He is 1.8 metres or 5’11” tall. He tends to weight between 155 to 161 pounds, or 70 to 73 kilograms.

Yes, he still free solos. He hasn’t done anything quite as big as the Freerider, Half Dome, or El sendero Luminoso but he does still free solo easier pitches quite regularly. Recently he was at Lover’s Leap which is a well known easy multipitch that Dan Osman famously speed free solo’d back in the day. Honnold did a tribute to the classic video.

No, he has a couple of houses in Las Vegas and Tahoe now. He still uses the van pretty regularly for climbing trips though.

He started around five years old when his Mom took him to the local climbing gym. She and later his Dad would belay him up the walls and take him to climbing comps a few years later. He was climbing – with a rope – from a young age and would compete in National Climbing Competitions and the World Youth Championships.

Around the time he started college he would go out to climb often, but wasn’t massively social. He found it easier to boulder (low level climbing a few metres off the ground) or to free solo very easy routes – rather than find climbing partners. It was then he started to gain confidence and would continue into his early twenties.

When he started to visit Yosemite National Park is when the big wall free solos that had been popularized by legends like Peter Croft, John Bachar, and Dean Potter.

Some places say from $1.5 to $2 million. He himself said he “might not be far off $2 million”. He donates a large portion of his earnings to the Honnold Foundation, it used to be a third back in 2012 when he says he made his first six figure income and in 2017 he has said he gave around $80,000.

He bought his families old cabin in Lake Tahoe for half a million dollars so him and his family could continue to use it. His father and grandparents are also buried in the yard there.

He has said a few years ago that he made about as much “as a moderately successful dentist”. In 2012 he was making six figures, and now it’s probably in the range of $200,000 to $400,000. Possibly more – plus appearances for talks and events. He doesn’t get any royalties for the Free Solo film.

He is sponsored by North Face who are probably the biggest outdoor activity sponsor outside of a company like Red Bull or Adidas. Any trip or expedition he goes on will have all of the costs, travel, and gear paid for.

Still, he is fairly low maintenance and has said he spends maybe only $2,000 a month on general expenses like eating out, gas, and bills. He owns the Las Vegas house because Nevada doesn’t charge income tax.

Though he is famous and well paid, Alex doesn’t like to hoard money or buy things for the sake of having nice things. You don’t often see athletes wearing the same ragged shirt of jacket for years at a time – but see how many videos you can find of Alex in his famous red shirt.

In 2012 he started the Honnold Foundation, giving 1/3rd of his income directly to it. The Foundation funds projects that provide solar energy, off-grid power, and water projects for people who don’t have easy access to lighting or electric power. It’s a great organization that you can donate to now.

He used to live in his van full time, crashing at his Mom’s for laundry and a shower every so often. In Free Solo we saw he bought a place in Las Vegas to live with his then-girlfriend Sanni McCandless. They live there primarily because of the amount of good climbing in Vegas and in nearby states.

They also have a place in Tahoe which is again pretty good for climbing, but also for the outdoors trails, biking, and lakes available to explore.

He was born in Sacramento, California on August 17th, 1985. His mother is Dierdre Wolownick, a professor and teacher. She would speak French with her son and daughter at a young age so Alex can speak passable French. His father used to belay for Alex and take him to competitions – though he died when Alex was at

Yes. In late 2004 when he was 19 Alex hiked up Mount Tallac in Tahoe. He fell slipping on ice and landed in a talus field, breaking ribs and a bone in his hand, with a lot of cuts and other injuries. He called his Mom in a very confused state, and she managed to figure out what had happened. He was airlifted out and made a full recovery.

Also, in recent years he was climbing with his girlfriend Sanni McCandless and family. He was going to climb a 5.9 route called “Godzilla” to put up a top-rope for others. He had a 70m but switched to a 60 to put up someone else’s rope instead. No-one checked the length or the height of the climb so when Sanni was lowering him the rope was too short and he fell a few metres – leading to a compression fracture of two vertebrae. He also wasn’t wearing a helmet.

Lowering off of the end of the rope is a very common climbing accident and can be avoided by checking the rope and climb length before climbing, tieing a knot in the end of the rope on the belay side as a precaution, lower slowly, and always keeping an eye on the remaining rope as a belayer. It’s also both the climber and belayer’s responsibilities to check these things. As Sanni had only been climbing a few months at the time and Alex was by far more experienced, he himself says this was more his fault than anyone else’s.

He has never fallen doing a free solo since the first early one.

North Face, Black Diamond, Maxim Ropes, and La Sportiva are the climbing brands that sponsor Alex. He is also sponsored by Stride Health who do life and health insurance. Goal Zero are a solar and battery company that sponsor him and got the solar set up sorted on his van.

He used to be sponsored by Clif bar but they dropped a few athletes from their roster in 2014. They said the climbers and wingsuiters were “taking the element of risk to a place where we as a company are no longer willing to go”.

He sticks to a mainly plant-based diet and would call himself Vegetarian. He doesn’t eat meat, and tries to stay away from animal products – though isn’t totally strict on this part.

Vegan means no meat, fish, milk or any animal based products. Vegetarian is no meat/fish but things like milk, eggs, and honey (animal products where an animal doesn’t die to provide it) would be OK.

Plant-based generally means either of the two, or is often used to mean the diet is based around eating mostly plants and things that grow – but doesn’t preclude occasional eating of meat or meat based products.

Mostly walking down the back of mountains on trails – which is what he did in Free Solo. Climbers are great at finding the hardest possible route on a mountain when there’s normally a much easier way. If not, you can set up static ropes and gear hidden in a stash bag at the top of a mountain ready to rappel with.

In Free Solo, Alex had the Beastmaker 2000 hangboard mounted on the inside above the sliding door of his van – as is the dirtbag tradition. It’s a pretty hardcore board, and we’d suggest something like the Beastmaker 1000 or Metolius Wood Grips Delux II instead. They’re both nice looking wooden boards with a tonne of variety for holds.

Yes, and they got engaged on Christmas day in 2019.

Alex Honnold’s Fiancée Sanni McCandless is a transition coach, event speaker, and event organiser. Learn more about her on her website.

He free soloed a variation of the “Freerider” route. It is rated overall as being 5.12d ( the old aid route was graded VI) though the pitches vary in difficulty. The hardest pitches are rated 5.13a and 5.12d.

The hardest single move is the infamous “boulder problem” on the 5.13a rated pitch 20. It’s named because it is a short series of tricky moves like you might find on a boulder. The main move is a “karate kick” sequence having the stretch out a leg and move from tiny opposed holds into a finger crack and then a jug. It can be done as a dynamic jumping move but Alex (as would most others) found that a bit much to deal with mentally.

Coming up shortly after on pitch 23 is the “Enduro Corner”. Sometimes broken up into two pitches rated 11c and 12b, overall 12d. The whole pitches requires finger and hand jams in an awkward endurance shuffle. After this it get’s easier but not easy.

Not really. Most climbers practice with climbing a lot of routes in gyms for endurance at a high level, and then using specific moves to practice for certain routes. Outside of climbing most will use a fingerboard regularly, as well as doing core and balance exercises – sometimes weighted.

REI found him. He’s called Tom Evans and he doesn’t just sleep in the Unicorn onesie, he climbs in it.

Yes, he apparently marked his territory in a few places mid climb. Typically there’s somewhere with a bit of vegetation or a tree. If all else fails climbers just pee into the back of a crack if they don’t have a bottle handy.

Alex’s big sister Stasia Honnold actually went with Alex to climb together on their first day at a climbing gym. She is an occasional climber now and is mainly into long distance cycling and trail running. Stasia joined Alex and Cedar Wright on their biking/climbing/pain adventures Sufferfest 1 and 2.

Stasia runs a great blog Car Free Rambles about her running, cycling, and outdoors adventures. It’s definitely worth a read and the articles on integrating fitness, working out, and adventure into life will probably make sense to you as a climber.

Alex’s Mom Dierdre Wolownick Honnold is a now retired teacher of languages, who also wrote articles and books, and composed and played music. She used to belay Alex and Stasia at the climbing gym though didn’t climb for years.

Diedre took up climbing at 58 after seeing what it did for Alex, and started running at 54 as urged by her daughter. Recently at 66 she became the oldest person to climb El Capitan with Alex, and wrote a book about the experience.

The book is an insightful look into raising her kids and realizing how they were different to others. It’s also really insightful into her younger life and her struggles in the marriage to Alex’s father. Dierdre also runs and cycles with Stasia too.