Alex Honnold Smashes Salathe Solo Record

Alex Honnold and Sanni McCandless now have two little daughters, June and Alice, which has been keeping Alex around home. Still, this spring the 38-year-old was able to get away and spend 11 hours and 18 minutes in Yosemite setting a new record time on El Capitan’s Salathe Wall (plus travel time to and from the Valley).

On May 23, Honnold smashed the existing record on the 3,000-foot wall and nearly chopped the existing time in half.

Earlier this spring, on May 11, Brant Hysell, a Tahoe-based climber, did the route in 19 hours, 58 minutes. Hysell’s ascent edged out Valley local Cheyne Lempe’s 2013 time of 20 hours, 6 minutes.

But Lempe is Honnold’s friend. Hysell isn’t.

“When it was my friend who held [the record], it would have felt weird to go and dunk on him,” Honnold told the San Francisco Chronicle . “But if it’s someone I don’t know, it’s like, game on!”

We caught up with Alex today and fired a few questions his way—just a few. He’s a busy man.

Powder: What sections did you aid?

Honnold: I fully rope soloed the Freeblast, pitch 19 (a difficult corner), the boulder problem (and the section below it), the enduro corners, and then entire headwall. But I did a lot of other little tricks to make other sections safer (daisy soloing, back looping, etc).

Powder: What solo parts were dodgy?

Honnold: Nothing was too sketchy—I had a rope and rack to use if anything felt too scary. The Sewer Pitch (pitch 24) was quite wet, so it was slower going than when it’s dry. But I just used more gear and took it slow.

Powder: You know that wall well, that helped obviously?

Honnold: Yeah, a ton. Some sections felt like revisiting an old friend. I really enjoy a lot of the climbing.

Powder: It was May—run off time. No water problems up there? (I've never been on El Cap in the spring.)

Honnold: Nothing atypical for the spring time, but definitely a little wetness here and there. The Sewer was the only real challenge because of conditions.

Powder: What should the average climber know about your ascent?

Honnold: I think it’s hard for a casual climber to understand the difference between rope soloing, free soloing, and all the grey area in between (back looping, daisy soloing, etc). Even really experienced climbers haven’t done a lot of those things before. It’s like using every tool in the toolbox to safely move as efficiently as possible.

Powder: Anything else to add?

Honnold: I went to the Valley for a week to try to maintain a little bit of wall climbing fitness. We have two small kids and I’ve generally just been training in my garage. It was a fun climb, but with more time in the Valley it could be done a lot better….