54 | AG Outdoor
National Geographic Explorer and
The North Face climbing team
member Cedar Wright opens the
festival by abseiling onto stage.the pillow than my phone starts beeping at me; it is 8am, the sun is
streaming in the window and a majestic alpine view fi lls the frame. I
somewhat egotistically note a load of new likes on my Instagram feed,
alongside a fairly impressive photo of Aurora Borealis. The caption reads:
“It’s now 4am following my fi rst day at #banfffi lmfestival, which involved
catching up with old friends and meeting new friends, too many beers,
some amazing fi lms at Radical Reels, maybe some tequila shots and
then a nighttime shoot to catch the northern lights. What the hell will
tomorrow bring?”
I smile at myself, at least I got a good photo of the Aurora.
I then realise the beeping on my phone wasn’t an alarm I’d set, but a
text message from festival media coordinator Louise Healy: “I hope you
enjoyed your fi rst night in Banff. I have booked you on a helicopter
fl ight with Tommy Caldwell and Alex Honnold. I’ll meet you at 9am.”
It appears ‘What the hell will tomorrow bring?’ is a catch up with
two of the world’s best climbers, in a Jetranger, above the Rocky Moun-
tains... with a sore head.
Greeting me at Alpine Heli is the tall and goofy Alex Honnold, a
legend of the climbing world. His relaxed demeanour appears laced with
a twinge of nervousness.
“I am not big on fl ying,” he reveals.
“Aaah, scared of heights?” I jest.
He grins back, “Nah, just motion sickness.”
Alex Honnold certainly suffers no acrophobia, for he is a climbing
freak. At 30 years of age he is rated by peers as one of the world’s best
free climbers and quite possibly the best free-solo (no rope) climber of
all time. His achievements are too many to list but include the speed
record of Yosemite’s Nose of El Capitan with Hans Florine, solo of Yo-
semite’s Half Dome, fi rst person to free solo Un iversity Wa ll (Squa m ish),
free solo of Zion’s Moonlight Buttress and the fi rst team to complete a
traverse of Patagonia’s Fitz Roy Massif (with Tommy Caldwell).
Our heli is half-an-hour away and so I prod a little at what makes
Honnold one of the most recognisable names in the climbing world,
and what makes him tick. More importantly, this delay offers me an
opportunity to grab a strong long black coffee.
“I grew up climbing on trees and buildings and I was always just
swinging around and climbing,” Honnold reveals of his early years liv-
ing in California. “When I was 10 or 11, a climbing gym opened in my
town and I would go and climb for hours. Nobody in my family was a
climber but I just liked to climb on things and so they just took me. My
dad started climbing only to belay me. When I needed a rest he would
then climb a few walls so I could belay.”
Honnold recollects continuing to climb indoors, recreationally and
competitively, until he moved to study at Berkeley College. It was dur-
ing this period he discovered rock and took to outdoor climbing like a
duck to water. But at the age of 19 his father died and Honnold decided
to throw in school, borrow his mum’s minivan, pack his ropes, climb-
ing rack and sleeping bag, and hit the road.