Californian scales the dizzy heights

Alex Honnold, a speaker at the New Zealand Mountain Film Festival in Wanaka and known for scaling...
Alex Honnold, a speaker at the New Zealand Mountain Film Festival in Wanaka and known for scaling rock walls nearly 1km high without a harness, says he got into climbing after realising he was no good at ball sports. Photo supplied.
A Californian who scales 1000m vertical rockfaces without any safety equipment has had only one climbing accident - and ironically it was on a climbing wall.

Alex Honnold is one of the speakers at this year's New Zealand Mountain Film Festival. It began in Wanaka on Friday and finishes tomorrow, when it will move to Cromwell (Wednesday) and on to Queenstown (Thursday to Saturday).

Mr Honnold (29) is known for ''free soloing'' North America's highest rock walls in the shortest time. No safety equipment is used in free soloing; just rock climbing shoes and a chalk bag for hand grip.

The highest rock faces Mr Honnold has climbed are up to 915m high and some are vertical.

''It generally takes two to three hours. The most has been about six hours.

''With soloing, time isn't important - it's whether you can do it.''

Mr Honnold also does ''normal'' rock climbing using safety gear and ''soloing'', which is rock climbing without another person helping you, but using safety equipment.

He once climbed for nearly 19 hours, up the three highest rock walls in California's Yosemite National Park, including the Nose on El Capitan. At 915m, it is the largest monolith of granite in the world.

He and fellow United States climber Hans Florine hold the speed record for jointly climbing the Nose, in just under two hours and 24 minutes.

Mr Honnold lives in a van, enabling him to move easily between climbing spots depending on the weather, and survives on sponsorship.

He has been scaling walls since his parents took him to a climbing gym when he was 11.

''I was never any good at ball sports. I just liked climbing - climbing trees and buildings and swinging around on things.

''It was at this gym that he had his only climbing accident, breaking his arm. There have certainly been many adrenaline pumping moments, however - rock holds breaking off, being hit by falling rocks, or startled by disturbed animals.

''But they come and go so fast. They're sort of over before you know it happened.''

His closest ''near death'' experience was while enjoying the comparatively harmless activity of snowshoeing, when he slid down a mountain and smashed into a rock.

Yosemite National Park is one of Mr Honnold's favourite climbing spots, followed by Patagonia where he has spent the past two winters.

But that could change - he arrived in Wanaka on Friday for his first trip to New Zealand and plans to spend the next fortnight climbing and skiing in the southern lakes region.

By Jessica Maddock

 

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