Free As Can Be: El Cap Climbing Film Available Today Through Friday
It premieres at the Arc'teryx Climbing Academy this week
Photo by: Samuel Crossley
Samuel Crossley’s year-long film project, Free As Can Be, premieres today through the Arc’teryx Climbing Academy. This is the first year that the climbing academy has gone virtual.
The movie tells the unlikely partnership between Americans Mark Hudon, 64, and Jordan Cannon, 26. In it, Hudon aims to make the oldest free ascent of El Cap’s Free Rider — taking as long as it takes — while Cannon seeks to do the route in a day.
“I made the film about the things I value in climbing,” Crossley says. “Partnerships are where it’s at. The movie is about sharing a common goal and working on each other’s strengths and weaknesses.”
Free As Can goes live today — for free — from 3 p.m. PST to Friday, Aug. 28.
Free as Can Be
To watch the film in its entirety, click this link.
If you’ve perused climbing media in the past five years — specifically in Yosemite — chances are you’ve seen Samuel Crossley’s work. He was Jimmy Chin’s photo assistant on Free Solo, did post-production work on Dawn Wall, and he helped film the Nose Speed Record in Reel Rock 14.
Raised in Moraga, California, Crossley studied cinema at San Francisco State University, and in 2014 he moved to Boulder, Colorado, to work on his first film for Cedar Wright, Sufferfest: 700 Miles of Pain and Glory. This film tells the story of Alex Honnold and Cedar Wright as they bike through the desert southwest to climb towers. In 2015 Crossley interned with Sender Films; around that same period, he began work on Free Solo.
To learn more about Crossley, stay tuned for a feature on him in Gripped.
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