Imagine if Alex Honnold’s El Cap Free-Solo Was Livestreamed?
We might be seeing more climbers attempt their climbs on livestream, as today Jakob Schubert climbed Project Big live on YouTube - and it was awesome
On May 3, 2017, Alex Honnold became the first climber ever to free-solo El Capitan in Yosemite. He climbed a 30-pitch Freerider 5.12d in three hours and 56 minutes. It was a monumental climb that made headlines around the world. His free-solo was filmed by an orchestrated camera crew positioned on the rock and in the valley. The footage was made into a film called Free Solo, which went on to win an academy award and be recognised as one of the best rock climbing films ever made.
While livestreaming climbing competitions has been around for over a decade, livestreaming send attempts on boulder and sport projects is relatively new. We’ll explore the livestreaming of rock climbing more in the future, but today was historical because Jakob Schubert livestreamed his first free ascent of Project Big in Norway. Besides Schubert trying to climb one of the hardest routes in the world, he had the pressure of thousands of people watching his every move on YouTube. Earlier this year, Will Bosi livestreamed attempts on Burden of Dreams V17 before making the second ascent. He later released a short film featuring his climb on YouTube.
One has to wonder if livestreaming was more commonplace in 2017, would Alex Honnold and his film crew have considered livestreaming his free-solo of El Cap? Probably not, but imagine if they did. The most-watched sporting events have billions of viewers (Tour de France has 3.5 billion and the World Cup of soccer has 3.3 billion), but events like Wimbeldon have 7.5 million. The trailer to the film Free Solo has over 10 million views. And if climbers did watch Honnold free-solo El Capitan on livestream, would as many have cared to watch it in a 100-minute documentary? Maybe.
The Dawn Wall was climbed over several weeks in 2015 by Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson. Their climb wasn’t livestreamed in the way that Schubert’s was, but there was constant mainstream media footage and social media updates from spectators and the climbers themselves. How would you even livestream a multi-week big wall effort? Who knows, but the footage was made into an award-winning film called Dawn Wall. However, livestreaming bouldering sends, redpoint attempts, and even free-solos (imagine the suspense), might be something we see a lot more of. Watching Schubert’s send of Project Big on livestream today hit differently than seeing a redpoint in a film, it was a unique experience to be part of. I wonder what kind of spectacle a livestream of something like Honnold’s El Capitan free-solo would have been.
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