Amazing pics of #alexhonnold #elcapitan free solo. Tom photographs climbers through a telescope https://t.co/MIc4ICk0cC @jimmy_chin photo pic.twitter.com/I161X1q4YK
— Shay Har-Noy (@iheartcrowds) June 5, 2017
Last year Alex Honnold captivated the world by becoming the first person to climb Yosemite’s El Capitan without a rope. The free solo attempt up the 3,000-foot granite wall was quickly dubbed “the moon landing” of rock climbing. Honnold’s climbing partner, Tom Caldwell, witnessed the incredible feat and wrote about it shortly afterwards for Outside Magazine:
Free soloing El Cap has been the most anticipated climbing feat of our generation, but only because of Alex. There have been very few people potentially capable of accomplishing this, and sadly most of these individuals are no longer with us. In the past I’ve equated the possibility of this climb to the moon landing of free soloing. Today, knowing that it has been done, I think that is a fair assessment of the significance. It’s a generation-defining climb.
National Geographic captured some incredible, vertigo-inducing footage of Honnold’s free solo climb. If heights give you the willies, it will make your palms sweat profusely.