![]() ![]() It hasn’t moved in what feels like an eternity but is probably less than a minute. Six hundred feet below, I sit on a fallen tree watching the tiny halo of Alex’s light. There is no “maybe” when you’re 60 stories up without a rope. Free soloing isn’t like other dangerous sports in which you might die if you screw up. His right ankle is stiff and swollen from a severe sprain he sustained two months earlier when he fell while practicing this part of the route. “It’s like walking up glass,” Alex once said. Unlike parts of the climb higher up, which feature shallow divots, pebble-size nubs, and tiny cracks that Alex can claw himself up with his freakishly strong fingers, this part-a barely less than vertical slab on a section called the Freeblast-must be mastered with a delicate balance of finesse and poise. Above him, for several feet, the stone is blank, devoid of any holds. That means he is alone and climbing without a rope as he inches his way up more than half a mile of sheer rock.Ī light breeze rustles his hair as he shines his headlamp on the cold, smooth patch of granite where he must next place his foot. He’s attempting to do something that professional rock climbers have long thought was impossible-a “free solo” ascent of the world’s most iconic cliff. on a chilly November morning in 2016 in Yosemite National Park.Ī full moon casts an eerie glow onto the southwest face of El Capitan, where Alex Honnold clings to the side of the granite wall with nothing more than the tips of his fingers and two thin edges of shoe rubber. Means had been on 33 expeditions to this tepui-rich region, but he had never managed to reach the top of one, given the challenge of climbing what NatGeo explorer and expedition leader Mark Synott ( Lost on Everest) describes as "crazy towers in the jungle." This expedition would be a "first ascent" for one tepui in particular, as well as what would likely be the 80-year-old Means' last trip to the jungle.This story appears in the February 2019 issue of National Geographic magazine. Means is less of a household name, but he is very much a giant in the biological sciences, having spent much of his storied career hunting for new species all over the world. (Spoiler alert: He survived, completing the climb in 3 hours and 56 minutes.) ![]() ![]() Free Solo documented Honnold's quest to become the first to complete a free solo climb of El Capitan-not without controversy, given the very real risk of Honnold dying in the attempt. He emerged seemingly out of nowhere in 2007 with a free solo climb of Astroman and the Rostrum in Yosemite National Park and soon became a dominant force in climbing. National Geographic is marking Earth Day with the release of a new documentary, The Last Tepui, featuring renowned biologist Bruce Means teaming up with elite climber Alex Honnold and a veteran NatGeo team to become the first people to summit one of these remote structures.Īnyone who has seen the Oscar-winning 2018 documentary Free Solo will be familiar with Honnold. That makes them a tantalizing potential source for exotic new species. They're called " tepuis" ("house of the gods"), and their plateaus, or mesas, are completely isolated from the forest below. Elite climber Alex Honnold teams up with NatGeo to bring biologist Bruce Means to the top of a massive “island in the sky” in The Last Tepui.ĭeep in the Amazon jungle, magnificent rocky tabletop towers rise abruptly from the foliage, often cloaked in thick clouds. ![]()
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