Alex Honnold on Peter Croft, John Bachar, Free-Soloing, and Climbing Big Yosemite Linkups

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Does Alex Honnold need an introduction? No, of course he doesn’t. But he was particularly suited for this conversation about Bachar and Croft for several reasons:

#1, Alex is a student of history. He cares about this stuff. If you haven’t listened to his Climbing Gold podcast, you should. I highly recommend the Dope Lake series - it’s a 5 part series about the 1976 plane crash in the Yosemite high country - a plane that was carrying 4 million dollars worth of marijuana. Go listen.

#2, he’s the obvious torch bearer for what these guys did - the soloing, yes, but also the pushing of Valley standards and the furthering of the conversation.

And #3, because as much as I want these stories to be larger than life, I also wanted them to be rooted in a realistic look at what we can learn. And if there’s anyone who can just be logical, it’s Alex Honnold.

In this episode we get into an interesting progression that Alex didn’t even realize he was part of, meeting your heroes, mythologizing, big link ups, soloing, and what John Bachar and Peter Croft mean for climbing and for Alex personally.

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Season Two is generously supported by Rab.

This episode is supported by Tension Climbing and The Tension Board 2.

This episode is supported by our research partner, NOLS: The National Outdoor Leadership School.

Written in Stone is co-created with Power Company Climbing.

Cover photo of Alex by Christopher Michel