Alex Honnold is summiting Mount Fatherhood!
The rock climbing superstar, who specializes in “free soloing,” arguably one of the most dangerous sports on the planet, has two young children.
But he told Page Six that his responsibilities as a parent won’t stop him from pursuing his life-threatening career.
Honnold shot to fame in 2018 after the release of the Oscar-winning documentary “Free Solo,” which followed his attempt to summit Yosemite’s 3,000-foot El Capitan without ropes. Since the film’s release, he and his wife, Sonny McCandless, have had two children, now aged 2 1/2 and 6 months.
Asked at the Cannes Lions Film Festival’s Sports Beach whether becoming a father had changed his outlook on dangerous work, he replied: “Not in the way that you might imagine.”
“My friend Tommy Caldwell, who is also a professional climber, likes to joke – and I’m serious – that before he had kids he didn’t want to die, and now he doesn’t want to die after he has kids,” he says. “As a climber, I’m always very connected to risk, risk management. I think about these things a lot, but having kids hasn’t suddenly changed my perspective. I still don’t want to die doing this.”
He adds that in most cases, free solo climbing isn’t a “roll of the dice.”
“I don’t know if rock climbing is completely similar to riding a bike, because riding a bike often involves random risks, like worrying about hitting someone,” he says. “Climbing does have those risks, but the kind of free solo climbing that I do, it’s not so random most of the time. When you fail, it’s often because you’re not prepared for it.” you It’s up to you to fail. The variables are under your control. To the average person, it all looks the same from the outside, but it doesn’t feel like you’re rolling the dice.”
Meanwhile, he says he encourages his kids to climb mountains, but doesn’t specifically encourage them to free solo.
“I wouldn’t discourage them either,” he added. “If it becomes their passion and they climb long enough and well enough and learn how to manage it, then that’s fine.”
Perhaps not surprisingly, his two-year-old has already started climbing rocks.
Honnold’s next National Geographic film, “Devil’s Thumb,” will be released in the fall.
