight,

does that mean like to, how does that work? Yeah, he was very clever. You know, he wanted him to fight at a lower weight class. You know, because Floyd really, Floyd started off his career, I want to say at 130, then he fought at 135. Yeah, and you know his real isn't he big how big is he oh he's very small it's like five six five seven maybe five seven yeah and tiny little hands like very small hands but apparently they hit very hard well he's not a knockout artist

he's just a genius boxer probably one of the best defense, probably if not the best, definitely top two or three defensive boxers of all time. He's only been really hit hard to the point where he's been wobbled maybe like four times in his entire career. It seems like that's the kind of boxer you want to be. Exactly. You don't want to be like the Rocky Balboa-style boxer that just gets beaten to death and then falls back. You want to be boring.

Yeah. Really. That's like freaking watching NFL games with good defense, style boxer that just gets beaten to death and then you want to be boring yeah really you want that's like freaking watching uh nfl games with good defense and you're like oh man it's like not the team you want to watch but it's probably the better team yeah well especially with boxing because the consequences are so grave if you hit a lot there's a horrible video that i put up on youtube or on twitter rather that i retweeted someone sent me and it's boxers when they're young talking versus after injuries and you're watching you're like whoa it's it's stunning just just that's like NFL stuff too I mean yeah it's funny I mean people talk

about that with climbing it's like oh it's such a dangerous sport but the thing about rock climbing is that it's basically a completely safe sport right up until some kind of accident may happen and then then you potentially die but so the thing is you can basically climb at a high level for 50 years and never have any issues or you could maybe die doing it but it's kind of a fundamentally safe sport for the most part as opposed to what we're talking about like fighting or uh you know football or things like that where like or even mountain biking where you're for sure going to get injured, like no matter what, just by playing the game. Yeah.

I think things like football and fighting, they creep up on you. Like the injuries start to pile. Well, but basically just even in practice, you are getting injured. Constantly. You know, and so it's, I mean, that's kind of messed up. It's like just the price of entry is going to be, you know, freaking head injuries. Yeah, I went to a football game the other day, a high school football game.

And when I was there, I had a really hard time watching it because everybody's cheering. And I was talking to my friend. I'm like, you're looking at brain damage. Yeah, no, it's messed up. These kids are getting brain damage. And this is like a really nice private school where they pay a lot of money to get the kids into this program. And then the kids are playing football. I'm like, they're all getting brain damage.

He goes, really? I go, 100%. I go, did you see that collision? I go, that's brain damage. That's definitely brain damage. It might not be a lot. They might be okay. But how many of those do they do in a day?

How many do they do in a week? How many a month? How many a year? What a waste of human potential right there i'm just like it really is i mean the problem is it's such a grand part of our history and our culture sport doesn't really need to be i mean you know football hasn't existed that long yeah no i agree i mean i'm not dude i freaking i watched a rodeo from like very very close basically like from the commentators box, like above the pens, um, for the 4th of July rodeo in Wyoming, uh, like two summers ago. And that was something that I was

like, this is messed up. I mean, and I'm, I'm not like huge animal rights guy, but I'm vegetarian, obviously. And I sort of care. And I was like, Oh, you know, you're kind of abusing these animals for sport. And that's like, that doesn't sit that well with me. But what was even worse is I was like, all these young men are getting worked just like for the entertainment is totally like Roman gladiator type stuff. And I was just like, and it's weird because it's so cultural, you know, because, and, and, you know, I mean, I can, I can empathize because obviously I'm doing something that's also sort of blood sporty to some extent. And, and sort of for the same reason, you know know you're a teenage dude looking to do something interesting and engaging that's that'll hopefully get you laid you know

like you just want to i mean if you're from small town wyoming and you're like oh i'm good at riding bulls like that's for sure going to be your path and i'm like oh it's just too bad that that's your path it's a dark path i mean we watched this guy get freaking thrown off this bull and um and i think he was fine know, he landed on the ground. But then the bull freaking was charging him. And the guy, like, I've never seen human terror. Like, he basically just turned and ran as fast as he could. But he ran straight into this post, like, head first into this freaking steel post, like, the edge of the.

Because he just didn't. You know, it was like the bull's coming at him. He, like, turns and runs. And he basically, like, knocks himself out against this post. And then, thankfully, the clowns distracted the bull. And then the paramedic, like, thankfully, there was a freaking ambulance basically parked on the other side of the fence from what he ran into. And so they basically, like, lift him over and put him straight on the stretcher and, like, take him away, you know. But I was like, dude.

And, you know, the crowd's all like, yeah. And you're just like, that guy's, like, messed up. Like, you know, everything about it made me like feel kind of gross, you know? Yeah, it's not good. I would never want to pay to watch somebody hurt themselves. I don't know. Well, it's weird that that's culturally acceptable, but like bullfighting is not. Yeah, totally.

That's where we draw a line. Yeah, bull riding. It's like they're freaking tasing the bulls. They're like, aren't they tying off their balls? And they're doing all kinds of things. They're doing some bad things. I mean, well, though, people argue that the bulls have great lives. You know, they feed them well and they get a lot of exercise and they're very happy bulls.

And you're like, dude, I'm pretty sure they'd rather be roaming the open plains like inseminating cows, you know? Yeah, that's a weird justification. Yeah. We had a guy on Fear Factor once that was a professional rodeo guy. And his shoulder was like a topographic map it was just he had so many scars in his shoulder and he told me his shoulder would just pop out just like he could just pop it out left and right from just being destroyed like gored by bulls falling and getting it ripped apart riding bulls yeah yeah i just i just don't get that it just wasn't working anymore i mean he had a bunch of

surgeries and they tried to screw it back together and tighten things down but it was just destroyed i'm sure i'm sure a bull rider would look at free soloing and be like what a crazy dude you know everybody looks at another sport and they're like that's great and honestly i look at fighting and i'm like that seems totally outrageous i'm like why would you want some other dude beating you to death in a cage i'm like that's that's crazy. It is outrageous. It is outrageous. But if you can get good enough where you can avoid most of the damage. Yeah. And then to land the damage. It's kind of the same.

But even landing the damage to a certain extent, you're like, oh, you're hurting somebody else for the pleasure of the crowd. You're like, that's kind of messed up. Yeah. You know. It's a very weird feeling. Knocking someone out is one of the weirdest feelings. Because part of you is happy that it's not you,

but part of you is looking down at that guy that's just got flatlined, and you're like, whoa, that could have been me. How much do fighters hold back? Because I feel like you kind of have to go to the death, but then if you actually punch somebody so hard they died or something, obviously you'd feel horrible, right? Well, you don't hold back at all. Well, that something i mean obviously you'd feel horrible right well you don't hold back at all well that's what i'm saying but so it's like you don't hold back at all but then if you actually killed somebody wouldn't you feel horrible it's very rare that someone dies in mixed martial arts believe it or

not well yeah no i mean i know that but but it's possible and it's like definitely you know and it has happened and it's sort of like it has has happened very, very rarely in mixed martial arts, never in the UFC. But in boxing, it happens more often. And one of the reasons why it happens more often in boxing is you're only punching. In MMA, you're taking people down. Yeah, people are tapping out because they're pinned in weird ways. Yeah. Well, it's also there's more options to defend yourself.

You're not just getting battered against the ropes. They're also nowadays much better at stopping a fight when a fighter is clearly compromised, when they're really fucked up. In the old days, they used to let guys just get battered. They used to, you know, in boxing matches. Yeah, that doesn't sit well with me. I'm just like, ah. But that's why I'm not a fighter. Well, you're right.

That's the thing about climbing is there's this real elemental appeal to just you and the mountain and its nature and it's beautiful and it's very peaceful and calm. It's so different than having thousands of people screaming at you as you punch some guy in the face over and over. It's like, dude, that's not my scene. Well, did you see the Conor McGregor, Khabib Nurmagomedov fight where there's the big fight outside the cage? Oh, is that the thing where the guy a big fight outside the cage oh is that the thing where the guy vaults out of the cage and like starts brawling i was like yeah it's like wwe or whatever it was like when they start breaking tables over people crazier than that because it was real yeah exactly i was like this is totally outrageous but what's funny is

it became chaos because a fight erupted outside of the parameters of the fight. It was just more fighting. Yeah. You'd seen fighting. Yeah, like this isn't what we paid for. This isn't okay. Right. Everybody's like, fighting in the cage is fine.

This is lovely. But he gets out of the cage. Oh, my God. He's out in the wild. He's out in the world fighting. Isn't that kind of messed up? Yeah. It's definitely messed up.

You're like, he's a professional fighter. He's fighting. That's what he does. It's weird. Listen, and this is coming from someone who's been involved in this my whole life it's weird it's i i absolutely see all the arguments against it and yet you still want to go train and punch people in the face well i don't punch anybody in the face anymore i still choke people but uh i think that seems totally fine then huh well the thing about the jiu-jitsu aspect of it is you you really can tap out and stop and you don't really get hurt yeah the only

time you get hurt training jiu-jitsu is accidental for the most part especially when you train with you're actually better off training with a black belt than you are with a white belt totally because yeah no i get that because they have more control and so they'll be fine with you they'll just they'll just tap you. Yeah, or there's a white belt accident that kicks you in the face. And you're like, ah, I thought we were going to spark. They're really strong, especially if you get a white belt who's like a crossfitter, a fucking jacked, really strong guy.

He's like, I thought we were just grappling, and then his arm came out, and I don't know what to do with it, so I threw it away. I don't know. Yeah, really an unskilled guy who's extremely strong, who's learning technique, and is also like a spaz is very dangerous to roll with. So, yeah, you don't want to teach me jiu-jitsu is what you're saying. Not me. But someone – if you did it with me, we'd be fine. But if you did it with someone who's a real beginner, who's, you know –

No, I'm saying I'm the strong beginner. Yeah, but that's okay. Very strong grip and no idea what I'm doing, just like – Yeah, but the real problem would be if we were both beginners. Yeah, okay. That I'm the strong beginner. Yeah, but that's okay. Very strong grip and no idea what I'm doing. Just like, ah. Yeah, but the real problem would be if we were both beginners. Yeah, okay. That would be the real problem. Like a strong spaz is not really, it's not going to work against a black belt. That's the learning curve for climbing too.

You don't want two beginners going out and trying to like climb a mountain together. Yeah, I would worry about that. Like if you're climbing, do you ever climb like, is there a chain like one person in front of you? Yeah, I mean so – yeah, when you climb with a rope, it's basically two people. One goes out first and then brings up the second because you're limited by the length of the rope. So basically one person goes out to the end of the rope, brings up the next person. That person climbs through, brings up the second. So are you dependent upon the holds that they put in when they put those bolts into the cracks?

So bolts and things are put in by the first ascensionist, so the very first person to have ever climbed the route. But then everybody thereafter is able to just clip their equipment into the bolts or use pre-established anchors, things like that. So all the routes are already established, and you can read a book that shows all the different routes. So El Capitan has something like 112 different routes of it. Wow.

And of those 112, only 15 or so of them can be free climbed, which is different than free soloing. Free climbing meaning just using your hands and your feet. And you're still using a rope. You're still clipping into protection as you go. But you're only using your hand and your feet to get you up as opposed to, to like putting gear in and then pulling on the gear, which would be considered cheating. So of the a hundred routes on El Cap, you know, something like 90 of them, you have to pull on the hardware. You have to like clip little ladders into it and step on, you know, you have to hammer pitons in and then clip into them and stand on them and hammer another piton and step on that. Oh, because there's no foot. Yeah. Yeah. There's just nothing to hold onto. It's too hard.

So then, so then there, yeah, something like 10 or 15 free climbing routes where you can climb it. And so with my big goal of trying to free solo cap to climb it without a rope, I was limited to just those 10 or 15 routes that are possible to climb just with your hands and feet. And how did you establish the one that you wanted to proceed on? Yeah. So basically I just wound up doing the easiest one because um basically it's really hard to free climb el cap by any means and so the easiest one wound up being the most secure the best one for me how many people have done it well free solo or free climb free solo free solo i mean nobody's the only one yeah the only one yeah i mean that's why there's

the film and everything it's it's uh and nobody's ever even thought about it you know nobody's considered it's not like something that people are trying to do now that you've done it are there the film and everything. And nobody's ever even thought about it. It's not like something that people are trying to do. Now that you've done it, are there other people that are considering it? I really don't. I mean, I think it's almost more the opposite. Now that I've done it, people are like, whoa, I don't need to do that ever. I mean, there's nobody even playing this game right now, really. There aren't that many high-end free soloists right now.

How many are there? I don't know, two or one or something. Really? I mean, I don't know. I don't know if there are any soloist right now. How many are there? I don't know, two or one or something. Really? I mean, I don't know. I don't know if there are any others really right now. There's this guy, Brad Gobrighton, an American guy who's been free soloing at a pretty high level. But definitely, he's a really good friend of mine, so I'm not, like, slandering him. But definitely at a very different level than, like, he would never even dream of soloing all cab.

So he's sort of starting out? Well, it's not that he's starting out. I mean, he's a very good climber. He's been climbing a long time, and he's done all kinds of very difficult things. But in terms of free soloing, I think he just doesn't need to push it that hard. So he's almost like he dabbles in free soloing? Yeah, well, I mean, I dabble in free soloing as well. I mean, mostly I'm climbing with my friends, doing other things.

You know, I mean, I think almost all climbers only dabble in free-sailing as well. I mean, mostly I'm climbing with my friends, doing other things. You know, I mean, I think most, almost all climbers only dabble in free-sailing. I mean, free-sailing is sort of like one discipline of climbing. Like when we were talking earlier about the Olympics having multiple disciplines, you know, there are many types of climbing, and most climbers do all of them to some extent, and free-sailing always represents sort of this small specialty, like extra style. So you do free so you do free climbing and then you also do the kind of climbing where you have to put in those posts and stand on them yeah yeah our aid climbing artificial climbing so i free climb my aid climb sometimes i don't like to because it's too much work it's too much like construction you know you're like nailing things and standing on

it's like engineering yeah but i do that because sometimes that's what it requires to get up big mountains and when you do that and you nail things and stand on them do you take them out as well yeah the second person takes them out so the one person uses them to get up and then once the rope is secured above then the second person joins them and removes them all and then you have all your gear back and then you're able to do it again for the next section how much weight is that stuff well it depends but it can be a lot and certainly back in the day when people were doing the first ascents of el cap i mean it's something like 40 pounds or 50 pounds of iron hanging off them nowadays it's all a lot and certainly back in the day when people were doing the first ascents of El Cap I mean it's something like 40 pounds or 50 pounds of iron hanging off them nowadays it's all a lot lighter and you can use better gear but um but yeah I mean it's a lot but that's kind of the appeal of free

climbing or even free soloing is that you have nothing on you now how secure is that stuff that you're hanging hammering in there it depends it depends I mean there's certainly stories of people falling and ripping all the stuff back out. Oh, Jesus. But sometimes that's okay because if you're thousands of feet off the ground, you can take that 100-foot fall and not touch anything, and it's fine. Oh, yeah, but still. No, earlier this summer. You're counting on those things?

Well, yeah, I mean, it's all well-founded. I mean, you just got to trust it. Now, earlier this summer I was talking about Tommy Caldwell one of the best climbers in the country so the two of us did the speed record on L-Cap earlier this year and so that's the two of us are tied together we're using a rope we're using equipment but where anything

goes you're cheating as much as you can it's just trying to get from the bottom of L-Cap to the top as fast as possible this is on a different route than the one that I free sold in the film and so we were trying to go sub two hours, and we ultimately did it in 158, and it was pretty awesome, and we were really psyched. But along the way, Tommy took a 100-foot fall at one point. I was talking about him with the whole 1 to 10 effort.

He was climbing something that's really, really easy, and he was probably giving an effort of like two, and he just slipped. And I was like, oh. But anyway, he freaking whipped. He fell like 100 feet just straight down the wall. Didn't touch anything because El Cap is like a very clean vertical sheet of rock. How long does it take to fall 100 feet? I don't know, like several seconds.

15 seconds? No, no, no, no, like four or five or something. But you accelerate very quickly. One, two, three, four. Yeah, long enough to be like, oh, my God, I'm going to die. No, no, totally. And snap! No, long enough so that the reason he, my God, I'm going to die. No, no, totally. And then snap. No, long enough so that the reason he fell so far is because we were doing this sort of complicated maneuvers.

Normally, I would have a belay device on. Basically, I would be attached to the rope earlier to, like, catch him. But I had taken my belay device off, and I was just tied into the end. So, basically, he fell, and all the slack whipped through until it hit me at the end of the rope. But so when he yelled i basically had time to be like oh my god he's falling like brace for impact like knowing that in a second the rope is going to come tight against the end that i'm tied into basically jerk me wow but then thankfully there's enough drag in the system that it didn't jerk me off the stance that i was on or else i

would have gotten pulled like 50 feet across the wall and it was all messed up so when he's falling and you're you're realizing that you're going to get yanked by his fall are you like digging into the rock yeah no basically i was like oh my god you know i was like brace yourself like i was in this position i was actually like facing out away from the wall uh like facing out towards the meadow um because i i was in an open corner like if you look at the corner of the room imagine one leg on each side facing outward like pushed into this position because uh it's like i was about to have to untie my knot and retie and do some things and so i was basically like all ready to do some things and all of a sudden i hear that he's falling and i was like oh my god and then i was able to just sort of like stick in there jesus but my point is just that taking big fall i mean if you trust

your equipment and everything it it can be okay to take big falls like that. You obviously try to avoid them because, you know, had he hit a ledge or something, then potentially he could have died. But because it was clean there, it was okay. So if he was in a situation where there was a slight angle and he fell that far, that's where it's really dangerous. Yeah. I mean, worst case scenario would be if you fell 100 feet and 75 feet down there was a ledge sticking out half the width of this table because then you would just clip it you'd break both your legs everything would explode and then you'd still fall yeah what do you do if you

fall and you break something and you're halfway up well dude so okay same route the the nose of el cap which we were trying to do the speed record on this friend of mine who i actually previously held the speed record with, this older guy, Hans Florin, who actually wrote the book How to Speed Climb, that I learned how to speed climb from many years ago. So he freaking, exactly what I'm describing, sort of worst-case scenario, he took this 20, probably a 22-foot fall, but he was unlucky enough, which is totally fine.

He had a rope, he had gear, everything worked exactly the way it's supposed to. He just fell a ways, which is totally fine he had a rope he had gear everything worked exactly the way it's supposed to he just fell a ways which is normal but the bummer was that there was a little ledge probably twice the size of that box right there like that little wooden box just kind of this little thing sticking out from the wall about this far but basically he fell 20 feet hit that broke both of his ankles and then and then went off at another two feet and so the rope caught him and you know the fall was exactly as expected all his gear held everything's totally normal except that he happened to hit that thing right at the apex of you know at the full force of his fall you know i had that ledgeman two feet below him it wouldn't matter at all he would just hit it and jumped off into space but because he'd

already fallen 20 feet broke both his ankles and then it was kind of horrible i was actually up higher on the wall that day i'd come in from above to just rappel in and work on something. And I heard him yelling, but I thought he was just hooting and hollering, like, hey, how's it going type deal. And then I had climbed out to the summit. And then when I'd hiked halfway back down, I got a voicemail from him saying that, you know, being like, oh, hey, it's Hans. I think I just broke my tip fib. You know, I'm basically like, oh, can you help or whatever. He'd already

called search and rescue. And so, or rescue is already mobilized, but search and rescue in Yosemite, it's, it's really elite. They're really fast, but it's still sort of by the books, you know, it still takes kind of a lot of time. And so I was like, Oh man, like maybe I should run back up and rappel down and like help my buddy rappel down the wall again or something, try to like get them out of here faster. Just because when search and rescue is mobilized, it's like a long time. And I was like, if he's in a lot of pain,

that sucks, you know? Yeah. Um, though, as it, I really hesitate. I wound up calling search and rescue and talking it through with them to see

if there was anything I could do to help. But ultimately I wound up just going down because, um, there wasn't really anything for me to do. So he's essentially just suspending for a while, waiting for them to get him. Yeah. So he basically just sat on a ledge with two broken legs for you know six hours or 12 hours

or something and then eventually they managed to haul him up to the summit and then i think they helicoptered him off the next morning oh my god it was already dark by then yeah i know it's kind of horrible but he's sort of recovered by now it's been it's been five months or something so he's back at it oh he's climbing he's the manager of a climbing gym he's you know yeah well i mean it's two broken bones i mean yeah it could be worse yeah it just seems like no super grim though he's like but that's an example of sort of worst case you know just bad luck well that's actually not worst case right no that yeah that's not worst case that's just bad luck yeah that's like when

you're sitting there if you're sitting there hanging off a ledge like that with two broken ankles for six hours i mean that must be grim by the time they get to you the pain swelling and yeah so i think he and his partner actually rappelled down 100 feet to a slightly bigger ledge so that he could lay on it and elevate his legs and then i think there were some other climbers around that gave him a jacket you know so he could sort of bundle up and like lay there and sort of manage. But yeah, I mean, it seems extremely character building the life you choose.

Yeah. Yeah. No, it's really, I'm like, that actually kind of makes me feel really bad just because of that. Like that kind of thing is really close to home, you know,

it's like, cause he's a friend and it's just so like, that's bad. Yeah. I can only imagine yeah when when you think about your life and you think about the stuff that you do do you do is there a point where you feel like you won't do it anymore or a point where you feel like you won't free solo anymore or do you look at like your friend who you were talking about who's older

who's still free soloing and doing difficult paths? Do you think this is just your life forever? No, I don't know. I honestly, I'm not sure. I don't think it's my path forever necessarily just because there just aren't always bigger and harder things to do. You know, I mean, El Cap represented sort of the end of this very long road for me. I mean, I soloed many, many things that were all sort of leading end of this very long road for me i mean i sold many many things that were all sort of leading towards lcap and then i finally did that and uh and at

least right now i can't really imagine anything more inspiring to me uh in terms of free-souling i mean there are plenty of other climbing challenges that i'm interested in like i was just saying doing the speed record is something that i did you know this summer but is this like winning a big hand in vegas where you're just, okay, we got all the money. Let's get the fuck out of here. No, because that's that, that is too much luck. You know what I mean? It's like, it's more like realizing a life dream and you're sort of like, okay, you know, I've seen, but I mean, you know, it's, it's a similar idea where you're like, okay, well, no, it's not even, I mean, it's, yeah, yeah. It's a bad analogy. Yeah. I was just thinking in terms of like, no, it's not even. I mean, yeah, it's a bad analogy. I was just thinking in terms of no more big, crazy risks.

Yeah, but that's the thing is that it's not even. I was never seeing it as a big, crazy risk. I wasn't rolling the dice. I was sort of training for this thing, and then I did it, and I'm just not sure if there's a bigger thing that's worth more effort. I don't know. I mean, as you see in the film, I have a relationship with my girlfriend and she's great and we have this nice life together and there's so much else in climbing and uh you know i mean maybe i'll never never seek out big free soloing challenges

again i mean we'll see now you're still relatively young in terms of life itself do you do you think maybe there could be something that you would enjoy as much as you enjoy climbing? Well, I mean, so no matter what, I'll climb my whole life. I mean, I freaking love climbing. I mean, even on the foam chair, I'm climbing in the gym every day just for the movement of it, just to enjoy climbing. But I don't know. I have a foundation that I've worked with for the last five or six years supporting solar around the world. And so I could see putting more and more effort into that

i mean that's something that's satisfying in a way that climbing sort of isn't because it actually has a real tangible impact on the world you know i mean climbing is really fulfilling personally but when it's all said and done it's like it's just me going rock climbing it doesn't really matter but um but at least working with the foundation it's like actually doing something real what is your foundation it's just the honnold foundation but it's like actually doing something real. What is your foundation? It's just the Honnold Foundation, but we've been supporting solar. I mean, if you want the longer version, it's basically, you know, I was like looking for some way to do something positive in the world. So I was looking to support environmental projects.

And then I was like, there's no real point in supporting environmental projects that don't also support like increased standard of living that like help people in need. And that sort of led me to solar projects, um, basically solar energy access. And so that's what we've been supporting the last five, six years. And so what do you do with this project? Well, so domestically, well, so mostly it's just been my way of donating my money to, to other projects that, that support solar. So, um, domestically in the u.s i've been supporting this group grid alternatives for example um and so i mean i've done a few installations with them in in sacramento in my hometown where basically low-income family just gets a free home solar system on their house and so it saves them the energy bills but then also in terms of you know

carbon emissions it's just it's good for the planet you're slowly greening the grid but um and then the bigger potentially the bigger impacts have been uh projects we've been supporting in africa um just give access to like solar lanterns solar lights being able to charge cell phones basically like small scale systems where it's just a panel a battery and a few led lights and a phone charger but um But those kinds of things can fundamentally change somebody's life because, you know, East Africa, people can spend up to a quarter of their income on kerosene just to light their home, which is totally outrageous. I mean, imagine spending that percentage of your income just to have light after dark. You know, in like an equatorial regions of

the earth, it's dark for 12 hours a day. I mean, imagine if when the sun goes down, your productive hours are done. You're just like, no, I'm just going to sit in the dark for 12 hours. It's crazy, you know? Yeah. I mean, there are a billion people on Earth living without access to power. And I mean, it's hard not for, I mean, I kind of see that as a waste of human potential to some extent. Like, it's just an unfortunate thing to think there's so many people living without access to power. I mean, it's crazy.

It is crazy. And it's really crazy in California that there's not more solar when you think about how often it's sunny here. Yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, it's totally. Though, I mean, at least it's growing very quickly in California at least. But, I mean, really, solar should be powering the whole Earth. I mean, enough sunlight hits the Earth every, I don't know the terms now,

it's every, like, 10 or 15 minutes basically to power the earth for like the year if you're able to harness all the energy it's kind of like it's just such a cleaner simpler way of powering the earth you know yeah it really is and i mean one can only hope that that's going to it's going to keep continue it's going to continue to evolve and the thing the thing that drives me absolutely crazy is that it's totally obvious that in 100 years, the earth will be run through solar and things like that, because there's just so much energy spilling out of the earth and it's free. And so the technology is only improving. Everybody's adopting it. Like in 100 years, no question, everything will be run from the sun. The thing

that drives me insane is that there's so much resistance to it from utilities, from, from, you know, consumer ignorance, from whatever else, but people just don't totally get it and sort of opposed to it. And so, you know, half the world will be dragged kicking and screaming into the future. And you're sort of like, if you just embrace it and get there in 15 years, instead of a hundred years, all, all the arguments about climate change, all arguments about, you know, environmental degradation, all those kinds of things would be mitigated to a large extent. And you're sort of like, is there a downside to that? You know, like, even if you don't believe in climate change, even if, you know, you deny all the science behind it, you think it's all BS. It's like, is there really a downside to just adopting the future sooner?

Yeah, it's like one of those things where you're sort of like, if it's going to happen eventually, let's just do it now and save all the freaking hassle getting there i think it's the momentum of the current system it's very difficult for people to just abandon established ways of doing things especially when we're so hooked on fossil fuels i know but like it's just such a bummer that the status quo is such a thing you know people like oh well that's the way we do it let's just keep doing that and it's just weird because there's so many things in life that change so frequently you know like i mean the world is constantly changing you're like let's just embrace the changes that matter the most and just do them faster well you're talking as a guy who lives in a van and climbs rocks and he's

business people that have thousands and thousands of employees and millions if not billions of money of dollars invested in these things. Yeah. Well, yeah. That's the problem. It's the momentum of the current system. I know. It's just too bad. Yeah.

But it's, it is, but it's inevitable. I agree with you. It's inevitable that we will embrace it and change. I think one of the big things. That's almost more frustrating though, is because it's inevitable and yet it's going to be dragged out so long. You're sort of like, why can't people just embrace the inevitability of it and just move forward?

Well, I think they slowly are, but things like that take time. I think one big thing is going to be if they can ever figure out a way to solar power cars as you're driving them. So you never really have to concern yourself. I don't think that will ever be a thing. Well, Fisker figured out how to do it with your stereo. They figured out how to do it with your radio system. That's a lot different than a car. It is.

That's like a lot less energy. But it's just the roof panel. The roof panel. Isn't that, didn't we, they're a weird company though. That's the company that many years ago, there was a big storm that hit the East Coast and they had a bunch of cars parked at a dock and they all exploded when the water hit them.

And they realized, wait, wait, wait, wait wait you can't get your things drenched in water like when the water hit a certain level like they had a severe flaw and so they burst into flames and exploded and there's this whole like dock filled with these fisker Karmas that blew up. And they called them Karmas, which is even more hilarious. You watch it exploding. That's pretty bad. That's like, that's all bad all the way around. Yeah, I think they've since fixed that. But yeah, it was a big flaw.

I was just actually reading this business management book. But he was talking about the Ford Pinto with having freaking gas tanks too close to the back bumper it's basically your gas tank protected by an inch of plastic and you know yeah speaking of exploding cars but that actually i think killed lots of people because you know they were actually put into production and then there are tons of accidents and the cars explode and you're just like man that's speaking of bad decisions in auto manufacturing, the Pinto was a disaster. It wasn't good. But, yeah, I think what they're capable of doing right now, I think you're right.

I don't think you can power a car with solar panels completely. I mean, you certainly can from your house. That was their initial claim when they announced it, that it would power the whole car. And everyone was like, that's bullshit. No, that's definitely bullshit. It can't happen. Yeah, it can't happen at all. Two years ago. Two years ago, they said they could power the whole car. And everyone was like, that's bullshit. No, that's definitely bullshit. It can't happen. Yeah, it can't happen at all. Two years ago. Two years ago they said they could power the whole car with the roof?

August of 2016. Huh. I'm trying to find the updates. That seems totally outrageous. Also, I mean, the future of cars is more like a smaller car with a glass roof, like Tesla style, where it's sort of a... There's an additional ad right here. Solar roof will create enough energy to power the car.

No other vehicle sold in the U.S. has ever offered this capability. Well, I mean, so that might be true if it just sat parked in the sun for 12 hours and then you drove home. Right. If you left it in your driveway and you worked at night. Yeah, exactly. It charges all day and your commute's really short.

But the numbers totally don't work. Yeah. Well, you would know better than anybody if you're involved in solar. Yeah. I don't know. But, I mean, the solar panels of today, I mean, I have a buddy of mine who does a lot of backpacking. And he carries around this, it's like a foldable solar charger for his phone. And he, you know, folds it up and lays it out and then puts a charger there.

And then he uses that charger to charge his phone but he does like he'll go 20 plus days with just this thing yeah i mean so i mentioned our expedition to antarctica last winter um so that's 24 hours of sunlight because you're in antarctica in the in their summer and uh our entire expedition was run from solar and so we'd actually taken a generator and the other guys on the trip forgot oil for the generator, basically. And so it wasn't going to work. And so we're like, oh, I guess we'll have to try to use the solar, which had sort of been our backup system. And actually, we ran the whole trip on solar, and everything worked.

And so they were filming, so there were a bunch of cameras, a bunch of batteries, laptops, backing up drives. And then they were flying a drone quite a bit for aerial footage. It was all kind of beautiful. So, I mean, they basically ran this whole operation off solar one of the one of the camera guys this guy pablo he's a good friend of mine um basically just had to wake up you know every two hours to move the panels around the tent as the sun tracks around the sky you know so that it's always in full sun right but um and you had to sleep with the batteries and things to make sure things stay warm enough but otherwise i mean um but that's i mean because it's really cold yeah it's funny

because you put your laptops and stuff into coolers, like into ice chests to keep them insulated enough to stay warm as opposed to cold. You know, because the outside temperature is so cold. But it was cool, though, because, you know, that way we didn't have to run this like loud, stinky, annoying generator. Like you just have your panels working full time. Yeah, that's one of the weirder things about like Tesla's when you drive it and they're like, there's no noise. Yeah, no, it's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. So much more peaceful. Yeah. I mean, but that's the future is like, if you imagine a city that's all silent electric cars, no emissions, I mean, imagine how much more pleasant the pedestrian experience is when they're when it's not like diesel exhaust right next to you on the city streets. Yeah. And you don't hear

the car that runs you over. Well, you know, no, but you still do though, because, uh, something like 30% of the noise is the tires. So it's like's like you still hear cars yeah but but it's just so much more mellow you don't hear like an engine like ripping right by you yeah i think it's inevitable that we figure out a way that you can just power everything from solar and including cars as you're driving them i mean it only makes sense as the technology improves. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. I mean, there's development in solar film sort of in windows. Like, so imagine an office building where the windows are all producing power.

So, I mean, if you think about that with a car, if it's just like a glass dome over you, but it's all sort of producing power. Yeah. I mean, it's pretty amazing. I have a watch that runs on solar power. Yeah, but that's not a lot of power. Yeah. But still, I mean, you don't really need any batteries for it it's a casio yeah yeah i did when i was a kid i had

one like that yeah yeah that's pretty that's pretty straightforward though that's a small amount of power that's drawing when you got involved in this um how much preparation did you do i mean what what was what was the motivation? Like how did you... For the foundation? Yeah. I mean, honestly, like I said, I was just looking to do something positive for the world. And so... Start exploring options. You will. And so I was going to start donating a significant percentage of my income to, to environmental nonprofits. And then I decided that I should do it in sort of a public facing way and in the form of the foundation, just because I felt like, you know, I'm never going

to have nearly as much money as, as real philanthropic organization, you know, like the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. Like I'll never have, I'll never have real dollars like that, but I do sort of have this platform, like some sort of public, you know, persona, whatever. And so I was like, well, at least if I donate things, I can sort of leverage that in the right way to contribute. I don't know, basically to try to maximize the good that I'm doing. And so, um, yeah, so then I just started researching organizations that I felt like were doing great work and that led me to solar basically. Does most of your income come from sponsors and from public appearances? Like how do you, it was mostly sponsors and then it sort of has shifted into sponsors and sort of one-off things. So like, um, I published a book a few

years ago and so there's an advance from that and like the film um has made a little money um the you know random little things and then now it's also sort of split with like corporate speaking type commercial opportunities as well so sponsorship is still probably the biggest thing for me so like the north face being my biggest sponsor um and most important sponsor for me but then now it's sort of split between a bunch of different sources. So the public speaking things, these corporate appearances, you just go and get just talk to them about free solo climbing? And yeah, talk to them about climbing, talk about preparation, or I mean, depends on what somebody needs, really depends what the organization is, I've spoken to a bunch of venture capital type firms about risk taking or risk management or how that's interesting, you know.

So they just look at you as like sort of an inspiration to mix things up for the company. Yeah. I mean, I'd like to think that it's a slightly more interesting talk than the average business speaker. You know, I mean, it's certainly more beautiful images. You know, like if I if I give a nice slideshow and chat for a bit, it's, you know, I mean, it's beautiful. It's, um, you know, I mean, it's beautiful, it's different. And, um, but I think that it still gets back to some of the same elemental issues, you know, talking about the, yeah. I mean, how do you manage risk in your life and what's worth it? How do you choose? It's, it's a smart move too, for a company to just kind of like vary the kind

of input that gets to the, the, the employees, like give them something that's kind of spectacular and interesting. And yeah. Now, when you look at the future, do you, do you have a map of what you would like to be doing? Do you, are you just sort of enjoying your experience here? Or do you, do you have grand plans? Yeah, I don't really have grand plans. I mean, I've never really had a grand plan. It's always been that I love climbing. I want to do it well. I want to push myself. And I think that's kind of my grand plan.

I mean, I'm still trying to be a better climber. I'm still trying to grow the foundation, do something more significant through it. I actually hired a full-time executive director this year, this woman who's running it for me, which is kind of awesome. So we're actually sort of ramping it all up a little bit. That was slightly in response to the film because I sort of figured that, you know, this is like a moment that I should try to take advantage of and use it to do something more positive. And so that's all sort of exciting for me. And it's definitely not a grand plan, but it's, you know, it's just sort of all incremental progress.

So when you're doing all these climbs, you have a lot of time. It takes time to do these things. Yeah. So is this when you start doing all these climbs, you have a lot of time. It takes time to do these things. So is this when you start thinking about these ideas, about thinking about how much you enjoy being out here in nature? Yeah, caring about the environment, for sure. I mean, I spend most of my time in the most beautiful places on earth. I mean, I'm spending most of my time in national parks and public lands in general. And so I'm in all these beautiful places, and it's like, yeah, I mean, I'm spending most of my time in national parks and public lands in general. And so I'm in all these beautiful places and it's like, yeah, I mean, I care about them. I want to,

you know, if I have a family someday, I want to be able to take my kids to these same places and have them appreciate the land in the same way. I mean, yeah. So like Yosemite, the last five years, fricking the entire forest has basically died from, from pine beetles. Well, all the pine trees have basically died because of pine beetles. And so like just in the last five years, let's say the Yosemite Valley floor has sort of transformed from like a dense pine forest to sort of this open oak forest. It's like totally different character

because all the pine trees have died and then they've been cutting them all down to reduce fuel load. So they're basically logging trucks with pine trees leaving the park nonstop, which I totally support. I'm not like anti logging the dead trees because like you may as well use them if they're already dead. And I definitely don't want to see

so many Valley all burst into flames. So it makes sense. But at the same time, I mean, you know, that's a real, that's a very direct result of climate change. I mean, it's 10 years of drought in California combined with, with the shorter winters. It's like, you just have these beetles decimating the entire forest. And I don't know. I mean, that's, that sucks. You know, like, I don't, I don't want to see the whole forest die. Is that an invasive beetle or is it a native beetle? Yeah. Well, I think it's invasive in that, uh, I don't know specifically with Yosemite, I could be wrong about this, but with a lot of the pine beetle problems in Colorado, it has more to do with a shorter winter and, and warmer temperatures because normally uh the larvae would

die through the winter like they would freeze um but you know basically they're not freezing to the same extent and so the population explodes and then you wind up with all the trees dying yeah we were there and we were in big bear a few years back when they were having a real issue with it and they were having real significant fire scares yeah and it was it was nerve-wracking no i mean yosemite was like on fire for most of the summer. It was this crazy for the whole Southern part of the park was like burning for months. And that's, you know, I mean, fire is a natural part of the ecosystem. And, you know, to some extent, you're like, that's normal. But it's like, it's not normal right now, because the fuel load is so high. It's like so dry. It's

just it's too much, you know, and I just would love for my kids someday to be able to appreciate the park the way I have for so long. And I just don't want to see it all burn. Yeah. When I was, when we were in Big Bear, that's my feeling. It was, it, it, it was, it was sad that you're seeing something that was probably this rich green lush forest. That's now really weird gray and dry, but it was also like you're around kindling like you're basically in a big stack of dry wood before it gets lit on fire and you're surrounded by it and there's you know and if it hits up there it's i mean i've we've been evacuated where i live several times twice actually and come close a couple other times and it's uh it's terrifying because southern california when it goes it goes yeah and there's

just no stopping it no i mean that's yeah no that's messed i mean that's so like yeah this is why i'm like this is why we transition to solar sooner you know because it's like if it helps at all with these kinds of issues then it's like worth worth the effort you know yeah it's like it's gonna happen anyway it's like you may as well just do it now so this thing that you were doing in antarctica you're filming something there as well just do it now. So this thing that you were doing in Antarctica, you're filming something there as well. Do you do a lot of that now? Um, well for a trip like that,

for an expedition, I mean that was a North face expedition. And so that's where they get a lot of their brand content. Um, and so it makes sense to film a trip like that. And we were somewhere that nobody ever goes. We were doing first to sentence of peaks that had never been climbed. So it kind of makes sense to document that to some extent.

Um, but in general, I think I try to balance my just pure climbing with with filming yeah that's what i was going to ask you like you don't want to yeah you don't want to film all the time filming everything no no that's on your head everywhere you go no that stuff drives me crazy i'm not into that have you but when you're in the most beautiful place you know sometimes it makes sense well there's something especially for someone like north face i mean their whole company is about really exploration people up yeah yeah when when you

are in that sort of situation where you're filming these things like is it difficult to be to act normal to be to to be yourself well no i mean, no, I mean, if you, if you saw Free Solo, you know that I only have one mode and that's just, that's just me. Um, which I mean, when, when I see the film, a lot of it, I'm like, Oh, maybe I need to censor myself a little more. Like maybe, uh, you know, like, Oh, maybe it should be a little more thoughtful about what I say. But, but, um, no, I mean, I'm pretty much always, I just, I just do me and if people are filming or not, they just get, I mean, I'm more mindful of profanity and a few things like that if i know that i'm being filmed i know i'm being watched then i try to be you know slightly more respectful especially if i see kids in an audience i definitely try not to curse right but um but overall i'm like no i just i just always state my mind you know well that's what

i was talking about earlier when i was asking like the difference between you when you're i mean your your love of this is your love of nature and of being in these beautiful national forests and public lands and experiencing these amazing environments but then sometimes that gets sort of perverted when you're filming everything and you've got people just everything becomes this sort of presentation and everything becomes professional. I mean, I think that's the risk with filming. I think with Free Solo, I think they did an amazing job of maintaining the character,

the nuance, like not perverting it in any way. No, I think so too. I think it was amazing. Yeah, I mean, I think they did a really good job of that. And it's still sort of understated. Even though it's like this spectacular feat, it's still sort of subdued in its own way. It just sort of lays it out beautifully, lets you just sort of judge for yourself.

Well, it's impossible to be anything but spectacular, so you don't really have to dress it up. Yeah, totally. Well, that's the beauty of filming anything in Yosemite. It's honestly just one of the most beautiful places on Earth. It would be like putting a pretty dress on a Ferrari. Leave it alone. It's done. Yeah a pretty dress on a Ferrari. Like, leave it alone. It's done.

Yeah, totally. You've already got it. Have you ever thought about doing some, like, live journal from the field or some sort of a podcast or something along those lines? No. I mean, should I? Yeah. No, that sounds like too much work.

Well, a podcast would be easy i don't know but you have to be able to interview people properly and no you don't no you don't think my friend bill burr has a podcast where he just talks oh he's he does a monday it's fucking great but he's a comedian oh yeah yeah monday morning podcast but you just sitting down i mean you could go off notes you could go off of and just i think people would love that if you just sitting down, I mean, you could go off notes. You could go off of and just – I think people would love that if you just – I've actually never thought about it. I mean, in some ways, I do have strong opinions about a lot of things. Like if I just ranted about environmental issues and solar and things that I care about, that actually would be kind of fun.

Well, I think you'd have a significant impact too, especially if you have such a large platform now. I don't know. I don't know. I'll consider it. That's the first time anyone's ever mentioned it. I'm sort of like, I'll think about that. I'm notorious for trying

to talk people into podcasts, but I really think in your case, it'd be a great idea. I mean, you really... You're like, I tell everyone to do it, but you should really do it.

Well, people get mad at me. You keep telling people to do it, but I think you, if you had a portable unit, like one of these MP3 players... Oh, I mean a freaking phone i mean you can just record your phone really oh yeah uh recording your phone is very easy um you could you i mean we've done a bunch of them we're just the voice notes from the phone just talking into the voice

notes from the phone and you can make a podcast off that and it's really easy to upload but just maybe maybe that's my future sitting in your van you know afterwards and just talking about things you're working on with your foundation talking about spectacular moments during climbs where you're

seeing things and you know talking about what it's been like doing this tour for free you know yeah

no I'm like that's I'll think about that I mean that's interesting yeah that's an interesting way to put it mean that's interesting yeah it'd be an interesting way to put it out there i mean i think it's a great idea man huh huh i'll help you consider all right we'll help you get it get it out yeah you'll send me a little mp3 recorder we could definitely do that but we could also help you uh like from i can promote it for you

put it on twitter let people yeah we'll see if uh if i ever actually do anything like that but um but no it's an interesting idea I mean it's an interesting way to like share share ideas better well it's the reason why I'm saying this is because you have

this very specific very unusual life and you also have all these ideas about the environment and have all these ideas about using it for positive reasons and altruistic.

Hoping to freaking make the world a better place. Yeah, and making an impact with your foundation. I really think it could – look, the best thing with your foundation would be to make it exposed to more people. And it would most certainly do that. Yeah, yeah. No, it's – I'll talk to my executive director about that too. I mean, that would be an interesting way to, to, yeah, at least share the ideas that I care about.

Yeah, exactly. It's so cheap to do. The idea of just sitting and recording. I'm like, oh, I can see that. Yeah. And it would be kind of cool. You know, like, like you at the base of a mountain just talking about this and climbing and your personal thoughts in that moment.

I feel like it could be douchey, you know, but it'd have to be well done. You'd have to be a douchebag for it to be douchey. Well, that's the danger. That's the danger. You just never, I mean, nobody thinks that they're the douche, you know. Oh, well, do you think you'd become a douche? Well, you just never know. You never know.

When you're like, I'm just going to record monologues of me rambling about ideas. That's when you start to trend towards douchiness, perhaps. Well, the good thing is you could always review it or have your girlfriend review it. Yeah, that's true. So you don't have to do it live. And then she could say, okay, that part where you rant and rave about diesel, you might want to yank that. No, I mean, well. Or maybe not.

Yeah, no, I feel stronger about it. I'll rant and rave about diesel forever. I'm like, that's just not the right. Man, imagine when electric trucks, you know, like long haul trucking. I'm like and rave about diesel forever. That's just not the way. Man, imagine when electric trucks, you know, like long haul trucking, I'm like, oh, can't wait. Well, Tesla's already on, they're on the ball with that. Yeah. Well, hopefully I kind of don't care who comes to market first, that stuff. I just want somebody to start selling a lot of them. You know, it's like, I just want the change to happen quickly. It doesn't matter who does it or how it's like,

it just needs to happen. You've got a very significant voice right now. I really think that you could make a big impact with a lot of people. And the thing about these impacts, it's sort of like the butterfly effect, right? You never know what it actually changes. You have no idea how many people are going to hear you just from this podcast and the things you're saying about solar and people thinking about like, yeah, maybe I can do something. And then, boom, it just makes these little incremental steps and then they carry on momentum and you never know hmm well that's very that's the positive way of looking at it you know yeah I just think it would be cool to like notes from wherever you are just

I mean it doesn't you don't have to have the beautiful thing is to it doesn't have to have any kind of structure you don't have to have, the beautiful thing is too, it doesn't have to have any kind of structure. You don't have to have any time. I mean, you can do one for 15 minutes if you want. And people will listen to it. You could do it for an hour. No, that might be a little micro hits. Yeah.

Like little rambles for sure. Do it as long as you want. And look, like I said, the beautiful thing about things like this is that there's no real structure to it where you have to do something at a certain time. Yeah, totally. You just decide. In a lot of ways, that's the nature of climbing too, where you never have to do anything. You just find what inspires you. You work towards it. You do it when you're excited about it.

Yeah. I'm totally into that kind of thing because it's actually – I've always contrasted climbing from other mainstream sports like that because with climbing, it's like the objective is always that you're always inspired by you do it whenever you're ready yeah as opposed to having to perform on the right day at the right time you know it's like i love that lifestyle where you're like you know today is my day or today is not my day right just like make it count if if like leading up to you free soloing el cap if there was a sort of a documented audio journal well i mean there's a freaking film i mean just go watch the film yeah but people are getting this is you're If there was sort of a documented audio journal of your trials and tribulations. I mean, just go watch the film.

Yeah, but people are getting it. You're just whetting their appetite. I mean, it's a beautiful film. It's fantastic. But people like to absorb more stuff. Interesting. And it's entirely up to you what you want to share or don't want to share. And especially if you do it this way, you don't have an executive producer.

You don't have directors. Yeah, totally. With that, I definitely couldn't handle. That's too much. Just you. Just you just talking about stuff. And your specific vision, the things that you like to talk about, and your specific message.

That's one of the things that people really, really enjoy about something like a podcast is that they know there's no one telling you what to say or what to do. Yeah, you're following your heart. Alex is sitting in his van, drinking a cup of tea, just with an iPhone, talking. It's hard to imagine people would find that interesting. They would. I'm telling you, dude. You'd be really surprised, I bet, though. Tell them.

There's tons of people. Tell them, Jamie. I know people would be listening to it. Tell them, Jamie. People I know would listen to you, for sure. No, I appreciate that, but I'm slightly worried i'm gonna be i'm gonna miss my plane okay yeah we gotta get you out of here but listen thank you very much uh thanks for being here i really appreciate it oh thank you yeah it's fun fun to chat again because i remember last time i was on

the show it was uh it was a full experience for me it's one of the first times i've done anything like that and it was like it was pretty mega i was like whoa I have no idea what I'm doing. This is so much. Now I feel so much more comfortable and fun to chat. It was great. It was awesome. It was really great to see you again. Basically what I'm saying, it feels like coming of age to come back and chat again. It's really nice. Beautiful. Cool. I appreciate it. Thanks, Alex. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Yeah, it's funny. I remember last time.