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" I love the feeling of touching the rock, the feeling of my body going up the rock. "
Alex Honnold
Love
Feeling
Body
Related Quotes:
" I am a vegetarian, and I sort of aspire to vegan-hood. So far I've noticed no difference at all in my climbing, but I feel a bit healthier overall. Though that's only because I'm eating more fruits and vegetables. I think the whole protein thing is overhyped. Most Americans eat far more than we need. "
Alex Honnold
Feel
Think
Eating
" Big climbs energize me. It's all the other aspects of being a pro-climber that wear me down. The travel and expeditions and training can become pretty tiring. But the actual big climbs - that's what I live for. "
Alex Honnold
Me
Become
Down
" I've tried to approach environmentalism the same way I do my climbing: by setting small, concrete goals that build on each other. "
Alex Honnold
Goals
Build
Way
" I think it's great that so many people are enjoying climbing. I've always loved climbing; I don't see why other people wouldn't enjoy it just as much. As long as everyone does their best to respect the areas in which they're climbing, I don't see how the growth of the sport could be a bad thing. "
Alex Honnold
Growth
Great
People
" The simple facts of Chadian life - what it takes to survive in that kind of climate with nothing but a hut and some animals - stunned me. And this made me realize, perhaps for the first time, how easy my life was compared to those of people in less privileged societies. "
Alex Honnold
Time
Me
My Life
" How I'm portrayed in films has more to do with the filmmaking and what they need in the story than anything else. I'm the same person I've always been, I just get used in different ways according to the filmmakers' needs - which is fine with me; it makes for great films. "
Alex Honnold
Filmmaking
More
Me
" I was 19 when my father died from a heart attack. He was a 55-year-old college professor and had led what was by all appearances a risk-free life. But he was overweight, and heart disease runs in our family. "
Alex Honnold
Father
Life
College
" Anytime you finish a climb, there's always the next thing you can try. "
Alex Honnold
Climb
Try
Next
" The diet for climbing all the time isn't really different from the diet for living. It's not like cardio sports where you're burning a bajillion calories every day. "
Alex Honnold
Day
You
Living
" 'Dirtbag' is just the term we use, like a 'gnarly dude' in surfing. Within the climbing culture, it means being a committed lifer: someone who has embraced a minimalist ethic in order to rock climb. It basically means you're a homeless person by choice. "
Alex Honnold
Climb
Choice
Rock
" I think part of what made the original 'Sufferfest' charming was the extremely low production value. It was all shaky handheld footage from Cedar. "
Alex Honnold
Value
Original
Think
" The thing with physical preparation is I have tons of friends who train at a really high level and who can give me advice. But with mental training, I don't really know anybody who has a much better mind for climbing, I guess, so I don't really know where I would go. It's not really a limiting factor for me. "
Alex Honnold
Preparation
Mind
Me
" Filming typically takes a bit away from the climbing experience, since you have to stop all the time and shoot. "
Alex Honnold
Climbing
Stop
Time
" I live out of my van, which gives me a first-hand appreciation for power and lighting. A few years ago, I rebuilt the interior of my van to include solar panels and a battery that powers LEDs for lighting and allows me to charge my phone and laptop. "
Alex Honnold
Live
Me
Appreciation
" I'm sponsored by the solar company Goal Zero, and they were gracious enough to install panels on my van and a nice battery system for the inside. I have lights and a fridge inside the van. And of course I had panels installed on my mom's house. "
Alex Honnold
Mom
Nice
House
" Free soloing is almost as old as climbing itself, with roots in the 19th century. Climbers are continuing to push the boundaries. There are certainly better technical climbers than me. But if I have a particular gift, it's a mental one - the ability to keep it together where others might freak out. "
Alex Honnold
Free
Roots
Me
" In a general sense, I think it's bad to bring too much money into climbing, since it takes away a little from the beauty of the mountains. But at the same time, I can't blame the Nepali government - or the Indian, Pakistani or Chinese, depending on where you're climbing - from wanting to capitalize on foreign climbers. "
Alex Honnold
Blame
Mountains
Time
" I suppose being a bit of an antisocial weirdo definitely honed my skills as a soloist. It gave me a lot more opportunities to solo lots of easy routes, which in turn broadened my comfort zone quite a bit and has allowed me to climb the harder things without a rope that I've done now. "
Alex Honnold
Comfort Zone
Climb
Me
" My comfort zone is like a little bubble around me, and I've pushed it in different directions and made it bigger and bigger until these objectives that seemed totally crazy eventually fall within the realm of the possible. "
Alex Honnold
Crazy
Comfort
Fall
" Music can be useful during training to help get you psyched, and I still listen to music on easy climbs or in the gym. But during cutting-edge solos or really hard climbs, I unplug. There shouldn't be a need for extra motivation on big days, be it music or anything else. It should come from within. "
Alex Honnold
Training
Help
Music
" In the years after the expedition to Chad, I started the Honnold Foundation, a small nonprofit that was my attempt to do something positive in the world. I sought out projects that both helped the environment and improved peoples' standards of living. The more I researched, the more I gravitated toward solar. "
Alex Honnold
Small
Foundation
World
" At the crux of Half Dome, at the very top of the wall, imagine, like, a smooth wall of rock - a nearly vertical granite slap with tiny ripples for your hands and feet. And so you're really trusting the rubber on your shoes to stick to these ripples. "
Alex Honnold
Rock
Feet
Top
" I've gotten over my shyness from many years of doing public events. "
Alex Honnold
Years
Doing
Events
" There's a constant tension in climbing, and really all exploration, between pushing yourself into the unknown but trying not to push too far. The best any of us can do is to tread that line carefully. "
Alex Honnold
Yourself
Best
Trying
" You might get run over; you might get hit by lightning. I mean, who knows? Each day, there is a chance you might die. And there's nothing wrong with that. Every living being on Earth is facing that same existential rift. "
Alex Honnold
Run
Die
Day
" Pretty much every gym I go into, I feel very comfortable. I dump my stuff, take my shoes off, do my thing. "
Alex Honnold
Off
Shoes
Feel
" Seven years ago, when I started free soloing long, hard routes in Yosemite - climbing without a rope, gear or a partner - I did it because it seemed like the purest, most elegant way to scale big walls. Climbing, especially soloing, felt like a grand adventure, but I never dreamed it could be a profession. "
Alex Honnold
Partner
Walls
Adventure
" To be clear, I normally climb with a rope and partner. Free-soloing makes up only a small percentage of my total climbing. But when I do solo, I manage the risk through careful preparation. I don't solo anything unless I'm sure I can do it. "
Alex Honnold
Climb
Partner
Preparation
" I feel that a lot of human spirituality stems from the belief that we are unique and special in the universe, but maybe we are just what happens when there is proper temperature and proper distance from the right type of star. "
Alex Honnold
Distance
Universe
Special
" I'm not nostalgic for my glory days in college. It was lame for me. Probably because I had no friends. "
Alex Honnold
Me
Glory
Friends