How did Alex Honnold mentally prepare for free soloing El Capitan, and what was the progression that led to it?
Alex Honnold's preparation for free soloing El Capitan spanned roughly nine years of focused work in Yosemite — not two, as the Free Solo documentary might suggest. He spent approximately three months per year climbing walls in the valley, accumulating around 60 ascents of El Capitan via different routes before he ever attempted it without a rope. The two-year filming window of the Oscar-winning Netflix documentary captured only the final, direct preparation phase; the eight or nine years of foundational experience that preceded it remained largely invisible to audiences.
The progression was methodical and deeply experiential. Honnold first arrived at Yosemite at 19 years old, describing El Capitan as looking "completely insane" — an impossible wall. But season after season, he worked his way up increasingly demanding routes. His first major free solo milestone came in 2008, when he soloed Half Dome above a 1,700-to-1,800-foot drop at the crux ledge. Each successive ascent narrowed the gap between what felt dangerous and what felt familiar. By the time cameras started rolling for Free Solo, Honnold had already converted years of high-stakes repetition into something closer to calibrated confidence than recklessness. You can explore the full conversation on The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett on Listenly.
Honnold has been climbing five days a week for 30 years. That volume matters: the mental readiness he brought to El Capitan was not the product of a training block or a documentary production schedule, but of an entire adult life spent at the intersection of deliberate practice and controlled exposure to fear.
"There's no hack. You just get really freaking scared over and over for so long. And eventually it's not that scary anymore. But that's a very enduring way to overcome your fear."
— Alex Honnold, The Diary Of A CEO with Steven BartlettAbout Alex Honnold
Alex Honnold is widely regarded as the greatest free solo climber in history. He is best known for his 2017 free solo ascent of El Capitan in Yosemite — completed without a rope on a 3,000-foot wall — as documented in the Oscar-winning Netflix film Free Solo. Honnold has been climbing five days a week for 30 years and made approximately 60 ascents of El Capitan via different routes as part of the multi-year preparation that preceded the feat. His first major free solo was Half Dome in 2008, completed above a drop of 1,700 to 1,800 feet at the crux. He began his professional career under a sponsorship from The North Face worth approximately $10,000 per year — while living out of a van — a detail that underlines just how singular and self-directed his path was long before mainstream recognition. His expertise on the psychology of fear, progressive exposure, and long-horizon preparation is grounded in three decades of lived climbing experience, not theory.
See also
The deadlift is identified as the single best exercise for brain protection because, when done correctly, it uses almost every muscle in the body — including the muscles that matter most for brain health.
All studies show that in order to produce the neural effects of resistance training, you need to be lifting at around 80% of your one repetition max.
Dementia is the number one killer of women in the UK and the number one cause of death in Australia for both men and women. Patients do not die of the disease itself, but of its complications.