Alex Honnold's free solo ascent of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, resulted in one of those rare cases where the minority sport of climbing garnered mainstream media attention. It spawned numerous articles, much debate, and an Oscar nominated documentary. Whether you approved of anyone taking such risks with their lives, or whether you took any notice of climbing or not, what Mr Honnold did was universally accepted as one of the greatest physical achievements in mankinds history.
In truth though, people have free-soloed for fun for years, often climbing huge faces of rock, where any mistake would mean certain death once you were more than, say, 50ft up. Furthermore, climbing is a notoriously hard discipline for the layman to judge. Why should free-soloing up Yosemite's iconic Half Dome, (as Alex, and others, had done years before), barely make any ripples outside the climbing community, yet the El Capitan climb hit the headlines?
Enter Mark Synnott's book, "The Impossible Climb", an attempt by an insider with the climbing knowledge and connections, including to Alex himself, to explain what was important about this climb, why it demands our attention, and how it came about.
Ironically, the book focuses very little on the actual climb itself, but instead, in a fairly weighty tome, provides the context of how this single act came to pass. The authors own climbing history, the history of climbing in Yosemite and the ethos of those who climbed there, the pioneers of the more extreme climbing disciplines, (and their frequent demises), as well as Alex's own back story, are all covered, amongst other topics.
The result is a book that is undeniably in-depth in its coverage, and for anyone who ever wanted the greatest chance to capture the mindset of Alex and his contemporaries, and what shaped them, this book is surely it. However, while a positive in many regards, this broadbrush approach perhaps lacks the focus on a single compelling story that made other 'mainstream' climbing books such as Joe Simpson's 'Touching the Void' or Jon Krakauer's 'Into Thin Air' so appealing to the general reading public.
All in all, a solid well-written book, but perhaps more compelling to those who have an interest in climbing or those that want insights into why some individuals succeed in conquering the seemingly impossible, rather than those who are seeking a gripping, well told factual story.
In truth though, people have free-soloed for fun for years, often climbing huge faces of rock, where any mistake would mean certain death once you were more than, say, 50ft up. Furthermore, climbing is a notoriously hard discipline for the layman to judge. Why should free-soloing up Yosemite's iconic Half Dome, (as Alex, and others, had done years before), barely make any ripples outside the climbing community, yet the El Capitan climb hit the headlines?
Enter Mark Synnott's book, "The Impossible Climb", an attempt by an insider with the climbing knowledge and connections, including to Alex himself, to explain what was important about this climb, why it demands our attention, and how it came about.
Ironically, the book focuses very little on the actual climb itself, but instead, in a fairly weighty tome, provides the context of how this single act came to pass. The authors own climbing history, the history of climbing in Yosemite and the ethos of those who climbed there, the pioneers of the more extreme climbing disciplines, (and their frequent demises), as well as Alex's own back story, are all covered, amongst other topics.
The result is a book that is undeniably in-depth in its coverage, and for anyone who ever wanted the greatest chance to capture the mindset of Alex and his contemporaries, and what shaped them, this book is surely it. However, while a positive in many regards, this broadbrush approach perhaps lacks the focus on a single compelling story that made other 'mainstream' climbing books such as Joe Simpson's 'Touching the Void' or Jon Krakauer's 'Into Thin Air' so appealing to the general reading public.
All in all, a solid well-written book, but perhaps more compelling to those who have an interest in climbing or those that want insights into why some individuals succeed in conquering the seemingly impossible, rather than those who are seeking a gripping, well told factual story.