Alex Honnold Discusses Free Soloing For TED Talks

Watch Alex Honnolds’s hair-raising talk about his free-solo of Freerider on El Capitan.

“Years ago, when I first mentally mapped out what it would mean to free solo Freerider, there were half a dozen of pitches where I was like, ‘Oh that’s a scary move and that’s a really scary sequence, and that little slab, and that traverse,’” Honnold said shortly after his climb.

“There were so many little sections where I thought ‘Ughh—cringe.’ But in the years since, I’ve pushed my comfort zone and made it bigger and bigger until these objectives that seemed totally crazy eventually fell within the realm of the possible.”

I wanted to post something scary for Halloween – this was the best I could find on my phone. The opening move of the Boulder Problem on Freerider – courtesy of the remote cameras for @freesolofilm. Free Solo is still showing in hundreds of theaters across the country. It should open in Europe sometime in the next month or so. UK in December I think. It’s been a pretty wild ride so far. I hope everyone’s enjoying a lovely Halloween!

A post shared by Alex Honnold (@alexhonnold) on Oct 31, 2018 at 3:40pm PDT

The film Free Solo about Honnold has gone on to win awards and has 100 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes.

It was filmed over three years by Jimmy Chin who, along with his assistant Sam Crossley and cameraman Cheyne Lempe, was on the wall filming Honnold during his solo.

Honnold’s TED Talk