any one of us,” Caldwell said. He longs
to return to Patagonia—there are so
many mountains calling him—but feels
that he shouldn’t. Global warming is
changing the glaciers that are the pri-
mary approach to the big peaks. They’re
becoming unstable, too, with unpredict-
able new crevasses.
His adventure with Honnold that
week went well. They made the first
ascent of the Fitz Traverse, which runs
the length of the Fitzroy range, across
seven ice-capped peaks with descents
even more treacherous than the ascents.
They did it free climbing, at high speed
(they carried all their supplies, includ-
ing a single lightweight sleeping bag to
share), in just five days, across extreme
terrain that they had never seen before.
Although they had no photographer,
for obvious reasons, they carried a sim-
ple camera, collecting footage that be-
came a charming film about their feat
called “A Line Across the Sky.”
“I don’t really have an emotional re-
action to danger,” Caldwell said. “Alex
doesn’t, either, which is a big reason why
we’re such good partners. The differ-
ence, though, is that he’s proud of that
quality. I’m ashamed of it.”
H
onnold had no quarrel with that
assessment. He has always had an
air of detachment, of devotion to pure
performance, that Caldwell does not.
He lived in a van for ten years and did
almost nothing but train and climb,
and his unsentimentality is legendary,
earning him the nickname Spock. But
he does not deserve the comparisons
he gets to aliens who happen to rock
climb. He recently married a woman,
Sanni McCandless, whose emotional
intelligence is clear in “Free Solo,” and
moved out of his van into a house in
Las Vegas. He gives a significant por-
tion of his income to his foundation,
which offers grants to organizationsand
community groups working on solar-
energy projects.
“Tommy likes to style himself as
risk-averse,” he told me. “The safe
climber. But a lot of the media repre-
sentations around that and our part-
nership just aren’t true. He has the exact
same risk tolerance that I do, and he’s
capable of the exact same things. Maybe
he’s ashamed of that capacity. But it’s
not like we’re ever pushing each other
to do things. We make decisions to-
gether. That’s part of why he’s such a
pleasure for me to climb with. We can
swing leads as total equals.”
Caldwell officiated at Alex and San-
ni’s wedding, last year. His kids call
Honnold Uncle Alex. Onscreen, the
two men have developed a buddy act.
In circumstances that would be des-
perate for anyone else—on a wind-
whipped peak in Patagonia, say, after
climbing two thousand vertical feet of
granite and ice—they can joke around,
with Caldwell playing it straight, the
low-key stalwart trying to anchor their
tent for the night, and Honnold goof-
ing with the camera, focussing on Cald-
well eating some kind of energy bar:
“Zooming in as you masticate, I’m start-
ing to feel somewhat artistic.”
Caldwell, deadpan, brow raised: “I
don’t know if I want you to video me
masticating.”
There is a searing moment in “Free
Solo” when Caldwell is trying to un-
derstand why Honnold, while training
for his big solo, took an uncharacteris-
tic fall on a low-angle pitch and sprained
his ankle. “He really doesn’t even say
he knows what happened,” Caldwell
tells the camera. “Which is kind of sur-
prising, because I feel like he’s always
so aware.” The fall deeply rattled Cald-
well. “Normally, I’m just, like, ‘Oh, he’s
got it. He’s such a beast...’” Caldwell’s
faint laugh seems to turn to ash in his
mouth. He bites his lip, looks up, can’t
find his voice. He eventually turns back
to the camera and tries to speak, but
what he says is unintelligible. Some-
thing about being “stressed out,” maybe.
Caldwell, the aw-shucks superman,
seems stricken with panic and premon-
itory grief.
C
aldwell and Honnold are both past
the point in their careers where
they need to come up with flashy ideas
to keep their sponsors happy. “I’m not
looking to top the Dawn Wall,” Cald-
well has said, “so I’m already on the
downward spiral.” But they are not un-
aware of their brands as fearless hard
men, and of what sorts of projects might
keep those burnished.
When I brought up the new Cali-
fornia sport climb, Empath, Caldwell
gave a let’s-keep-this-in-perspective
laugh. “Nobody will care if we send it
or not,” he said. “On a single-pitch sport
“Our pumpkin pie is loosely based on our apple pie.”
