Sublime

Nobody was admired more than so-called free soloists: visionaries who ascended alone, without rope or hardware.

Honnold’s amygdala didn’t react to a single disturbing image. Not a blip of activity. Honnold’s secret weapon might be that his emotional reactivity is monk-like.

long wondered if an ascent of El Capitan by any means was even possible. When the first ascent came, in 1958, it was a quantum leap. In subsequent years, countless climbers had made their way to the top following various routes. But freeing the Dawn Wall remained inconceivable. It existed as a kind of “here be dragons” on mental maps of the vertica