The article was originally created by me, and was first published on the official account booklist. For reprinting, please contact the booklist for authorization. For the writing of recommended manuscripts, please doumail.
A documentary scarier than a horror movie, have you seen it? Shudan-jun watched it two days ago, and the whole movie was in four words: I am afraid! Before watching the movie, the party also sent a tissue paper intimately, I thought it was for wiping tears, but later I found out that it was mainly for wiping sweat. This movie that makes Shudanjun adrenaline rush is "Free Hand Rock Climbing" , which is being shown in theaters. It just won the Oscar for best documentary this year.
What is free rock climbing? It's unprotected rock climbing, no ropes, no partner. There is only one person, a pair of climbing shoes, and a bag of non-slip magnesium powder. One wrong step, shattered to pieces. This documentary tells the whole process of the protagonist Alex Honnold preparing and climbing El Capitan. Emirates Rock is known as "the most difficult route to climb in the world", and it is more than 900 meters high. This height is difficult to imagine, because we usually see a 30-story office building about 100 meters. What is even more terrifying is that the rock face of El Capitan is almost perpendicular to the ground, and many places are bare, and climbers can only use a place the size of half a finger. At an altitude of a few hundred meters, only relying on such a small bump and the friction between the shoes and the rock to maintain the climb, this picture is scary to think about.
Under the premise of protective measures, some top rock climbers can reach the summit in about 4 days. And how long has Alex been using it? 3 hours 56 minutes! This achievement has been called "the successful moon landing in unprotected climbing". How did he accomplish this near-impossible challenge? What are the untold stories behind the challenge? The answers to these questions are hidden in the documentary and in Alex's autobiography "Alone on a Precipice" .
This book records 7 of Alex's most eye-catching great climbs before, and it is through these experiences that he finally conquered the "universe center of the climbing world" El Capitan. And as extraordinary as his achievements are his attitude towards life and life.
1. The mountains are calling, and I will go to them
As the top ten extreme sports, the fatality rate of free rock climbing is about 50%. A gust of wind, a rockfall, or even a sudden appearance of a bug can cause a climber to lose his balance and fall to his death from a height of several hundred meters.
With so much risk, why would Alex choose this style of climbing? The explanation in "Alone on the Wall" may surprise you - "The truth is that when I started rock climbing outdoors, I was too shy to ask strangers if they would like to protect me." Introverted to some social fears Alex, you can only choose to do rock climbing. The process of free climbing, just like the name of this book, is full of loneliness and danger. For example, in "Alone on a Precipice", Alex recorded a moment of life and death when he climbed the northwest wall of the Half Dome with his bare hands. At that time, he had to go through a small friction point with his right foot, and then he stopped moving: there was an iron lock in front of him, just pull it, you can go up, but this is cheating; if you don't pull it, you are very Possibly falling to his death from an altitude of more than 600 meters, Alex was caught in an unprecedented tangle. At this point it was very close to the top of the rock, and the tourists were laughing and laughing from the edge of the summit, but they knew nothing about the condition of Alex, who was in a predicament of his own - he had climbed nearly Three hours later, the calf slowly became sore, and the real fear began to hit him. After some ideological struggle, Alex chose a compromise solution. He grabbed the move with one hand and stretched the other hand on the bottom of the chain. If his foot slipped, he hooked the lock. In the end, he was finally freed from the cage where he had been standing for five minutes, and he did not cheat by grasping the iron lock. At the moment when he reached the top, he actually hoped in his heart that someone would notice the feat he had just accomplished. But no one said anything. Everyone thought he was just an ordinary hiker. After all, it was hard for people to imagine that he climbed up from the cliff. It wasn't until he took off his shoes and walked down that a buddy finally found him - "You're walking barefoot, you're so tough!" In time, he shocked the climbing circle many times. In 2008, on April Fool's Day, 23-year-old Alex climbed the 289-meter-high Yuehua Arch with his bare hands and became famous in the first battle. In 2012, Alex completed the triple climbing (with protection) of the beautiful resort, climbing three rock walls with a total length of more than 2,000 meters in less than 19 hours; in 2014, he climbed the Squamish University Wall in Canada with his bare hands And the "Bright Road" of more than 700 meters in Mexico, and won the Golden Piolet Award that year. The gold content of this award is roughly equivalent to the Olympic gold medal + World Championship gold medal in competitive sports.
"National Geographic", "New York Times" and many other media reported his deeds, he became a legend in the climbing circle. However, for Alex, the highlight of his free-hand rock climbing is the "center of the universe" he has longed for for ten years - the Emirates Rock.
2. Conquering El Capitan
Alex said: "Without preparation, just with blood, it's not an extreme challenge, it's suicide. I want to be an excellent climber, not a lucky climber." In order to climb the Emirates Rock, he prepared for almost two years , practice climbing more than 50 times. Therefore, Alex is not afraid of falling to his death, he enjoys rock climbing, and is fully prepared in the face of possible dangers. Of course, even the preparations with the safety ropes on, were still too scary in our opinion. The bystanders are still like this, how should Alex who is in it face it? One of the interesting things is that Alex had an MRI scan and the results showed that his amygdala is different from ordinary people, that is to say, his fear threshold is relatively high, but this does not mean that he does not feel fear, he just chooses Got and feared just ahead.
Alex stretches his comfort zone by practicing the movements over and over again, experiencing the fear over and over again until he is no longer afraid. In order to practice in a targeted manner, he divided the climbing route into 33 rope ends, training and summarizing them in sections. For example, the more difficult Daguang board, he practiced more than 90 times with ropes. This section is very smooth, with the smallest edges only a few millimeters. In the difficult boulder slope more than 500 meters above the ground, Alex needed to move laterally on the vertical rock wall, and the place where his fingers could grab was very small. In the most difficult part, he used karate side kicks to pass. There are also monster cracks where a part of the body is always caught in the cracks of the mountain, and the two rock walls are at a 90-degree vertical endurance angle, and so on.
In these difficult sections, Alex has practiced repeatedly. It can be said that every action on the line is imprinted in his mind, and he is familiar with the position of every hand and the feeling of stepping on every foot. As the book Alone on the Cliff says: "The main thing about free climbing is preparation. In fact, in the days before climbing, I've done the homework that I need to do. When I start climbing, all I need to do is It's just execution." In the early morning of June 13, 2017, Alex officially climbed El Capitan with his bare hands. As in training, he put on his climbing shoes, strapped on the magnesium powder, and started climbing. He was in good condition, and even speeded up at one point, but the photographer who was shooting was under a lot of psychological pressure, and at one point he didn't dare to look at the viewfinder. There's an interlude in the middle of it, when Alex climbs onto a small platform and encounters a rock climber who is sleeping there, who is probably just awake and wearing a pink unicorn pajamas. I can feel it through the screen, the shock inside him when he sees Alex - where did this guy come from, can he fly? My God, he didn't climb up with his bare hands, did he? ! Alex said hello to him, and continued to climb with the shocking reaction.jpg
He crossed the big light board, climbed the big crack, and after 3 hours and 56 minutes, he finally managed to reach the top, becoming the first person in the world to complete the unprotected freehand ascent of El Capitan.
Guess how Alex celebrated in the afternoon after completing such a big challenge?
The answer is: keep exercising.
Self-disciplined people are scary.
3. Drive on the road
For most of us, life is a cup of plain water, plain and stable. But for Alex, rock climbing is his norm, and his life is a bubbling glass of soda. And the undertone of this glass of soda is honesty . Whether you treat others or yourself. Because of the dangers of free climbing, his girlfriend hoped that he would give up, but Alex felt that this was not a problem. "If I had an obligation to live longer, obviously I'd have to give up free climbing. But I don't think I have that obligation." "I could stop doing these things, but it would make me hate you. , because the thing I loved the most in my life was crushed." This answer may sound cruel and impersonal, but if you think about it, it's the truth. No one needs you, except yourself. Some may mention family, but for Alex, family is what drives him on this path. Since he was 10 years old, his father often took Alex to rock climbing. Apart from studying, he spent most of his time in the rock gym and had a lot of fun. At the age of 19, Alex's father died of a sudden heart attack, which made him realize the meaning of "living in the moment" - living the only life to the extreme. After discussing with his mother, he chose to drop out of Berkeley and use his father's insurance investment to ensure his basic living. Then he bought a second-hand RV and started rock climbing everywhere. Although the mother is also worried, she understands the meaning of rock climbing to her son, "because this is his life, and he can feel the vitality of life most when he is rock climbing." Alex also has a very cute side, such as When talking about his girlfriend, Sangsang, he said this: "It's really nice to have a girlfriend, she's very lively, she lights up the whole RV, and she's petite and doesn't take up much space." I see here Laughing out loud, the description "doesn't take up space" sounds more like a refrigerator. However, they didn't get along for a long time at that time. From the latest interview this year, the two have been in love for more than three years, and their relationship is very stable. For him, Sangsang should still "take up a lot of space". It is such a guy who usually looks a little dull, but once he climbs the rock wall, he seems to have completely changed into a person who has become a calm, elegant and precise thinking expert.
The director said at the time of the award that this film is dedicated to all those who believe in the impossible. Before Alex, "freehand climbing El Capitan" has always been considered impossible, but Alex did it, and he let us see the limit of human concentration, physical strength and mental endurance under the premise of professional training. And for Alex personally, climbing brings him more than just honor. Because of the fame of rock climbing, Alex has to face the media and communicate with more people, so he is more cheerful and confident. He overcomes his social fears as he overcomes his fears of rock climbing. Also because of climbing around the world, Alex found that there are still a billion people on earth without electricity, and he began to reflect on what he can do for others. So he set up a foundation to put one-third of his income into public welfare to help the most disadvantaged people in the world improve their living conditions. Alex became a better version of himself because of climbing.
Freehand rock climbing may not be an earth-shattering thing, but in this process, the vitality and creativity of Alex's life burst out, which is the biggest meaning. Many people may think that this kind of extreme sports is disrespectful to life, after all, they will die if they are not careful. But we can think of it this way: if life is like a brand new car, the best way to cherish that car is not to park it in the garage, but to drive it on the road. Our focus should be on improving the car, not on choosing a dust cover for this car. Frankly speaking, Alex's life is far from us, and most of us will never put "free rock climbing" on our wish list in this life. But in front of each of us, there is a "Chief Rock", sometimes it exists objectively, sometimes it is imagined by us. How to overcome the fear in our hearts and successfully reach the top of this mountain is a topic we should study all our lives. Everyone dies, but not everyone ever actually lives. I hope that each of us can drive on the road and board the "Chief Rock" in our hearts as soon as possible.
View more about Free Solo reviews
