The RunOut Podcast

Tag: Free Solo

  • RunOut #94: Inside Free Soloing with Jeff Smoot

    RunOut #94: Inside Free Soloing with Jeff Smoot

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    What’s the best way to belay with a GriGri? How should you build an anchor? Is that CE-certified piece of webbing really strong enough for real-world climbing? The internet has an opinion on this and more! Walk with us through the muck of know-it-alls offering their two cents on everything.

    Next, one of our favorite writers Jeff Smoot returns to the show to plug his new book All and Nothing: Inside Free Soloing, and regale us with his own experiences in this darkest of dark arts.

    Last but never least, Madaleine Sorkin shares how her experience of sending the Hallucinogen Wall inspired her inner bard.

    Show Notes

    All and Nothing: Inside Free Soloing, available from The Mountaineers or wherever you get books.

    Follow Jeff Smoot on Instagram.

    Check out episode #21 of The RunOut for our first interview with Jeff Smoot on his last book, Hangdog Days.

    Follow Madeleine Sorkin on Instagram

    Listen to our bonus interview with Madaleine by joining us on Patreon.

    Become a RunOut Rope Gun! Support our podcast and increase your RunOut runtime. Bonus episodes, AMA, and more will be available to our Rope Guns. Thank you for your support! http://patreon.com/runoutpodcast

    Contact us Send ideas, voicemail, feedback and more. andrew@runoutpodcast.com // chris@runoutpodcast.com

  • RunOut #60: The Future of Everest

    RunOut #60: The Future of Everest

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    AB heads down to Vegas for a gonzo-style reporting mission on Alex Honnold’s latest free-solo project—only it’s isn’t Honnold who leaves him most impressed.

    Next, we speak to Mark Synnott, one of climbing’s great explorers and best-selling author, about his new book “The Third Pole: Mystery, Obsession, and Death on Mount Everest.” Like many, Synnott’s one and only impression of Everest was shaped through the characterizations of Jon Krakauer’s seminal book “Into Thin Air.” And yet, one of Everest’s oldest mysteries led Synnott to reconsider Everest and being to see it in a new light.

    Finally, your boy Luke Mehall spits some hot fire for today’s Final Bit.

    Show Notes

    “The Third Pole: Mystery, Obsession, and Death Mount Everest”

    Mark Synnott’s feature in National Geographic about Everest.

    Alex Honnold reports on his latest solo link up in Red Rock.

    Cedar Wright’s Yolo Solo.

    Luke Mehall’s website.

    Subscribe to the Climbing Zine.

  • RunOut 29: Who is the Lord of the Abyss?

    RunOut 29: Who is the Lord of the Abyss?

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    If I told you this episode is about a time in climbing when the top climbers of the day were locked into a heated argument over the rules of our sport—everything from the hardware we used to the style we climbed in—what era might you guess?

    Or what if I told you this episode was also about the best climber in the world at that time, a professional free soloist who pioneered thousands of cutting-edge routes at the upper limits of free-climbing difficulty, and even paid his way by going around to give slide shows and spraying about his achievements, what might your guess be?

    The fact that you could almost pick almost any year in climbing and virtually be right says so much about our sport. But I can almost guarantee you that very few of you might ever guess the name Paul Preuss, a young Austrian climber from the early 1900s, who was arguably one of the most influential climbers to have ever lived.

    This is Andrew Bisharat, and I’m here with my co-host Chris Kalous. And today, we’re speaking to Dave Smart, a founding editor of Gripped Magazine, who has just released a new biography about Paul Preuss.

    This is true, geeky climbing history—so, listener beware. But what’s so interesting about Preuss is that, despite being dead for over a hundred years, his ideas were so progressive and also so provocative, that they remain relevant a century later.

    I hope you find this conversation as interesting as I did. Please make sure you get a copy of Dave’s book. It’s call Paul Preuss, Lord of the Abyss: Life and Death at the birth of Free Climbing. It’s a pretty quick read, and Dave did an excellent job of researching and fleshing out this unsung, but extremely influential, founder of our sport.

    Thanks for listening, and our deepest apologies for the recent delay in putting out an episode. We had one recorded a couple weeks ago about Alex Honnold’s nude expose in ESPN magazine, but Chris and I decided it wasn’t all that funny and there were too many jokes about balls, so we decided to lock it up along with our other lost tapes that will no doubt be used to slander our characters and bring shame upon our families one day after we’re both dead.

    Until then, the show goes on …

  • RunOut #20: Jim Reynolds’ Free Solo on Fitzroy Changes Everything/Nothing

    RunOut #20: Jim Reynolds’ Free Solo on Fitzroy Changes Everything/Nothing

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    If I told you a climber from California had free soloed three major formations in Patagonia—not only free soloing up them, but also free soloing down them, without using a rope to rappel—you’d be forgiven for thinking that I was talking about Alex Honnold.

    In fact, that climber was Jim Reynolds, a guy I had never really heard too much about before now.

    He’s a 25-year-old climber hailing from Weaverville, California. He works on the Yosemite Search and Rescue (YOSAR) team in the summer, wears rectangular frameless glasses, plays renditions of Slayer on a mandolin, and considers mental training to be wielding a wooden samurai katana in the sun-dappled light of a ponderosa forest behind the YOSAR campsite.

    Last month Jim made a big statement in Patagonia. He free soled up, and down, Fitz Roy, St. Exupery, and Rafael-Juarez. He did so without any fanfare, Insta-spray, or Oscar trophy waiting for him back home.

    Pretty bad ass.

    I got to speak to Jim shortly after his groundbreaking ascents, and break this story with an article I wrote for National Geographic. In this episode, Chris and I go through some of the details of Jim’s incredible ascents, and naturally we got into a discussion about Free Solo, the now Oscar-winning documentary film.

    But it is interesting to consider if the prominence of the film might influence our sport. Will the film be that extra jolt of motivation that pushes young, impressionable minds to go through with their crazy ideas?

    Or are these artists of the mountains the free-thinking spirits they make themselves out to be, and are we the ones whose weak minds are sentencing us to lives of mediocrity and sin?


    This is Andrew Bisharat, and you’re listening to The RunOut.

  • RunOut #9: Mikey Schaefer and the Fourth Wall

    RunOut #9: Mikey Schaefer and the Fourth Wall

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    To free solo or not to free solo, is not the question of today’s podcast—but whether it is ethical to film it.

    Jimmy Chin and Chai Vasarhelyi’s documentary film Free Solo remains just about the biggest thing happening in climbing right now. It’s something that has haunted me and co-host Chris Kalous since we saw it a few weeks ago. To be honest, we haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.

    And you can hear our initial discussion in episode 7. That episode is merely an attempt to dry out our sweaty palms in the aftermath of watching this film.

    However, now, with clearer heads, we wanted to dig in and go a little deeper. Free Solo is not just a spectacle of Alex Honnold’s obscene tolerance for risk, it also dances dangerously close to discussing the ethics of filming a guy risking his life.

    This film breaks the fourth wall—the behind the scenes story of struggling to shoot Honnold is as much a part of the story as Honnold’s free solo of El Capitan.

    We invited our friend Mikey Schaeffer to speak to us for today’s episode. Mikey is a longtime climber and just one of the true, authentic energies of our sport. He was also a DP, a director of photography, on Free Solo. Honnold selected him as one of the few guys he could trust to be hanging on a rope beside him and have confidence that Mikey wouldn’t drop a lens on him or cause some other horrific outcome.

    Mikey also has one of the more interesting roles in Free Solo. Of all the camera operators, he was the one who seemed to be most genuinely distraught by what he was witnessing. If you’ve seen the film, Mikey is the one whose face they cut to repeatedly during the climactic montage of Honnold’s big climb.

    He’s grimacing. He literally can’t bring himself to watch—and yet, like we in the audience, he also can’t look away.

    I recognized this as a device often utilized in horror and suspense films—Hitchcock was perhaps the original master of this technique. In this regard, Free Solo isn’t just a documentary; it fully fits in the genre of suspense and thriller.

    And yet, the thrills aren’t moot or for mere casual entertainment. The consequences are horrifyingly real.

    We spoke to Mikey to hear more about what it was really like to have worked on this film for the past two years. I personally really enjoyed this interview. Mikey shared some really surprising details and insights into his own experience. He also gave some really fascinating insights into the black box that is Alex Honnold’s mind.

  • RunOut #7: Free Solo Film and the Sweaty Palm.

    RunOut #7: Free Solo Film and the Sweaty Palm.

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    It was only a few weeks ago that the Dawn Wall seized the Mylar Throne as best climbing movie ever and thrust a misunderstood Kevin Jorgeson deeply into our hearts.   Incidentally, the Mylar Throne is made from melted down Masters of Stone VCR cassettes.

    But like a resplendent child emperor, the Dawn Wall, though magnificent, has been cleanly eviscerated after its very brief reign by this week’s release of Free Solo.  Jimmy Chin, Chai Vasarhelyi, and Alex Honnold’s film of Honnold’s incredible free solo of the Free Rider on El Cap has delivered an awesome portrait of obsession, dedication, and accomplishment. And simply put, the most astounding climbing footage ever filmed.

    Andrew Bisharat and I finally gave up on receiving our invitations to any of the premiers and bought tickets for a showing in Aspen, Colorado at the historic Wheeler Opera House. The raucous crowd (often too raucous for our tastes) was comprised mostly of outdoor enthusiasts likely very familiar with Alex Honnold and Jimmy Chin, and no doubt, the entire local climbing community was there.

    On today’s show, we give you our thoughts on Free Solo, the climbing film that crushes all other climbing films like Alex crushed the Free Rider. And of course, spoiler alert. We all know that Alex free soloed the Free Rider without plummeting to his death, but we also reveal a few other twists and turns of the film, like the fact that Alex Honnold is the only one alive, and we’ve all been dead the whole time.