Saturday, February 27, 2010

Don't Try This At Home

I recently saw one of the most intense movies I have ever seen.

It was not about murderers, ghosts, or criminals.

It was about rock climbing.

At the Banff Film Festival this year, they showed a film about Alex Honnold, a 24-year-old free soloist who is currently enthralling rock climbers everywhere with his outright ridiculous adventures.

The kid climbs gigantic cliffs without a rope. No rope. No equipment. No one to catch him when he slides off. Thousands of feet in the air.

During the film, he climbed Midnight Buttress in Zion National Park AND... are you ready for this... Half Dome in Yosemite.



Yeah, he just walked up to the bottom of Half Dome, grabbed on and started climbing! For 600 meters!

One mistake and you get a 2000 foot drop to the valley floor and certain death.

Oh. My. Crap.

I have never been more on edge watching a film. My hands were sweating!

The kid is nuts. Completely awesome. But nuts.

You can watch the opening clip of the movie here.

2 comments:

Kalen's Mommy said...

P.S. I cried in the supermarket about the 99th percentile. That's our boy!!!

Heather@Women in the Scriptures said...

Hello my lovely friend. It really has been forever. I'm glad you found me, now I can stalk you from afar. It looks like life is treating you well... and wow that is really a crazy thing to climb. I'd faint.