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I never thought that
I would be able to push
the limits of sport climbing.

I mean, I was
scared of failing,

so I would then end up
not trying certain things

because I knew that I might
not succeed on them.

Now I've already spent
more than 40 days
on the project,

and I don't even know
how close I am to sending.

With climbing, there are
so many different movements.

Mother Nature just creates so many more interesting things

than just left-right,
left-right.

I think that's what's appealing about climbing.

The challenge to only use
the natural
features of the rock

to get up, which makes
rock climbing

infinitely hard.

It was strict, yes,
because it meant, like,

okay you fuckers,
no more pulling on
the pitons to get to the top.

Now you suddenly have
a whole new game.

In Germany, they had
another school of thought,

which turned out
to be revolutionary.

It was absolutely
counterculture.

The rotpunkt
changed everything.

Complete history of climbing
changed with this red dot.

The obvious beauty
of free climbing

is you're actually
giving the rock
a chance to win.

It's a fair game.

Style. It's about style.

It gave climbing
what climbing is nowadays.

Free climbing
is just an expression of trying to set yourself free.

It's just a way.

Okay, it is a bit
bigger than I thought.

Okay, and it is steep.
It's not a slab all the way.

Jumbo Love,
the first ascent was made
by Chris Sharma in 2008.

Climbing it in one
giant 80-meter pitch

and making it the first 9b.

The first 15b worldwide.

To everything,
the route is flashable.

I think every
route is flashable
if you're strong enough.

It comes down
to linking all the sections.

There's no trickery to it.

He wants to flash that route.

Fast flash.

Whatever.

Can't be that hard,
or the sections
can't be that hard.

Got a 50-50 chance
of climbing it in one day.

I just give slack today.

Just give rope.
Rope, rope, rope, rope, rope.

Anchor, bam...

That's it.

Start here ... end up there.

In between is just climbing.

The first time I met Alex
was in a climbing gym

in Southern California.

We knew that Alex
was going to be strong,

but we weren't really prepared for how strong Alex was.

It was very clear that,
at that moment in the gym,

that that was the future.

The route starts off
with easy 5.12d climbing.

A bit of a tricky
section in there,

but afterwards
you're sitting on a ledge
and you get a no-hand rest

and that's where the actual
45-degrees
steep climbing starts.

Oh, fuck!

Physically, he's able
to climb way harder than
he's climbing now.

And way harder than
the grades are existing.

Yes, good...

But the mental part
of this is also
something which is not easy.

The actual crux is a big
move to a right-hand pinch,

and from that position
it's really hard
to get a left foot drop-knee

from which to take
a cut-loose
and take a big swing.

From there, the endurance part of the route starts.

Twenty feet before the lip,
there is an
undercling pocket to a crimp,

which was for me
the redpoint crux.

Got a bit shot down,
definitely, on my first day.

On the second day,
went a little bit better,

just marginally
better, I would say.

Fuck!

Like I did it in multiple
parts and I linked
some sections

but it was still far off
anywhere near sending.

You know, the hands
are just a little worse.

I don't know, it just gets
all the edges of the fingers.

That's why I taped up
this one before.

'Cause there was one pocket
that was really cutting into it

and I didn't want to open it up.

I think he's
a bit nervous,

and not really confident.

On one hand he's a machine,

on the other hand,
also just human.

I know I am
able to climb it,

and in my head, if I want
to be the best rock
climber in the world,

I should have already
climbed it in my eyes.

If I were to leave
without climbing it,
it would just mean

I've not got
what it takes to be the best.

There's that personality trait
where he's hard on himself.

Fuck!

You don't just go climbing for fun every day.

You're working
towards something
that is sort of this vision

beyond what most people probably
are able to conceive.

And he was training for routes he wanted to do years later.

When there is chalk
on a hold,
and someone hold it before,

and when you're
not able to hold it,

to accept this,
"I'm not the best?

Someone climbed before
and I'm not able."

God, no!

Fuck!

Fuck!

You're strong, dude.

Yeah,
but not strong enough.

I wouldn't blame it on anything else, to be honest.

I mean, when it comes down,

then it actually was
because I was
not strong enough.

Well, I'm gonna fly back home,

and I haven't climbed
the route I wanted to climb.

The hardest part is that
you feel like you've failed.

I feel like I'm probably
traveling about
eight months a year.

Well over 200 days,
I'm gone from home.

Every time I come home
from travels,

that moment when you
turn into your home street

is always a special moment.

Just have my routine back
that I was used to

from some years ago.

And I think that's important.

This is
performance-enhancing drugs.

Double power.
Orange and purple sweet potato.

They're not
sweet potatoes.

Oh, rewind, rewind.

Orange and purple carrots.

Special about my hometown
is that it's got
the Frankenjura next to it,

which is one of the
biggest climbing areas
in the world, actually.

There's about 12,000 routes
in the Frankenjura.

Since most crags are
not very high, the routes
are normally not very long,

so that means to make it hard, obviously,
the moves have to be hard.

The rock is limestone.

Gnarly moves,
really hard climbing.

Small holds and weird holds

that you don't really know
how to grab, first of all,

and where it makes
a massive difference

where you place
your index finger,
where you place your thumb.

made the Frankenjura famous.

Climbing is sharing,
because you always
are with a partner.

You have to trust your friend,
your partner,

and if you trust somebody
and if these are friends,

we share everything.

Maybe not same
wife anymore, but ...

I met Kurt first time in '73.

It was outside climbing,
Frankenjura.

"Ah, you are Kurt Albert,

and I'm Norbert Sandner,"
and so we climb together.

And a couple of weeks later,
he moved to my house.

And from since on,
we became the best friends.

He was avisionaire,
and he was really smart.

He studied physics and math.

He was always up for irony
and good or bad jokes.

And he was fearless.

He did a lot
of powerful free solos.

He was by far the best
climber I ever had seen.

And then when he started
with his redpoints,

everybody was laughing
about him and said,
"Hey, Kurt, the redpoint."

At first it was with a brush.

With a brush and with a color.

And then later on
and be sprayed them.

Redpoint, done.

At the base of the route,
to let people know it was
no longer an aid route,

if it had been
first free-climbed,

you'd have the red circle
painted at the base of it.

And that would get
the rotkreis,
the red circle.

Once you've started from
the ground and placed
all your gear on the way up,

then the red circle
would get filled in,

that would get the rotpunkt ,
that was the redpoint.

If you fall, you have
to go down, you have
to pull the rope down

and then you have to restart
from the ground.

That was, and still is,
the definition
of the redpoint climbing.

The idea of the redpoint came,
well, from the coffee pot.

they had this one coffee pot,
and in order to
get the spout to pour,

you'd line up
this red dot with the spout,

and it would open up
and pour coffee,

and that's where the actual
red dot thing came from.

"What do you want to do?

Do you want to paint
redpoints on all
the climbs we climbed free?"

And he said, "Yes, why not?

Because we have
to show the community
that we climbed it free,"

and it was also
a little provocation
for the old classic climbers.

Of course, the idea
of rotpunkt,
it has to do something

also with the protest against
the old structures of alpinism.

We wear these
kind of knickerbockers

and we go out
on a Sunday afternoon.

Maybe we climb a little bit
and we sit in the restaurant

and have singing songs
at these times together.

Everybody will think
we are drunk already.

There are still
old traditionalists in Europe

thinking of those cliffs
as being preparation
for the big mountains.

So it really was just practice climbing and meant,
if that was free climbing,

it was free climbing pulling
on gear, pulling on gears,
stepping in stirrups.

It just didn't matter.

There was no free climbing
in Germany,
it was all aid climbing.

It was strict, yes,
because it meant like,
"Okay, you fuckers,

no more pulling on the pitons
to get to the top.

You know, it doesn't
count anymore."

No, I'm not pulling on anything to get up this,
just the rock's features.

So the evolution
of climbing really
just went from

just getting to the top
of something

to, how do you get
to the top of something?

It was like
a revolution here.

It was absolutely
counterculture

at this time because
it was 100% different.

Everything was like in '68,
very famous in Germany,

getting more free.

Being against structures,
being against pressure.

Being against social pressure.

I think free climbing's
just an expression
of trying to set yourself free.

I mean, when I was taking
photos of these guys,

I was not always sure
that they are pictures

that will make climbing history,
or whatever.

Except, maybe, Action Directe.

I knew at this time,
oh, that's something
really, really special.

Kurt and myself, we met Wolfgangat a climbing festival

and we saw he's a really young,
talented climber.

And three years later, he rented a room in the house.

And it started to become
really well known
as a climber house

where every climber can stay.

And that was when the name
"Hotel Frankenjura" started.

It was always
a very open house
and always full of climbers,

and it was very communal.

So there was Kurt,
Wolfgang, Norbert, and Ingrid, Kurt's girlfriend.

They were the four people
living there first,
when I first went to the house.

Yeah, Wolfgang
was the sort of leading
force in German climbing.

You know, he was well known
in Europe by the early '80s.

Truly a great climber.

I mean, his resume is not
one to be trifled with.

In 1985, one of the first big
routes that Wolfgang did

was Punks in the Gym.

That was the world's first 14a.

The following year
he would do Wallstreet,

which is the world's first 14b.

And then, of course,
the cap was doing
Action Directe.

All the things in your life influences your climbing.

Uh, one of the vertebrae
is out of place.

When you only see the climbing,
you see not the whole person.

With Alex, it's not that
we have to show him how
to do some pull-ups;

he knows, after all these
years, how to train.

One of the
biggest points
is that we talk a lot.

He can call us day and night.

One of us, Patrick or me,
we are always there for him,

to handle with the situation,
to be a professional climber.

And being a professional
climber is not easy.

When you see in the magazines
or in Internet,

you just see them succeeding,

saying, "9a, 9a+, 9b, 9b+."

But the approach to this

and the times in between...

all their faults
and all the pain
and all the suffering.

This is a daily struggle.

You get up.

"How do I feel today?

Can I train hard?

Maybe today
I'm not the strongest.

What's going on?

Yeah, I have to climb hard
because it's my job.

My job is to climb hard."

Yesterday we filmed Wallstreet.

I think he climbed it
a few times, months before.

Okay, it was
very bad conditions.

28 degree and humid.

And when you're
not climbing well,
it means for Alex everything.

"Last year, I could
do the moves
and today not.

So now I'm not that strong.

So there is something wrong.
I'm on a wrong way."

He never will say this.

But it's inside.

Not every day is the same.

One day is good,
one day is bad.

No, every day have to be good.

And this is not possible.
What can I do to accept this?

And this is not fucking easy.

I can't do it.

I'm not at the point
where I can say
I can deal with failure

or I'm a patient person.

Not at all.

I hate failure.

Well, I always say
there is no excuses.

And then somebody replies,

"Oh, no, I mean, you
could have probably climbed
it in better conditions."

I say, "True, but I could have as well climbed it if I would
have been stronger.

You have to change
negative thoughts
into positive thoughts

and think, "Okay, well, I've got a chance to improve."

I always try
to help him to deal
with all these ups and downs

to come back on track.

My philosophy: look good,
feel good, climb good.

This is probably a good
contender for the
strongest shirt right now.

I climbed Fight Club in that
one, I climbed Lucid
Dreaming in that one.

So, I like the color yellow
and I like carrots.

And these ones...

Those two were
actually the ones with...

which I started having
yellow shirts, because
I saw these ones online,

and I really liked them,
so I ordered three of those.

Each one of them,
in each one of them,

I've probably climbed a thousand
8a's and harder.

I mean, I've got
them since 2013.

Then in this one I climbed, um,
the 9a onsight, Estado Critico.

Why do I like to combine
all my patterns?

Why? Because everybody
says you can't
combine different patterns,

so I said, "Well, I can
combine different patterns,"

and there we go.

So normally I can combine
every shorts with every shirt.

I just really don't give a shit,to be honest,
whether it matches or not.

Oh, my God!

I look good!

More is always more.

More flowers, more colors.

Less legs.

I always invited
everybody over
to the Frankenjura

to come and climb with me.

Like we have
been before, he's really open.

He invites a lot, a lot
of guests from everywhere
to share his climbs.

Are you okay?

Totally normal.

Yeah, it was my dad who introduced me to the sport.

and Norbert Sandner
back in the day.

Kurt infected the whole family with climbing

and took us all out.

One day,
this little guy came in...

directly with his
climbing shoes on.

Huge ones.

We said, "Come on,
Alex, try this one."

"Yeah, Okay, Dicki", he tried.

He was not trying,
he climbed it.

This was the beginning.

Yeah. Step by step, he,
he climbed harder
and harder and harder,

and yeah,
pretty fast, we saw

that it's not normal
what he is able to do.

Compared to the other kids,
they were all good.

And he was Megos.

Usually he climbed 10 or 12 days, and then a half day off.

This is the difference also
between other climbers.

After a hard climbing day,
or two hard climbing days,

they need a rest.

Alex, no. No rest.

Alex!

From the day he began
with national competitions,

he won nearly everything.

When he was 14,
up till he was 18,
he was really unstoppable.

In 2009 and 2010,

Alex won nine out of ten
international youth
competitions.

Alex expected from
himself always 100%.

And, when it comes to the days when it didn't work out,

it was, "It's not okay."

There was one competition
where one guy
was a bit better than him.

It was the first time
ever that someone
could hold something

where he couldn't
hold something.

He was mentally wrecked.

Every day we talked
on the phone, and, "Dicki, what should I do?

Dicki, what happened? Dicki..."

He always filled up his energy
with climbing outdoors.

And, uh, now
you see in his eyes

that he also needed, again,
to go climbing outdoors.

My psych level
was ten out of ten,
I would say.

I mean, as a teenager,
I was 13, 14, 15,

all I wanted to do is go out
on rock every day.

Straight away after school,
I would ride my bike
to the train station,

take a train,
and then we would
go out climbing

and I would be back
by00 p.m.

I think when I did the 9a
onsight, everything
changed when that happened.

I was in Spain
with a couple of mates.

Second day, I didn't know
what to do, and then I had
a look in the guidebook,

and I saw Estado Critico,
that 9a.

I was really pumped,
and really at my limit.

Got to the last bolt
and looked up
and saw the anchor,

still not realizing
what I've done.

And as soon as I got back
from the campground,

like it was all
over the Internet.

And then suddenly
I found myself
answering emails at 3 a.m.

I think that was probably
then the moment
where I thought, okay,

I could become
a professional climber.

I remember hearing
about him in the magazines,

and then he went from being
pretty good climber

to being possibly
the world's best climber,

in the span of like a year.

He was just breaking records
left, right and center
in terms of his,

how fast, how quickly
he was repeating
these cutting-edge routes.

When you watch somebody
who is stronger

than anyone you've ever
seen before, in real life,

you almost can't believe
that that's possible.

If you're going to accomplish
something hard,

it's a road
littered with failures.

It's really easy
to get involved
with a project

and have failure
define the project.

That's what makes
the great climbers.

Failure is part of the process, and they don't get
downtrodden by it,

it just spurs them on to,
"How do I do better?"

We are in the original
fitness center called

The thing behind me is
the legendary campus board,

and we built it '88
in the Campus Fitness Center

to have a special tool
for climbing,
training and workout.

You hang, you pull,
you traverse,
go up and down,

and have different edges here.

We have the round slopers,
we have small ones,
we have big ones.

I think the holds,
after so many years,

they are getting
smaller and smaller.

If he wouldn't train here
on the campus board,

it would have taken him
much, much longer to do
the first ascent, or never.

The Frankenjura's gonna
be a cruel place for you

if you're not prepared for it.

A campus board
in a place like the Frankenjura,

where you have
so many small holds
and small pockets,

it would train you
how to basically
latch onto these holds.

because he did his special
one-finger pull-up workout

for the Action Directe.

Wolfgang brought
this training for climbing

on a kind of
science-based level.

Now I feel good
and now I start
climbing the route.

And Alex is
a little bit like this.

It was a milestone for training.

He was not touching the rock,

he was spending time training,

and then start to get
in the route when
he felt strong enough.

First of all,
when he did it,
nobody knew what it was.

I can't remember what he even
said about the grade.

Whether he was the one who
first proposed 9a,
I can't even recall.

And the last week I remember,
I never saw him before,
almost crazy.

It was like feverish
in his eyes.

That really was
a completely new grade,
Action Directe.

And it lasted for...
it's still a legend.

Was the first 9a.

So, since I've started
climbing and since
I've climbed my first 8a,

I've started writing
down every route,
8a and harder,

that I've ever done in my life.

Each of these books has got
approximately 700.

And if I've got three full ones
and one half a one,

that makes 700...

1,400...

2,100 and...

2,500 routes.

Yeah, since I could climb,
I never wished to climb
a route more than this one.

If you grow up
in the Frankenjura as a kid,

everybody tells you
about Action Directe.

I mean, I knew
about Action Directe,

you know, the moment when
I started climbing.

I said, I waited a long time,

and I was standing
underneath it
many, many times.

Then I climbed it
and it was all
within two hours.

Even if it was not my most meaningful performance,

for me it was the best
and the most moving feeling

to ever top out a route.

is fundamental for
our climbing world

and that's why Action Directe always was this mythical route,

and will always
remain what it is.

Some of the draws
are 30 years old, so...

could be that they're hanging
here since then.

Oh, that's from the top
of Ghettoblaster.

Look at that. Cliffhanger.

And Action Directe.

How old was he when he climbed
Action Directe?

Well, he died 31st
of August, '92,

and he climbed it on the 24th
of September, '91.

Just before his 31st birthday.

My time in the
Frankenjura ended
with Wolfgang's death.

I had contacted Wolfgang, said,
"Hey, we're gonna
arrive at this time.

We'll meet you up at the house
and go climb."

So we drove up to his house, the house was locked, and I go,

"That's kind of weird,"
but I knew where the key was,
so we let ourselves in,

and the phone was ringing
and the phone was ringing

and the phone was ringing,
and finally I picked it up
and it was Norbert,

and I was like,
"Hey, how's it going?"

He goes, "Russ, did you hear?" I said, "No, what?"

He goes, "Wolfgang had
a car accident this morning."

I said, "What do you mean?"

He goes, "Well, he was driving back from Munich
and he had an accident."

And I said, "How bad?"
He goes, "Very bad.

He was, uh...
he was badly hurt."

Wolfgang... well,
he became
the legend he is.

We're here for two weeks,

trying this route
that Chris Sharma
bolted nine years ago,

called Perfecto Mundo,

located in, I think,
one of the coolest
sectors in Margalef.

One of the main walls,
that's this wall
that Perfecto Mundo is on,

is a 45-degree-steep wall,

which is about 20 meters long,

and the easiest route
on that wall
is 14c, so 8c+.

It's kind of all flat,
steep rock
on small holes, and

since I climbed Lucid Dreaming
three years ago,

I've never really tried
anything really hard.

The crux move, the move
from the mono to the pinch.

As an individual move,
coming from the Frankenjura

and being used to monos,

I could pretty much
do that move
straight away.

It kind of does not feel
as hard when you just do
it as an individual move.

But then just climbing in
a few moves before
made you realize

that move actually is hard
and that will be

very most likely the
crux of the route,
getting past that move.

Grande catastrophe.

Knew that Stefano wanted
to come down as well to Margalef to try the routes,

since he's been trying it
a couple of weeks ago.

So I was curious to see how
he was doing on the route.

I think like he'd have to go
and train on that side...

And then Chris heard,
as well, that we're both
trying Perfecto Mundo,

so he decided to drive
out from Barcelona
a couple of days.

The route starts
with a few jugs up to the second or third bolt,

and from there the hard part
of the climbing starts.

Fuck!

So after you do the move,
after the pinch move,

you still have to climb
approximately 14b to the top.

The actual pullover
above the lip
is really hard too.

There is a super-shallow
right-hand sloper.

The edge of the roof
is right where your chest is,

so you feel like
you're almost hitting.

So it's definitely not over.
You've got a few
more hard moves.

Nice. Come on.

Fuck.

Then you start
reworking each move.

You're making sure
that you've got
the perfect beta,

micro-beta for each move,
where all the fingers
have to go,

what you have to do to make it just a tiny bit easier.

Okay, climbing, Stefano.

I was jumping to the pinch,
and as soon as
I would catch the pinch

and kick my foot back on,
I was readjusting the pinch.

And what I was always doing is
I was splitting
my fingers like that.

I would have two fingers on top
and two fingers at bottom,

on that pinch,

but to actually pull
and do the next move,

you kind of only wanted
one finger on top
and three fingers on the bottom.

You kick your left foot back
onto the left-hand
crimp that you had before.

You readjust the pinch.

And from there you pull through to the next shallow pinch.

But I figured out
a more detailed
beta for the top.

-Yeah?
-Which is good.

Which is very good.

Which means I'm not
gonna fall anymore.

I think.

That's good.

Well... unless this happens.

No bad conditions.

There's no bad conditions.

There's only weakness.

And we take the cheese.

-The cheese.
-Okay.
And we still take the meat?

-Yeah.
-Yes.

-I have more than
this one, okay?
-Okay. Later.

Yeah.

-Just for us, okay?
-Thank you so much.

Okay.

-For good climbing tomorrow.
-Yes, thank you.

Butt out. No core tension.

And then...

Got it!

He's got it!

Fuck.

Come on.

Fuck.

Fuck.

-Come on!
-Come on, man.

Do you see how I've got
my fingers fucked up
on the hole?

And I can't fuckin' move.
I can't move. Take!

I had it well with four fingers,but I was not able
to readjust the pinch,

and I felt like I could
stay there forever,

but I was not able
to move anymore.

Feel free to use it.

I've never really tried
anything that took me
longer than ten days.

Maybe it's better
like this, just wait.

This now is my longest project

and I think that's just
because in the past,

I was never ready
to actually project.

The pressure of trying
one route, I would
always stress out too much.

I think that was the reason
why I was never actually
trying something hard.

I slowly realized
that it will take time
if I want to climb my limit.

Perfecto Mundo now is the first
real project,
I would say, I have.

-Come on, Alex.
-Come on!

Fuck!

I think everybody
gets impatient

when they're trying hard routes for themselves, or projects.

I mean, I was actually planning to stay in Spain for two weeks.

After those two weeks,
I stayed two more weeks.

From the moment when
I knew that every next
try could be the try,

I was thinking
24/7 about the route.

It felt like I was on the edge.

I felt like I was not fun
to hang out with anymore,

just because I am just
so much on the edge

that I almost can't cope
with people anymore.

I kind of wanna be for myself,

and I think that's a hard time to be around.

Dealing with failure or not succeeding all the time

for a long period of time
kind of gets you.

The biggest
challenge probably...

to not lose your
mind on the way.

I recently learned
to accept failure
more than I did in the past,

'cause I realized
that climbing hard

is probably, more than 99%
of the time, failing...

just to succeed one time.

How many sequences of me taping did you film already?

Over the years? Millions.

-Of taping I did?
-Yeah.

-Come on!
-Come on!

Come on, Alex!

Yes.

Yes!

Yes!

I would say that is
my greatest first ascent.

For sure the hardest
that I've climbed,

and for sure the greatest
first ascent I've done.

Nice.

I mean, I knew, obviously,
at the beginning

that I was capable
of climbing it,

but knowing that you're capable of climbing it

and actually climbing it
are two totally
different things.

The art of climbing
lies in the rotpunkt.

Alex embodies
the philosophy
that Wolfgang began.

He's like an artist
being creative.

Doing your thing, not what the others are doing.

Being a creator,
it's the most beautiful thing

you can do in life, I think.

I wanna know what
he's working towards.

Is he gonna be the first one
to climb 16a?

I don't think that
Perfecto Mundo
is at my limit.

I'm trying to find the right
way for me to get to the
limit of human potential.

The idea of a human
overcoming an obstacle,

something that is
seemingly impossible,
is inspiring.

It inspires us to be better
at whatever it is we do.

We'd like to see
something impossible
and make it possible.

Climbing's no different
than anything else.

I've already spent
more than 40 days
on the project,

and I don't even know
how close I am to sending.

I'll never be satisfied.
Which is all right.