Read Online Alone on the Wall: Alex Honnold and the Ultimate Limits of Adventure by David Roberts, Alex Honnold - Free Book Online
Authors: David Roberts, Alex Honnold
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pack hanging off you. The balance is more natural.) The first few steps were completely normal, as if I was walking on a narrow sidewalk in the sky. But once it narrowed, I found myself inching along, facing out with my body glued to the wall, shuffling my feet and maintaining perfect posture. I could have looked down and seen my pack sitting at the base of the route 1,800 feet below, but it would have pitched me headfirst off the wall. The ledge ends at a short squeeze chimney that guards the beginning of the final slab to the summit.
I paused for a moment beneath the ninety-foot slab, looked up to see if anyone was watching (still no one), and started up. The first few moves are easy enough, on somewhat positive holds with good feet. As you get higher, the holds disappear and the feet shrink. Two days earlier, I’d considered two sections “cruxy.” The first involved a step-through onto a miserly smear, while the second, thirty feet higher, involved a few moves of shitty hands and feet before reaching a “jug”—a big, positive edge I could wrap my fingers around that marked the end of the hard climbing, sixty feet up the pitch.
I also knew that it was this slab that had thwarted Higbee and Erickson’s attempt to climb the whole route free. So close to the summit, they’d had to use aid to surmount the last obstacle. Perhaps that should have given me pause.
I hardly noticed the first crux. I cruised right through it, feeling pretty good about myself. Twenty feet of thin cord hung from one of the bolts. I very briefly considered running the cord under my thumb—not weighting it but having it there just in case. But that felt suspiciously like cheating.
I climbed into the upper crux, feeling good about doing things legit. And then I ground to a halt. I’d expected to find some sort of different hold or sequence from the one I’d used two days earlier, which had felt pretty desperate, but perhaps I’d done it wrong. This time, in the same position on the same holds, I realized therewere no better options. I had a moment of doubt . . . or maybe panic. It was hard to tell which. Although I’d freed the pitch maybe two other times the year before, I could remember nothing of the sequence or holds, perhaps because there aren’t any.
A gigantic old oval carabiner hung from a bolt about two inches above the pathetic ripple that was my right handhold. I alternated back and forth, chalking up my right hand and then my left, switching feet on marginal smears to shake out my calves. I couldn’t make myself commit to the last terrible right-foot smear I needed to snag the jug. I’d stalled out in perhaps the most precarious position of the whole route. I considered grabbing the biner. With one pull, I’d be up and off.
Tourists’ oblivious laughter spilled over the lip. Tons of people were up top. I was in a very private hell.
I stroked the biner a few times, fighting the urge to grab it but also thinking how foolish it would be to die on a slab, sliding and bouncing almost 2,000 feet to my death, when I could so easily save myself. My calves were slowly getting pumped. I knew I should do something soon, since treading water was only wearing me out. Downclimbing never occurred to me—I was going up (it was just a matter of how high) one way or another. But now, real fear seized me. Once again, I took a deep breath, studied the holds in front of me, and tried to think rationally about what I had to do.
Although I never wanted to be on that slab in the first place, I had to finish what I’d started without invalidating my ascent. Finally, I compromised. I kept my hand on the pathetic ripple but straightened my right index finger just enough for the tip of my last pad to rest on the bottom of the oval. My thought was, if my foot blew, I could snatch the biner with one finger and check my fall.
I smeared my foot, stood up, and grabbed the jug. No problem. I was delivered, free from my little prison, where I’d
I paused for a moment beneath the ninety-foot slab, looked up to see if anyone was watching (still no one), and started up. The first few moves are easy enough, on somewhat positive holds with good feet. As you get higher, the holds disappear and the feet shrink. Two days earlier, I’d considered two sections “cruxy.” The first involved a step-through onto a miserly smear, while the second, thirty feet higher, involved a few moves of shitty hands and feet before reaching a “jug”—a big, positive edge I could wrap my fingers around that marked the end of the hard climbing, sixty feet up the pitch.
I also knew that it was this slab that had thwarted Higbee and Erickson’s attempt to climb the whole route free. So close to the summit, they’d had to use aid to surmount the last obstacle. Perhaps that should have given me pause.
I hardly noticed the first crux. I cruised right through it, feeling pretty good about myself. Twenty feet of thin cord hung from one of the bolts. I very briefly considered running the cord under my thumb—not weighting it but having it there just in case. But that felt suspiciously like cheating.
I climbed into the upper crux, feeling good about doing things legit. And then I ground to a halt. I’d expected to find some sort of different hold or sequence from the one I’d used two days earlier, which had felt pretty desperate, but perhaps I’d done it wrong. This time, in the same position on the same holds, I realized therewere no better options. I had a moment of doubt . . . or maybe panic. It was hard to tell which. Although I’d freed the pitch maybe two other times the year before, I could remember nothing of the sequence or holds, perhaps because there aren’t any.
A gigantic old oval carabiner hung from a bolt about two inches above the pathetic ripple that was my right handhold. I alternated back and forth, chalking up my right hand and then my left, switching feet on marginal smears to shake out my calves. I couldn’t make myself commit to the last terrible right-foot smear I needed to snag the jug. I’d stalled out in perhaps the most precarious position of the whole route. I considered grabbing the biner. With one pull, I’d be up and off.
Tourists’ oblivious laughter spilled over the lip. Tons of people were up top. I was in a very private hell.
I stroked the biner a few times, fighting the urge to grab it but also thinking how foolish it would be to die on a slab, sliding and bouncing almost 2,000 feet to my death, when I could so easily save myself. My calves were slowly getting pumped. I knew I should do something soon, since treading water was only wearing me out. Downclimbing never occurred to me—I was going up (it was just a matter of how high) one way or another. But now, real fear seized me. Once again, I took a deep breath, studied the holds in front of me, and tried to think rationally about what I had to do.
Although I never wanted to be on that slab in the first place, I had to finish what I’d started without invalidating my ascent. Finally, I compromised. I kept my hand on the pathetic ripple but straightened my right index finger just enough for the tip of my last pad to rest on the bottom of the oval. My thought was, if my foot blew, I could snatch the biner with one finger and check my fall.
I smeared my foot, stood up, and grabbed the jug. No problem. I was delivered, free from my little prison, where I’d
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