Alex Honnold, Half Dome Solo

10th September, 2008

This has been read 28,271 times

Alex Honnold has continued his run of form with a solo ascent of Half Dome's Regular Northwest Face route on September 6th. The NW Face is 23 pitches long, and is graded 5.12a (approx E5). Alex had a fantastic season in Yosemite last year, soloing Astroman and the Regular North Face of the Rostrum in a day, amongst other notable ascents.

Earlier this year he soloed Moonlight Buttress on the sandstone of Zion (9 pitches, approx E6) which was heralded by some as "one of the most impressive ropeless ascents ever recorded" (Alpinist Magazine). With the crux finger crack weighing in at 5.12d (E6 / F7c), and several of the other pitches hovering above 5.12 (E5 / F7a+), this effort was a sustained solo that is comparable to Hansjörg Auer's amazing solo of the Fish Route (F7b+) on the south face of the Marmolada back in may 2007.

More of Honnold's exploits and some of his philosophy can be found on the Alpinist Website.

This post has been read 28,271 times

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Comments

Tyler

10 Sep, 2008

Pretty impressive, and apparently he's coming to Britain...... http://www.climbing.com/exclusive/above/the_matt_segal_interview_-_friday_july_11_2008/

duncan

10 Sep, 2008

At 5.12a / E5 this might not sound quite as impressive as some other recent solos, but this route has a sting in it’s tail. The next-to-last pitch is a .11d slab. This is where Erickson and Higbee had to aid a short section on their ground-breaking effort (their first attempts predated Astroman) that nearly freed the route in 1976. In my very limited experience, Yosemite 5.11 slabs are the absolute living end of insecurity and the thought of soloing one with 2000'+ of air beneath your feet...

Jack Geldard

10 Sep, 2008

I guess that's where our grading system doesn't show much - E5? E6? Alex Honnold soloed the Moonlight Buttress, which would probably get E6, but it's not an E6 solo route - it's a fully protected crack - at around F7c! (And miles up in the air!) So that's kind of like soloing Cave Route Left Hand at Goredale (admittedly that's F7c+ for the pendants, but you get the point), not like soloing Piece of Mind at the Roaches (not that I'd want to fall off either, but Cave Route is way harder). An amazing effort.

duncan

10 Sep, 2008

from Andy Puhvel on Supertopo: "I freed all three of Alex's big solos this year, and none of them are even close to as scary as Half Dome. Hard 5.11 dime edge slab 2000 feet off the ground, holds sometimes crumble, hands are almost non-existent at times. This is probably the all around craziest and most insecure free-solo of all time." http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.html?topic_id=672304&tn=0

11 Sep, 2008

Has half dome been free solo'd before? What is the roll call of technically hard big wall (ish) solos? Astroman: Croft, Potter, Honold Marmolada thing: Huber Eiger (with chute): Potter Moonlight Buttress: Honold Rostrum: quite a few? (so no longer as notable) What else stands out?

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