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" Anything called the Teflon Corner is not sweet for free-soloing. "
Alex Honnold
Anything
Sweet
Corner
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" I love red bell peppers. Bell peppers in general, really. I like to eat them like apples. They're so crunchy and delicious. "
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" So many people condemn me for risk taking, but I find it sort of hypocritical because everybody takes risks. Even the absence of activity could be viewed as a risk. If you sit on the sofa for your entire life, you're running a higher risk of getting heart disease and cancer. "
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" 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
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" I like the simplicity of soloing. You've got no gear, no partner. You never climb better than when you free-solo. "
Alex Honnold
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" 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
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World
" My sister does all this community-service type stuff in Portland that makes the world a much better place. And I make as much in a two-day commercial shoot as she does in five years, which is ridiculous. "
Alex Honnold
World
She
Place
" I've done routes where I've climbed 200 feet off the ground and just been, like, 'What am I doing?' I then just climbed back down and went home. Discretion is the better part of valor. Some days are just not your day. That's the big thing with free soloing: when to call it. "
Alex Honnold
Doing
Feet
Free
" In climbing, sponsors typically support an athlete but provide very little direction, giving the climber free rein to follow his or her passion toward whatever is inspiring. It's a wonderful freedom, in many ways similar to that of an artist who simply lives his life and creates whatever moves him. "
Alex Honnold
Support
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Passion
" I've gotten over my shyness from many years of doing public events. "
Alex Honnold
Years
Doing
Events
" I'm not thinking about anything when I'm climbing, which is part of the appeal. I'm focused on executing what's in front of me. "
Alex Honnold
Me
Front
Thinking
" 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
" 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
" I love my climbing shoes. Virtually all of my big solos have been in the TC Pros. They are the most important thing when I'm soloing. "
Alex Honnold
Love
Big
Climbing
" I've walked away from more climbs than I can count, just because I sensed that things were not quite right. "
Alex Honnold
Away
Just Because
More
" I took a test once; they said I was a genius. "
Alex Honnold
Genius
Once
Said
" 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
" I make a fair amount of my food choices for environmental-type reasons than nutrition or taste. I'm trying to minimize impact, which is something most people don't necessarily think about when they're shopping. "
Alex Honnold
Shopping
People
Think
" I often joke that I've just become a professional schmoozer. Like, nobody cares how well I can rock climb anymore. It just has to do with how well I can schmooze. "
Alex Honnold
Climb
Professional
Rock
" 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
" We are apes - we should be climbing. "
Alex Honnold
Should
Climbing
" 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
" 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. "
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Distance
Universe
Special
" 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
" 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
" I've never really understood the criticism that climbing is inherently selfish, since it could equally be argued about virtually any other hobby or sport. Is gardening selfish? "
Alex Honnold
Gardening
Criticism
Never
" When I was a teenager, I did a lot of pull-ups and push-ups. Every night before bed, I'd do 150 - in sets of 30 or so. Looking back on it now, I'm not totally sure that's the best way to improve as a climber. But it did make me a lot better at doing pull-ups and push-ups. "
Alex Honnold
Looking Back
Me
Night
" 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
" My friends like to remind me that I have relatively weak fingers. Aerobic strength and general endurance have come easy, but finger strength has always been my biggest weakness. "
Alex Honnold
Me
Friends
Endurance
" Yosemite has the most impressive and accessible granite big walls in the world. The rock is amazing. And because of that, it's been the mecca for climbing in the U.S. - and the world to a large degree - for all of climbing history. It's the place to test yourself against the historic routes of the past. "
Alex Honnold
Past
World
History
" I crushed high school. I was a huge dork. "
Alex Honnold
School
Dork
High