Original subtitles

I've been filming climbing for a couple decades

and one of the scariest things I've filmed

is Alex Honnold soloing The Phoenix

the slippery, steep, 513 crack

that runs for 130 feet

Nobody had ever soloed a route that hard in Yosemite

It was late spring, I had just arrived in the valley

to film with Alex

for a TV news show that was profiling him

We're all hanging out the first day

and there was a meeting with the rangers

called for the next morning at 9:00

Alex leans over to me, he's like, "Sweet!"

"That gives me time to go climb The Phoenix before."

"You wanna go up there with me?"

And I was like, sure!

Next morning at five a.m we drive up into the valley

The Phoenix crack sits high above this canyon

and right around the corner from it is Cascade Falls

Because it's spring, the waterfall is raging

To get to The Phoenix you have to rappel in

because the crack starts halfway up this wall

the waterfall is so powerful you feel like

the rocks are shaking under your feet

I rapelled into the anchors at the top of the route

As I was getting my camera ready

Alex rapped in and took a quick look at the climb

Normally Alex is so chill about everything

but he flashed me this quick nervous smile

that made me think wow, he's feeling something here

This is big for him

He rappels down the route

and he starts swinging out

This route is so steep

Alex goes down to the bottom of the route, takes off his harness

and he has me pull up all his gear on the rope

I was having this moment like

oh yeah, maybe this is why Alex invited me here

not to film it or capture this amazing footage

but just to like get his stuff out of the way

so he can climb it cleanly

as soon as he starts off that ledge

he's already so far above the ground

that he's well into the no-fall zone

Too much wider and you won't be able to see him that well

a friend is across the valley filming the long shot

I'm up above, just thinking

move gently, don't drop anything

The Phoenix starts with tips liebacking up a thin corner

which isn't really ideal for soloing

I remember it feeling pretty insecure

and kind of tenuous

it's hard to go from 0 to 60 like that

to go from just standing on the little belay stance

to climbing pretty hard tips corner

I have pretty fat fingers

so they felt very thin

the corner ends in a little sequence trending up and right

which is generally considered the crux

I found it maybe not as bad as some folks

because I have fat fingers, so I was able to jam it pretty well

One of the scariest things about filming Alex soloing

is he moves so slowly

you don't know if he's stuck

or has a sequence wrong

You just sit there and hold your breath

As he comes out of this undercling section

the crack looks so thin

I zoomed in and got close in

and it was so, just, sickening

to see what he was actually holding onto

I had to zoom back out

My camera was just shaking

The rest of the route is basically

a consistently overhanging thin hands crack

That part, again, I found kind of hard

because I have really big hands

and so tight hands just feels hard for me

Even though it's really straightforward and pretty simple

the pump definitely builds

You do definitely get tired because it's pretty overhanging

Higher up, Alex started moving a bit faster

Almost less methodical, perhaps

I remember thinking, is he getting tired

and rushing through this?

The route kicks back a little steeper

and his position now above the river is outrageous

Yay!

He finally reaches around, swings over

and pulls into this little stance

I was like, ah, he's safe

After Alex finishes the climb

we jumar out the ropes

I'm like, holy shit, he just made history

he's climbed the hardest route

that's ever been soloed in Yosemite

after that he didn't have some adrenaline

or altered mind state

He was self-critical

He said he felt a little tense on the climb

and he didn't really like how he'd performed

The Phoenix, I actually found it pretty hard for the grade

for myself, given my own strengths and weaknesses

But, you know, it was a great route

After the climb we drove into the valley

just in time for the 9 A.M meeting

with the rangers and the TV crew

Nobody had any idea what Alex had just accomplished