Alex Honnold

Alexander J Honnold (born August 17, 1985) is an American rock climber best known for his free solo ascents of big wall climbing routes. Honnold rose to worldwide fame in June 2017 when he became the first person to free solo a full route on El Capitan in Yosemite National Park via the route Freerider at grade 5.13a, the first-ever big-wall free-solo ascent at that grade, a climb described in The New York Times as "one of the great athletic feats of any kind, ever".

In 2015, he won a Piolet d'Or in alpine climbing with Tommy Caldwell for their completion of the enchainment (known as the Fitz Traverse) of the Cerro Chaltén Group (or Fitzroy Group) in Patagonia over five days. On January 25, 2026, he free soloed the Taipei 101 tower in Taipei, Taiwan, the tallest buildering free solo climb in history and graded at circa. 5.11.

Honnold is the author (with David Roberts) of the memoir Alone on the Wall (2015) and the subject of the 2018 biographical documentary Free Solo, which won an Academy Award and a BAFTA.

Early life and education Honnold was born on August 17, 1985, in Sacramento, California. His mother, Dierdre Wolownick (b. 1951), is a community college professor. His father was Charles Honnold (1949–2004). His paternal roots are German, and his maternal roots are Polish. He started climbing in a climbing gym at the age of 5 and was climbing "many times a week" by age 10. He participated in many national and international youth climbing championships as a teenager.

"I was never, like, a bad climber [as a kid], but I had never been a great climber, either," he says. "There were a lot of other climbers who were much, much stronger than me, who started as kids and were, like, instantly freakishly strong like they just have a natural gift. And that was never me. I just loved climbing, and I've been climbing all the time ever since, so I've naturally gotten better at it, but I've never been gifted."

After graduating from Mira Loma High School as part of the International Baccalaureate Programme in 2003, he enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, to study civil engineering. His maternal grandfather died, his parents divorced during his first year of college, and Honnold skipped many of his classes to boulder by himself at Indian Rock.

Climbing career Honnold dropped out of Berkeley and spent time living at home and driving around California to go climbing. "I'd wound up with my mom's old minivan, and that was my base," he said. "I'd use it to drive to Joshua Tree to climb or I'd drive to LA to see my girlfriend. I destroyed that van fairly quickly; it died on me one day, and for the next year, I lived just on my bicycle and in a tent."

According to a 2011 Alpinist profile: and a subsequent 60 Minutes interview.

In November 2011, Honnold and Hans Florine missed setting the speed climbing record on the famous Nose big-wall crack climbing route on Yosemite's El Capitan by 45 seconds. At the time the record stood at 2:36:45, as set by Dean Potter & Sean Leary in November 2010. On June 17, 2012, Honnold and Florine set a new record of 2:23:46 (or 2:23:51 ) on that same route.

In November 2014, Clif Bar announced that they would no longer sponsor Honnold, along with Dean Potter, Steph Davis, Timmy O'Neill and Cedar Wright. "We concluded that these forms of the sport are pushing boundaries and taking the element of risk to a place where we as a company are no longer willing to go," the company wrote in an open letter.

In 2016, he was subjected to functional magnetic resonance imaging scans that revealed that, like other high sensation seekers, his amygdala barely activates when watching disturbing images. He however confesses feeling fear occasionally. Through imagination and practice, he has desensitized himself to most fearful situations.

El Capitan

On June 3, 2017, he made the first-ever free solo ascent of El Capitan by completing Alex Huber's 884 m (2,900 ft) big-wall crack climbing route, Freerider (5.13a VI), in 3 hours and 56 minutes. The climb, described as "one of the great athletic feats of any kind, ever," Among other awards, the film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature (2018).

On June 6, 2018, Honnold teamed up with Tommy Caldwell to break the Nose on El Capitan speed record in Yosemite. They completed the approximately 914 m (3,000 ft) route in 1:58:07, becoming the first climbers to complete it in under two hours.

Docuseries and podcast In 2021, National Geographic signed Honnold for an original docuseries about his quest to climb across the peaks of Greenland. In the same year, Honnold started a podcast about climbing called Climbing Gold. In its first season, Climbing Gold focused on telling stories of extraordinary climbers across history and featured notable climbers and ascents including Lynn Hill, John Gill, Beth Rodden, Hans Florine, and coverage of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which featured competition climbing for the first time.

On October 12, 2022, Honnold completed the "Honnold Ultimate Red Rock Traverse", or HURT, in Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. In total, the endeavor took 32 hours and 6 minutes, with Honnold covering 35 miles of running, scrambling, and climbing, logging 24,000 feet of elevation gain, and summitting 18 out of the 23 peaks in Red Rock Canyon. Targeting the area's classic climbing routes, including Epinephrine, Dark Shadows, and Olive Oil, Honnold completed 126 pitches with about 13,000 feet of technical climbing.

Taipei 101

In 2025, Honnold announced his intention to free solo the 508 m (1,667 ft) tall Taipei 101, a Taiwanese skyscraper and the 11th tallest building in the world. He completed the climb on January 25, 2026, while being streamed live on Netflix in a special titled Skyscraper Live. The upcoming climb was parodied by Saturday Night Live in a sketch featuring Mikey Day as Honnold, and Finn Wolfhard from Stranger Things.

Honnold was scheduled to climb Taipei 101 on January 24, 2026, but the climb was delayed a day due to inclement weather. On January 25, 2026, after 1 hour and 36 minutes, he reached the top of the spire, becoming the second person to do so after Frenchman Alain Robert and the first person to do it without the use of a rope. Honnold graded the route in the range.

Personal life

Honnold lived in a van for over a decade. "I don't think 'van life' is particularly appealing," he says. "It's not like I love living in a car, but I love living in all these places. I love being in Yosemite; I love being basically wherever the weather is good; I love being able to follow good conditions all over. And be relatively comfortable as I do it. And so that pretty much necessitates living in a car ... If I could, like, miraculously teleport a house from place to place, I'd prefer to live in a nice comfortable house. Though, honestly, the van is kind of nice. I like having everything within arm's reach. When I stay in a hotel room – like, sometimes you get put up in a really classy hotel room, and it's really big, and you have to walk quite a ways to the bathroom, and you're like, 'Man, I wish I had my [pee] bottle.' Who wants to walk all the ways to the bathroom in the middle of the night when you could just lean over and grab your bottle and go?" The van he lived in was custom-outfitted with a kitchenette and cabinets. Around the same time, he replaced the Ford Econoline van he had lived in since 2007 and put on a new 2016 Ram ProMaster, which he still lives and travels in for most of the year.

Honnold is a vegetarian, and he does not drink alcohol or use drugs. and a feminist.

Honnold met Sanni McCandless at a book signing in November 2015; they became a couple soon after. Sanni and her relationship with Honnold feature prominently in Free Solo. In the documentary, it is revealed that once while belaying Honnold, McCandless accidentally let the end of the rope slip through her belay device, causing Honnold to fall a significant distance and injure his back. Despite the injuries, she convinced him to continue their relationship when he initially wanted to break it off with her. On December 25, 2019, Honnold announced, via social media, that he and McCandless were engaged. On September 13, 2020, Honnold announced via Instagram that he and McCandless had married. Honnold's and McCandless's daughter, June, was born on February 17, 2022. Their second daughter, Alice Summer, was born on February 6, 2024.

Dierdre Wolownick, Alex Honnold's mother, started climbing at age 60 and is the oldest woman to climb El Capitan (first at the age of 66 and then, breaking her record, again at age 70).

Philanthropy In 2012, Honnold began giving away one-third of his income to solar energy projects, to increase energy access worldwide. Soon, this idea expanded to form the Honnold Foundation, which prioritizes a "trust-based philanthropic approach". Per Honnold, "in climbing, you trust your partner with your life. Why should philanthropy be any different?"

Books Alone on the Wall: Alex Honnold and the Ultimate Limits of Adventure. London: Pan, 2015. Co-authored with David Roberts. .

Filmography While Honnold is best known for his starring role in the Oscar-winning documentary Free Solo, he has also appeared in several other films and television episodes. The Sharp End (2007) Alone on the Wall (2008) Progression (2009) Honnold 3.0 (2012) Valley Uprising (2014) A Line Across the Sky (2015) Showdown at Horseshoe Hell (2015) Africa Fusion (2016) Queen Maud Land (2018) Free Solo (2018) The Nose Speed Record (reel rock 14) (2019) Fine Lines (2019) Duncanville (2020) (TV) The Alpinist (2021) Explorer: The Last Tepui (2022) Edge of the Unknown with Jimmy Chin (2022) Arctic Ascent with Alex Honnold (2024) The Devil's Climb (2024) "The Sound" (2025) Skyscraper Live (2026) Get a Little Out There with Alex Honnold (2026)

Awards 2010: from Climbing magazine, for endurance climbing 2015: Honnold, together with Tommy Caldwell was awarded the Piolets d'Or, for the first full traverse of the Fitz Roy Range in Patagonia, Argentina. 2018: Robert and Miriam Underhill Award from American Alpine Club, for excellence in various fields of climbing 2018: Special mention of Piolets d'Or for his outstanding contribution to climbing during 2017

Selected climbs

Big wall climbing

Bouldering

Buildering

Single pitch (sport and traditional) climbing

Alpine climbing