Alex Honnold

Alex Honnold is a free solo rock climber, which means he climbs vertical walls of rock by himself, without any ropes or climbing gear. That means that if he makes one mistake, he falls to his death. He climbs up huge walls by sticking the tips of his fingers into tiny cracks and twisting them, resting his entire body weight on this little amount of contact with the rock. This motherfucker is crazy.

Here's a video showing his free solo ascent of Half Dome. Half Dome was first climbed in 1957 over five days, an expedition that was a remarkable achievement for its time. About 50 years later, Honnold free soloed that same route in about three hours.



At about 20:00 minutes into the video, you can see him start to freak out while standing on a ledge thousands of feet in the air. He says to a guy holding a camera off to the side, "I'm kind of freaking out here." Then he pulls his shit together and finishes the climb. Idiot. A redeeming factor about him is that he's a total dork.

He also has set records in speed climbing. In 11 hours, he both climbed Half Dome one morning in 2 hours and 9 minutes, and then climbed 3,000-feet up The Nose of El Capitan in only five hours and 49 minutes, a route that normally takes two to four days.

Hey, kid inside of Nilda, YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO GO ROCK CLIMBING!!! EVER!!