Alone on the Wall: Alex Honnold and the Ultimate Limits of Adventure Read Online Free PDF

five or six times before with different partners, but I’d freed all the moves, roped up and clipping pro in case I fell, only twice—most recently two days before my solo attempt, when I’d gone up there with Brad Barlage. There are three completely blank sections on the route that Robbins’s team solved by going on aid as they drilled bolt ladders through the impasses. Almost everybody climbs the bolt ladders today—they’re secure, and relatively easy for aid. But free variations have been worked out that bypass those blank sections. That’s why it’s possible to climb the whole route free, as Higbee and Erickson (almost) did, though they were roped up and using pro.
    After Brad and I climbed the route on September 4, I spent the whole next day resting, sitting by myself in my van, thinking about the route. I was still somewhat conflicted about going up there alone: Do I really want to do this? I’d already made plans with different friends to climb a few days later in the Valley, so I felt some pressure to get my soloing done before any of them showed up. Ultimately I decided to go back up to the base of Half Dome the next day. I told myself that I could just hike back down if I wasn’t psyched. I’ve done that a few times, or even started a route and then backed off. In 2006, on Royal Arches Terrace, a long climb in the Valley but technically a pretty easy one, I climbed a pitch and a half up the friction slab at the start of the route, then realized I just wasn’t into it. I downclimbed, hiked back to the road, and hitchhiked out of Yosemite. I was done for the season.
    This time, though, I knew that once I got up to the base of Half Dome, there was no way I was going to bail.
    I didn’t want to make a big fuss about my project, so I told only two people about it, Brad and Chris Weidner. Brad said, “What the fuck?” But then, “Okay, be safe. Text me when you’re done.” He was being a bro.
    Chris tried to talk me out of it. “Dude, that’s crazy,” he said. “You should rehearse the hell out of it on a toprope before you try to solo it.”
    “Nah,” I answered. “I want to keep it sporting.”
    “Are you crazy?”
    When I look back on those exchanges, it sounds as though I was being flippant or arrogant. That’s not what was going on. I just didn’t want to make too big a deal about the attempt—especially in case I backed off low on the route. It’s bad form to brag about a climb before you do it. And I didn’t want my good buddies to get too alarmed—then I might start worrying about them worrying about me! I guess I was just trying to reassure them
: Hey, guys, I think I can handle this. I’ll be safe.
    There was something else going on as well. Despite my emphasis on methodical preparation, I’d begun to think that maybe I’d rehearsed the moves on Moonlight Buttress so thoroughly that I actually took some of the challenge out of the climb. Half Dome was so much bigger than Moonlight that it would take forever to get all the moves dialed. I decided to head up the wall with a little less preparation—that’s what I meant by “keeping it sporting.”
    As it would turn out, maybe too sporting. . . .
    In September it’s still pretty hot in the Valley. That meant there weren’t likely to be many other climbers on the face, which is what I was hoping for. But because the wall faces northwest, in September it stays in shade the whole day, which meant I could climb without getting too sweaty or dehydrated. Sweaty hands makesmooth climbing pretty dicey, no matter how much you chalk up, and dehydration not only saps your strength but also can interfere with your judgment.
    So on September 6, I found myself at the base of the route again. With a much lighter load than I’d carried with Brad two days before, the approach hike had taken far less time, but the whole way I felt the face looming over me. I tried not to think about it too much. It was a bluebird day, a perfect, clear