– This is one of the scariest things I have filmed, says filmmaker Peter Mortimer in a video that was published on YouTube at Christmas.
The video was filmed eleven years ago, but it is only now that Mortimer has wanted to share it with the outside world. It is already approaching one million views.
It made me sick to watch
Why Mortimer waited so long to publish it is unknown. The Spanish newspaper El País speculates whether it may have been because others would have attempted to copy the feat, lacking Honnold’s mental and physical skills.
Mortimer talks in the video about how he experienced being a spectator to the life-threatening stunt. At one point in the video, we see Mortimer zoom in to get a close-up of the crack Honnold climbed into.
– The crack was so thin. I zoomed in and got a close up. I was so sick of watching that I had to zoom out again. My camera was shaking, says Mortimer in the video.
CLIMBING CELEBRITY: Magnus Midtbø has himself been at the top of the world in climbing. We last saw him in a prominent role in the TV series Forræder. Photo: Ole-Martin Sandness / TV 2
Midtbø: – Would never do it
Norway’s most famous climber, Magnus Midtbø, is a friend of Honnold and has himself free climbed with the American in a video Midtbø has published on his YouTube channel.
– What is unique about Alex is that he does this without a rope. If you were to rank him in regular climbing, he’s not very good. But without a rope, he does things that others cannot. It is extra impressive, because he has a smaller margin than others, says Midtbø to TV 2.
– What does that say about his mental abilities?
– That just makes it even more impressive. He is not among the world’s best if you only look at the physical, but what he does without a rope is absolutely incredible.
Midtbø is certainly not interested in trying to copy the trip up the Phoenix wall.
– I would never have done this. I would never have climbed Phoenix without a rope. But I have done it on a route in Bergen that Honnold didn’t dare, because it was so physical. It was only 14 meters high, so it wasn’t very dangerous, but because he fell several times when we tried with rope, it was no use.
– Not idiotic
Some might think that it is idiotic to climb Phoenix, but Midtbø does not agree with that. Not at all.
– It’s just a defense mechanism. I think people get scared and then the first reaction is to call things idiotic. There are a lot of things I’ve done that have been called idiotic. This is not that at all. He is fully aware of the risk. It’s just that he is more risk-averse, says Midtbø.
OSCAR WINNER: Alex Honnold and the film “Free Solo” won the Oscar in 2019. Photo: Mike Blake / Reuters / NTB
He says that Honnold has practically grown up with Yosemite and has certainly climbed there a hundred times before with a rope, so he knows exactly what is required, where the difficult parts are and what he needs to focus on.
– Idiocy would be to try something he had no idea was going to work. This is incredibly calculated. Here he could certainly say exactly how many percent chance there was of him falling, and he was willing to live with that percent.
