DIRECTIONS: Choose the best answer for each question. The…
DIRECTIONS: Choose the best answer for each question. The Free Soloist In June 2017, Alex Honnold completed a stunning scramble up El Capitan, a 3,000-foot granite wall in Yosemite National Park. Mark Synnott recounts how Honnold’s meticulous planning and training prepared him for “the ultimate climb” – a four-hour vertical ascent without a rope. It’s 4:54 a.m. on a chilly November morning in 2016 in Yosemite National Park. A full moon casts an eerie glow onto the southwest face of El Capitan, where Alex Honnold clings to the side of the granite wall with nothing more than the tips of his fingers and two thin edges of shoe rubber. He’s attempting to do something that professional rock climbers have long thought impossible – a free solo ascent of the world’s most famous cliff. That means he is alone and climbing without a rope as he inches his way up more than half a mile of vertical rock. A light breeze rustles his hair as he shines his headlamp on the cold, smooth patch of granite where he must next place his foot. Above him, the stone is blank for several feet, devoid of any holds. Unlike parts of the climb higher up, which feature shallow divots, pebble-size nubs, and tiny cracks that Alex can cling onto with his amazingly strong fingers, this part – a barely less than vertical slab on a section called the Freeblast – must be mastered with a delicate balance of fine skills and poise. 1 Climbers call it friction climbing. “It’s like walking up glass,” Alex once said. He wiggles his toes; they’re numb. His right ankle is stiff and swollen from a severe sprain he sustained two months earlier when he fell while practicing this part of the route. That time he was attached to a rope, but now, falling isn’t an option. Free soloing isn’t like other dangerous sports. There is no “maybe” when you’re 60 stories up without a rope: If you make a mistake, you die. Six hundred feet below, I sit on a fallen tree watching the tiny circle of Alex’s light. It hasn’t moved in what feels like an eternity, but is probably less than a minute. And I know why: he’s facing the move that has haunted him ever since he first dreamed up this scheme seven years ago. I’ve climbed this slab myself, and the thought of doing it free solo makes me nauseated. The log on which I’m sitting lies less than a hundred yards from where Alex will land if he slips. A sudden noise jolts me back to the present; my heart skips. A cameraman, part of the crew recording the feat, hustles up the trail toward the base of the wall. I can hear the static of his walkie-talkie. “Alex is bailing,” he says. Thank God, I think, Alex will live. * * * Some in the climbing world view free soloing as something that isn’t meant to be. Critics regard it as reckless showmanship that gives the sport a bad name, noting the long list of those who’ve died attempting it. Others, myself included, recognize it as the sport’s purest expression. Such was the attitude of Austrian alpinist Paul Preuss, considered by climbing historians to be the father of free soloing. He proclaimed that the very essence of alpinism 2 was to master a mountain with superior physical and mental skill – not “artificial aid.” By age 27, Preuss had made some 150 ropeless first ascents, and was celebrated throughout Europe. Then, on October 3, 1913, while free soloing the North Ridge of the Mandlkogel in the Austrian Alps, he fell to his death. But Preuss’s ideas would live on, influencing successive generations of climbers and inspiring the “free climbing” movement of the 1960s and ’70s, which espoused using ropes and other gear only as safety devices, never to assist a climber’s upward progress. The next serious free soloist of note appeared in 1973, when “Hot” Henry Barber shocked the climbing community by scaling the 1,500-foot north face of Yosemite’s Sentinel Rock without a rope. In 1987, Canadian Peter Croft free soloed two of Yosemite’s most celebrated routes – Astroman and Rostrum – back-to-back in the same day. Croft’s achievement stood until 2007, when Alex Honnold, a shy 22-year-old from Sacramento, showed up in Yosemite Valley. He stunned the climbing world by repeating Croft’s Astroman-Rostrum masterpiece. The next year he free soloed two famously tough routes – Zion National Park’s Moonlight Buttress and the Regular Northwest Face of Yosemite’s Half Dome – climbs so long and technically difficult that no serious climber had imagined they could be scaled without a rope. As sponsorship offers poured in and journalists and fans hailed his achievements, Alex was secretly contemplating a much bigger goal. It’s important to note that Alex’s quest to free solo El Capitan wasn’t some adrenaline-fueled stunt that he’d come up with on a whim. In 2009, during our first climbing expedition together, he had mentioned the idea to me. There was something about his supreme confidence, though, and the way he effortlessly moved up incredibly difficult rock faces that made the comment seem like more than just an idle boast. Alex researched several El Capitan routes, finally settling on Freerider, a popular test piece for veteran climbers and one that usually requires multiple days to ascend. Its 30 or so pitches – or rope lengths – challenge a climber in practically every possible way: the strength of fingers, forearms, shoulders, calves, toes, back, and abdomen, not to mention balance, flexibility, problem solving, and emotional stamina. Certain times of the day the sun heats the rock so much that it burns to touch it; hours later the temperature can plummet below freezing. Storms blow in, powerful winds lash the wall, water leaks out of cracks. Bees, frogs, and birds can burst from crevices during crucial moves. Rocks of all sizes can suddenly give way and tumble down. The Freeblast may be the scariest part, but more physically demanding sections await higher up: a chimney-like crack he’ll have to climb through; a wide gap where he’ll have to perform almost a full split, pressing the rock with his feet and hands to inch his way up. And then 2,300 feet above the valley floor is the Boulder Problem – a blank face that requires some of the most technically challenging moves of the climb. But before he could tackle the Boulder Problem, he would have to get over the Freeblast. In 2016, the vertical slab proved to be an insurmountable 3 obstacle and he was forced to give up his attempt. But Alex knew he would try again. * * * Saturday morning, June 3, 2017. Seven months after Alex’s failed attempt, I am in a meadow near the foot of El Capitan. The tall grass is covered with dew, and the sky is gray, as it always is just before dawn. I squint through a telescope, and there is Alex, 600 feet above the valley floor, moving up onto the Freeblast, the glassy slab that has frustrated him for nearly a decade. Alex’s movements, normally so smooth, are worrisomely jerky. His foot tap-tap-taps against the wall as if he’s feeling his way tentatively into the slab. And then, just like that, he’s standing on a ledge several feet above the move that has been hanging over his head for years. I realize I’ve been holding my breath, so I consciously exhale. Thousands of moves are still to come, and the Boulder Problem looms far above, but he won’t be turning back this time. Alex Honnold is on his way to completing the greatest rock climb in history. 1 If someone has poise, they have calm self-confidence. 2 Alpinism refers to mountain climbing in the Alps and also other mountains. 3 If something is insurmountable, it is a problem too great to be overcome. In paragraph A, what does meticulous mean?