El Capitan, also known as El Cap, is a vertical rock formation in Yosemite. The granite monolith is about 914m high and is a legendary mountain for rock climbers. It took 47 days to climb it the first time, and it was considered amongst the community of climbers that a ‘free solo’ attempt would be so far beyond human limits and endurance that it was virtually impossible.

Climbing with a rope is pretty dangerous stuff, but climbing without is borderline insane in my opinion. People have been doing it for a while though, and Synnott’s book takes us back to the origins of free climbing with Royal Robbins and Warren Harding as well as potted histories of the men known as the Stonemasters who made the Yosemite peaks their own. But this book is primarily about the rise and rise of Alex Honnold, who took the discipline of free solo climbing to another level literally.

In June 2017, Honnold surpassed himself, by ascending El Cap without a rope in under four hours.

This achievement was seen as staggering across the climbing community and brought numerous accolades for this. For those watching, it was a constant heart in mouth moment though.

In lots of ways I liked this book, Synnott is a climbing insider and knows all the people that were involved in this as well as being steeped in the history of climbing in that part of the USA. He writes well too. The very end of the book is incredibly fast-paced as describes the climb and the emotions going through all of those watching him ascend. However, I felt it was a little too stretched out as it took a long time to get to that point. Not a bad book overall. 3.5 stars ( )

A real guilty pleasure. Synnott draws things out without being boring or repetitive. The writing feels authentic and authoritative. Synnott is a climber, and he has spent a lot of time with Honnold, including on climbs. We get a sense of Honnold's personality and drive, both his good and bad sides. There's less drama in the final El Capitan free solo climb than I had expected, but the climbing descriptions before this more than make up for it. (And we've all seen the movie anyway.)

There's a bit of Honnold hero worship in the book, which can get uncomfortable. By inserting himself into the narrative so much, Synnott can come across as a groupie just as much as a journalist. And even in his role as a journalist, there is a conflict in encouraging and publicizing Honnold's high-risk climbs. In the end, though, I think this was worth it, for it makes the book more expansive and less dry.

> "Why don't you clip in?" I asked. Alex was standing next to me on the ledge, and he wasn't connected to anything. I thought this was a stupid and unnecessary risk, and I told him so. But I had lost all credibility in his eyes, and he was done being mentored by "Mr. Safety"—the nickname he had given me somewhere along the way. He stayed untethered.

> "Alex, come on. Conrad is one of the most accomplished all-around climbers in the world. He's been on more than forty expeditions. Can you honestly say you haven't learned anything from him?" "But he's not really a climber," replied Alex. In his narrow view of the sport, which he was now revealing for the first time, if you couldn't climb 5.14, what you did in the mountains was some weird type of adventure hiking. And he wouldn't pretend to be impressed by it

> "Who the fuck does this guy think he is?" said Jimmy after Alex had left camp. "I was so incredibly respectful of my elders when I first came on the scene." "Yeah, me too," I replied. "I still am." "Well, I can tell you one thing," said Jimmy as he packed away his camera. "I'm never working with him again."

> Alex's smugness, his condescension, the way he would look at you while you were cutting him down to size and just smile—it was lovable. You knew he was thinking, Dude, don't you realize what a fucking badass I am? Do you realize how foolish you sound, trying to tell me what's what? In most people, this attitude would be insufferable, but in Alex it was somehow endearing, probably because he could actually back it up. Compared to the false modesty so common in climbing, his brashness was refreshing. He wore his ego right on his shirtsleeve like the logo of one of his sponsors.

> Dean always maintained he didn't climb for accolades or fame, but ever since the Delicate Arch fiasco his reputation was badly in need of redemption. People still ranted about it two years later on SuperTopo, where they referred to it simply as "DA." Sometimes, when he was feeling low, he wondered if he'd ever live it down. It had even contributed to the end of his marriage with Steph

> Royal Robbins initially took the upper hand when he scaled Half Dome over seven days in 1954. Harding had been preparing for the same climb when he heard that Robbins and his team had already pulled it off. … Robbins, for one, was unimpressed. The expedition style, the bolting, the fanfare that followed—it was almost too much to bear. His answer was to climb Harding's route in alpine style two years later. He managed El Capitan's second ascent, without the use of fixed ropes, in seven days. And thus began a game of one-upmanship that would consume Robbins and Harding for the next decade. … Lynn Hill. In 1993, she free climbed the Nose of El Capitan, a feat that many had deemed impossible.

> Maurice Herzog in the mountaineering classic Annapurna: "There are other Annapurnas in the lives of men."

> It's a cardinal rule that if a climber is clipped to a single carabiner, it should be a locker. In all my years of climbing, Alex is the only one I've ever seen who routinely breaks this rule.

> "It wasn't an easy decision to take this job," Mikey had told me in Morocco. "Ultimately, I said yes because Alex guilted me into it. He truly wants me up there. And I do think I'm safer than a lot of other people. There are times when I'm five feet away from him filming, and if I slipped, I would kill him." But there have been times when Alex has asked Mikey to film him soloing something, and Mikey has said no. "Just go do it for yourself,"

> "How did the slabs feel?" I asked Alex. "Really insecure. I still always feel like my feet could slip. But at the same time, I'm like, well, it's worked every time." I didn't say what I was thinking. Actually, it hasn't worked every time.

> An off-width is the name for any crack that is too wide for standard jamming technique. A slotted hand or a sideways clenched fist will usually jam well in a crack up to four inches wide. Any wider, and you have to get creative with moves like hand stacks, arm bars, and chicken wings. The big difference between off-widths and regular cracks is that you often can't hang off one arm while moving the other up, which means you have to lock yourself into the crack between moves with your legs ( )

If you are reading this book specifically for the titular climb, Alex Honnold's free solo ascent of the Freerider route on El Capitan in Yosemite, you will be waiting quite a while, the climb takes place in the very last pages of the book, and is in fact almost an anti-climax. The bulk of the text is a free-wheeling description of the author's own climbing life, a potted history of climbing in Yosemite, a look back at Alex Honnold's early life and his climbing career around the world, and a warts and all summation of his unique personality and climbing gifts. Unlike earlier work about Honnold, the author goes past his aura and records his difficult relationships with others, his occassional selfishness, his absolute fixation with climbing, petty squabbles with other climbers and his rather cavalier treatment of the women who would like to call him their own. But it is ultimately the description of the climbing that grabs the attention, vivid, gripping and often heart in mouth. Fantastic read for anyone who climbs or anyone who just loves reading about climbing. ( )

Mark Synnott recounts innumerable stories and anecdotes all describing the modern sport of climbing. The focus of this book may be Alex Honnold's incredible climb of El Capitan, but in some ways it is really a fascinating compendium of the last 5 decades of climbing.

Each story is told from such a personal perspective, you feel like you are getting a real window into the sport and the community surrounding it. It is incredible to read about the progression from the 80's and 90's climbing world to how it is now, and is impressive to see what incredible feats have been accomplished in our lifetime!

A fascinating book through and through, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in extreme sports, alternative lifestyles and adventure culture. ( )