Now, some sensible advice from Alex Honnold.
Alex Honnold!? The guy who climbed Yosemite’s Half Dome and Nose with no ropes, no protection at all!?
Ironic, isn’t it, that the guy who seems to embrace danger like Pooh embraces honey, would be chock-a-block full of sensible thoughts.
Yet last night at Raleigh’s Lincoln Theatre, Honnold, along with Sufferfest buddy Cedar Wright, entertained a standing-room-only house with tales of their two bloody buddy movies, “Sufferfest” and it’s sequel, “Sufferfest 2,” and insights more fitting of a tribal elder than a 27-year-old who’s arguably the most daring athlete on the planet.
Their appearance was part of The North Face Never Stop Exploring Speaker Series, sponsored locally by Great Outdoor Provision Co.
Not that their antics, on the surface, suggest a good deal of careful forethought.
“Sufferfest,” released in 2013, documented the pair’s quest to climb California’s 12 14,000-foot peaks, while this year’s follow-up involved climbing 45 towers in the Southwest. In both cases, they sweetened the adventure — and suffering — by mountain biking from climb to climb. Both adventures took about three weeks.
Last night, several months removed from S2, the duo joked their way through the trip.
Tag Archives: North Face
Diane Van Deren : An ultra athlete’s ultimate challenge
Diane Van Deren has climbed the highest peak in South America, Argentina’s 22,834-foot Aconcagua. She’s run a who’s who of endurance racing’s top events, including Colorado’s Leadville 100 and Hardrock 100, the latter, with 33,000 feet of total climbing, considered by many to be the hardest 100 miler around (she’s done that one six times). In 2008 she won the 300-mile version of the Yukon Arctic Ultra 300, vowed at the finish she was done with racing in temperatures of 50 below zero, then won the 430-mile version of the same race the following year. Before that she played five years on the women’s pro tennis tour with the likes of Chris Everett, Martina Navratilova and Tracy Austin.