All language subtitles for Fine.Lines.2019.1080p.BluRay.x264-nikt0

[chuckling]

I don't need to be remembered.

[woman] How would you like

people to think of you?

Um, I guess I would
leave it up to the people...

because that's--

I guess,

you know, when
I-- when I say that

climbing gives me
the opportunity to-- to
fulfill my dreams and to-

um,

that it is something that is
full-- self-fulfilling, right?

Then I guess people just
have to look at my climbs
and then they know who I am.

♪♪♪

[Conrad] Humans
are driven to explore.

I think it's in our very
nature that going back to

ten, twenty thousand
years, or even before that

there was always someone
in each tribe or group

that would go out into the
unknown and seek out reward.

[Jimmy] You look up
at a mountain, if you
can see the summit,

you have to like trick your
brain into thinking you have
a chance to stand on top.

You kind of puff yourself
up and you say,

"I have what it takes
to get to the top of that
mountain" as insane as that is.

[David] It's definitely risky,
and it's definitely riskier than
if you would live a normal life,

but people are not aware
of the risks within normal life.

[Leo] I mean simply put;
the more dangerous it is,

the more exciting it
is, and I kind of hate
that that's true, but it is.

[Reinhold] Adventuring
it's not a play where we
calculate good or bad.

We calculate only
possible or impossible.

[Hilaree] A lot of people
I know have died.

You know, unfortunately,
it is just part of the
deal, but we don't like it.

It's just how it is.

[Xavier] The mountain
can give you strength,
or it can crush you, too.

Makes you feel
how small you are.

[Leo] Mountains are the finest
playgrounds in the world.

They're just-- they're this
epic canvas to go and
play out with your friends

and do the most amazing
things you can imagine.

♪♪♪

[Erik] I wasn't going
to be a great basketball
or a baseball player.

Instead of like just
protecting myself and
sitting in that dark place, I-

something told me to open
myself up and say yes to
like these new experiences.

I do remember as I went
blind, sitting in the cafeteria

and listening to all
the excitement, you
know, around me, like,

all my friends are all
having fun, you know.

They're all having food fights,
and telling jokes, and laughing,
and I was just sitting there.

And it was a stark
sort of separation
between me and the world.

And I thought I don't want to
be on the sidelines like I want
to be in the thick of things.

I want to be in the world.

And I know that when I got
to the top of that first rock
face, it wasn't even the top,

it was just like the top
in the first pitch, and I sat
like on a little ledge and-

and I can-- I could hear
the valley below me, like,
all the sound vibrations

moving out through space.

And I could hear the wind
blowing through the trees

down below, and I
just thought this is it.

[Lynn] I was a climber
at heart from the get go.

Climbing came from
mountaineering really,

the objective of getting to
the summit of a mountain

and then out of that people
realized that they had to
train on technical rock faces.

So rock climbing was born
as practice for the mountains.

What I'm most famous for is
making the first free ascent
of the nose on El Capitan,

which means that I was the
first person, not first woman,

to actually climb up the
face using a rope for
protection in case I fell

but I climbed every single move
all the way from ground to top
and that had never been done.

People thought
it was impossible.

[Jimmy] So, I was a
rock climber first, and

picked up a camera
probably when I was
twenty-three or twenty-four.

Never studied photography,
but just had a kind of
a natural affinity to it.

I found it really engaging
and-- and it came to
me pretty naturally.

It was really just to capture
some of the things that I
was doing with my friends

and the community
I was surrounded by.

We're all, you know,
really passionate climbers.

Many of them went on
to be some of the best
climbers of our generation.

[Pasang] I grew up in
Lukla. Lukla is like a main
gateway of Everest region.

I used to see lots of
tourists come to climb.

When I said I wanted
to climb the mountain,

and also the people like saying
that, "Oh, that's a male job.

Woman shouldn't do that."

[Leo] Personally, the
mountains I like to climb are
quite-- they're quite specific.

I don't really like the
big snowy ones.

I tend to focus on mountains
that aren't high altitude

that are extremely difficult.

[Conrad] I love being
in the mountains.

I always pursued gravity

as a source of inspiration,
challenge, self-discovery.

Climbing because it's built upon
this trust, this connection,

where someone's life is
literally in your hands, you
have to have that balance to it.

And that understanding of how
humans can work towards a common
goal, and the adversary is not,

other humans, but the natural
environment, it's gravity, it's
the rock, it's snow, it's ice,

it's temperature,
it's rain, it's food,
it's self-sufficiency.

I think the passion for climbing

and the thing that I just
crave to climb up the
rock is just within me.

I just had this dream
that I would like to be
a professional climber,

and I just had
any doubts about it.

Like I was a hundred
percent sure.

[Emily] I just remember as
a kid seeing like a boulder
or something and being like,

"Oh, I have to get
to the top of that. Like
that's what I want to do."

And I'd spend hours doing it.

And then, to be introduced
to a place where you could
go do that, and it was okay,

and it was safe, and you could
do it as much as you wanted to,

and there were like
different difficulty levels,

and then add in the fact
that I was a gymnast.

So, I was already strong
and flexible, and had
a lot of body awareness.

I think the combination of that
was just really alluring to me.

[Alex] I definitely would
not say that I'm gifted.

I've been pretty much climbing
full-time for twenty years,

and at no point did I ever
have any prodigious gift.

If you practice anything for
twenty years, you're going
to be pretty good at it.

[David] I knew from-- not
maybe-- not the very
beginning, but really early on

that this was something
that I wanted to do
for the rest of my life.

I wouldn't say that I am who
I am, or where I am today
just because I'm gifted.

To be at the very top,
it's always a combination
of having certain talent,

being determined,
being passionate.

It's more than just
being gifted I guess.

[Angelika] I'm a rock climber
and an ice climber.

I think climbing was always
something that was
inside me as a child.

When I was ten years old,
I did my first via ferrata
here in the Dolomites,

and from this moment
on I was just interested
to touch the rock.

[Xavier] What I do is a bit
of a mountaineering sports,

but I think I've taken it
the other way around.

I've taken it from the
snowboarding perspective.

So, what I like is you're
making nice turns, nice jumps,

and it transformed itself
into making bigger lines

and then go into this,
bigger and bigger mountains
that are more and more remote.

[Maureen] I think I had the one
counselor a camp that said,
"You can skip this if you want,

if you're not comfortable
climbing, or it's too hard, you
don't have to do this activity."

For me that just elicited kind
of a, "Screw you. I'm gonna
do it, if you think I can't."

I didn't think I was disabled,
and I'm not disabled.

I knew that other people
thought that I was

and so I just kind of set out
to prove everybody wrong.

And climbing just happened
to be my venue to do that.

I grew up fifty kilometers
south from Mount Everest.

I quit my school when
I was sixteen and I follow
with trackers as a porter.

That is very normal in our area.

For me it's very difficult
for me to say, "I am
a professional climber,

or I am a professional
mountaineer."

In my experience
on the mountain,

every time we learn
new things we need
to tackle new situations.

I grew up studying classical
music, not outdoors,

not from an athletic
family, very studious.

My main hobby was reading.

Looking back, I can
see that it was a very
focused environment.

When I was eighteen, I
started climbing and so, very
radically it changed my life.

[Reinhold] I'm most thankful
in my life to my mother.

She let us go.

You have to imagine,
I was sixteen, my
brother was fourteen,

and we went four o'clock
in the morning after she
prepared us breakfast.

Just a rucksack and
our shoes, and the ropes.

Young boys, very young
boys, still children
and we went to climb.

Whether I liked it or not
I had a tendency to sort
of pick the weird road.

The road that didn't
necessarily fall in line with
what might be traditional.

Yay!

Deep water soloing for me
is without a doubt, the-- the
kind of purest form of climbing,

just pure movement
over the water.

That's when you're climbing
up faces that are over deep
water, so that if you fall,

you don't hit anything,
you fall into the water,

but you do have to land
like a pencil, you know,

so that you go through the water
and you don't hurt yourself

because if you have
your arms out that slaps

and you can dislocate
your shoulder and
cause serious injuries.

[Chris] For me it's
this really cool process

of discovering something
and kind of envisioning a line.

Oftentimes, you spend
years practicing the moves
and refining the sequence,

until you can enchain
the whole thing in one
pure section of climbing.

All of these elements are there
at once; the rock, the water,

the air, you know,
and the fire inside.

[Adam] A climber that I really
admire is Tommy Caldwell.

He's like a perfect all-rounder.

He can climb in any kind
of style, or discipline.

Definitely his climbing story
was not easy, losing the finger.

[Tommy] My dad
was a mountain guide.

So, I started climbing
when I was three years old.

I didn't think I would
ever make a life of it,

you know, I figured
it would just be a hobby.

When I was twenty-two
years old, I was very
focused on climbing

and trying to become
the best I could.

And then I ended up
chopping off my left index
finger with the table saw.

And this was something that
stressed me out a lot, you know.

Your finger is essential
for the type of climbing
that I was doing.

It was very important

and I think everybody in
my community, kind of,
was like, "Oh, that's so sad.

He was looking like he could
do all these great things in
climbing and then he chopped off

his finger, and it's
probably over."

I think my worry about that
is what spurred me on.

Like I wanted to
prove them wrong.

I wanted to prove
my own fears wrong.

So, there are different
disciplines in climbing.

I think the most ultimate risky
is free solo, but there's
so much risk involved.

It's just, basically,
free climbing.

So no use of gear

and you just climb up
the wall, but every
mistake can mean death.

I can see why people like it.

I can see how amazing feeling
it can be, like, going five
hundred meters off the ground

and just having-- having
nothing else than just your
back and climbing shoes,

but it's a risk that I
don't want to take.

[Lynn] Alex Honnold, very famous
American climber, when he's free
soloing, he's not all excited

because if he was he
wouldn't be able to
climb as well as he does.

So, he has to mitigate
that and push the-- those
negative feelings out.

In fact, I think he's
pretty well engaged
in what he's doing and-

and those negative thoughts
might start to enter and
he pushes him away.

"No, no, no. I'm in control."
I think he's totally convinced
that he's in control.

He's such a good climber
and most of the time
you're following cracks,

so it's the traditional style
of climbing, jamming your
hands and feet in the cracks,

and that's pretty
solid as opposed to
hanging off your fingertips.

He knows he's
doing something risky,

that something
unexpected could happen,
but it's very unlikely.

But he's willing to accept that
risk to live the life that he
lives. So for him it's worth it.

I mean I've definitely had
many moments where--

where I think, you know,
if something goes wrong,

or if I fall off, or you know,
if any one of the handful
of factors happen,

like, yeah, I could
potentially perish, for sure.

Yeah, I mean there
are tons of things that
I would never free solo.

The difficulty rating doesn't
mean as much for free soloing as
it does for-- for rope climbing

because something that's
like rated quite difficult could
be just a matter of fitness.

It's just a matter of like
holding on to the hold
long enough, and so,

if you have that
level of fitness, it
could feel quite safe.

Whereas something
that's rated quite easy, it
could be smooth like a mirror

and you just slide right off.

Even though it's easy I
mean it's just really insecure.

The risk is the likelihood
of falling off and that totally
depends on the terrain,

and depends how
difficult it is, depends
how skilled the climber is,

depends how much
preparation went into it.

Weather conditions
like skin conditions
like how your shoes feel

just like a lot of
different things going on.

And the things I've
just done so much
easy so long in my life

that I feel like I've
experienced a lot of the things
that there are to experience.

[Emily] Maybe in order
to achieve that feeling,
that like, powerful feeling,

he needs something
as difficult as that

because everything else
is just not hard enough.

And you have to have like the
utmost confidence in yourself,

and in what you're
doing, and in your skills.

And that's a really empowering
thing, to feel that and to get
to the bottom or the top

and be like, "I just did
that and I mentally did
that, more than anything."

[Maureen] You know, I'm on
ropes and equipment, but I still
get this really Zen-like focus

because I don't want to fall.

Maybe my attitude would be
different if I was totally fine
just falling over and over,

and taking giant huge woofers,
but because I don't, I get
that focus while I'm climbing.

And I can imagine that someone
like Alex, he's climbed so much
where he started to lose

that focus because
climb is just climbing again.

So, I'd have to imagine that's
just another way to sort of
recapture that ultimate sort of

laser connection
between you and the rock.

[screaming]

[Steph] There are really
serious consequences.

It's not the same thing
as just sport climbing, or
climbing with a rope where,

"Oh, I fell and nothing
happened, but I was scared."

That's a different
consequence level.

When you're in the
mountains, when you're

climbing without a rope, when
you're jumping off a cliff,

there is a very
serious consequence,

which is that you can get
really injured or you can die.

I mean occasionally
with climbing there
is like a thrill where,

you know, something
unexpected happens,
or you get really-

really afraid and then
you overcome it.

I mean, you know, there
are, of course, moments

that-- that are sort of, more of
the conventional thrill-seeking.

But for the most part,
I think climbing provides
that deep satisfaction

of like doing something
challenging, and doing it well,

and putting a lot
of effort into it,

and just, you know, like
that long slow grind.

[Leo] It's not the same
as snowboarding,
or B.A.S.E. jumping.

It's very slow,

which is fundamentally
different to most of what
people call extreme sports.

It's a really
drawn-out process.

You have to constantly
decide whether you're
going to continue or not,

and you're faced
with those decisions.

Then they're not split-second
reaction-based decisions.

They're very, kind of,
informed, problem-solving,
experience-based decisions.

[Tommy] I don't climb to pursue
the typical adrenaline rush

that you think of, like, what
B.A.S.E. jumpers get a thrill

out of like that instantaneous
adrenaline rush.

Like generally, that's
not a part of rock climbing.

If that happens,
it's a bad thing.

[Steph] I would say one
thing about jumping,
and one reason that I do it,

and that I think people do it,
is that it is very emotional.

To have that moment of
standing at the edge, and
making that decision to go,

and understanding there's
no going back, it's such a
powerful encapsulation of life,

of knowing what you think
should happen, and what
you want to happen,

but also accepting that
something unknown may happen.

Wingsuiting is always inherently
a little more special.

It takes a little more
effort and it is a very
different experience

to be flying off
the edge of a cliff.

You have the visual experience
of a bird for a very short time,
and so, you're flying,

and looking down, and
looking here, and looking there,

and deciding if you
want to go steeper, get
higher, and where to turn.

I think when you're new, the
whole emotion is like, "I can't
believe that I get to do this."

And it works. And it's
this kind of like, "Wow."

Now, from where I am
I feel that it's just
really a very powerful,

magical experience to
be able to do such a thing,

but I also understand
the costs that it has.

And so, I have a very different
perspective than perhaps
in the first or second year,

when it was just super wow,
and, yes, I know things happen,

but whatever, it won't
happen to me and...

Whoo!

[Leo] If I ever felt like
I was gonna die, I
wouldn't have done it

and there were jumps that
I walked away from, lots of
them. You don't think that.

You think you're gonna
have a hell of a ride,
you're doing it for fun,

and then you're gonna do it
again, and again, and again,
you're gonna do as many that day

and as many the next day
as you possibly can, and-

and every time anyone
jumps off a cliff, they
don't think they're gonna die.

You don't feel-- it's not--
you're not playing
Russian roulette.

You don't feel like
you're throwing the
dice and chancing life.

You feel like you're gonna
take a more aggressive line,
and fly harder, and swoop this,

and do that, and have a
high-five at the bottom, but
that's what everyone thinks.

Set, go.

Some of the experiences
that you have in the outdoors
certainly, B.A.S.E. jumping,

skiing, high-speed sports,
it's undeniable that you have
a full-on adrenaline rush

and it is a straight up...
[simulates rush]

You know, when-- when you land
or when you get to the bottom,
or when you come off the wave,

it's you know, you shake it
and your eyes are on stalks

and that's an
adrenaline rush, definitely.

And it is addictive.

[Xavier] You know,
the harder and the
further you push yourself,

the more at the end of your
run you're gonna get this--

this bum-- this-- this
explosion of feelings
and-- and I think that's-

that's when we have this
kind of adrenaline people
stereotype a little bit,

but-- but I
think that, eventually,

you know, the pleasure of
what we do truly comes after.

It's not on the moment
because it's, uh, it's
too intense to-- to enjoy it.

[David] It just doesn't
make sense to reduce
it to one single feeling.

It doesn't make sense to
reduce it to say, "I'm doing
it for the adrenaline rush."

It's way more complex
and, in my opinion,

the reason I do it is because
it's self-fulfilling to me.

I like it when I stand in
front of a of an untouched
face of a mountain.

And if I can look up
and imagine the way
I'm gonna climb up

you transition that idea
into something that's
actually reality, right?

That's-- that's a
beautiful thing in my opinion.

From an outside perspective,
I fail most of the times

because I-- most of the times

I don't make it up to the summit
when I go on an expedition.

[Alex] Well, I think that
that for me the biggest
rewards with climbing

are sort of like a
deep satisfaction with
reaching the summit,

or not necessarily with
reaching the summit even,

but deep satisfaction
from the process.

I mean it's very satisfying
to know that you've put a
lot of effort into something,

and you've eventually gotten
some kind of return from it.

When we make it to the summit
of a Himalayan peak, the
journey is only half over.

There might be a little bit
of elation, but there really--
there isn't like this

great moment and the clouds
open up and Beethoven's
9th plays in your head

and you're like, "Yeah,
I made it." You know all
this chest thumping stuff.

It's more like
you're very humble,

you're very respectful
because you still
have to make it down.

[Hilaree] There's
trips that I have put

years and years and years
of effort and planning into.

You know from the outside
and especially, if you're
watching a film about climbing

or something, you're always
moving and you're in
the mountains, and, etc.

, but there's these huge
chunks of time where you're--

you are-- you're stuck,
I mean, you're in a

tiny-- tiny tent and
you can't move because
there's a storm outside, or

the weather is such
that you can't retreat from
where you are on a mountain.

Like, "What the hell
am I doing here? Why
am I here? I should be home.

I should be, you know,
taking my kids to soccer
practice and instead

I'm like stuck and
I'm not moving.
I'm not doing anything."

So. there's this really

crazy balance of having
to be able to move
on a moment's notice

and get right into the
thick of scary climbing,

right alongside being
immobile for like, you know,
sometimes days on end.

And you get to the top, and
it's kind of like you do expect
fireworks to go off and like,

you know, the red carpet to be
rolled out, and like something
amazing is gonna happen,

but, of course, it doesn't
and you're just at the top.

And sometimes
you have a great view,

sometimes it's like socked in
and you can't even see anything.

Sometimes I also question
by myself that why you really
like to do this, you know.

Even like, sometime in the
mountain it gets so cold.

I don't get like enough food.
I'm sh-- I cannot sleep at all
that I also questioned by myself

like why you are doing it?
But I don't have an answer
because I love it.

It's not necessarily
to be on the top.

I found positive energy
on the mountain.

It's so different power.

I feel that every
time I go there.

[Chris] You know there is a
risk that you could dedicate
years of your life to something

and come up empty-handed.

I think that's-- that's one
of the interesting experiences
in personal battles

that you have while working
on these climbs is that it
really forces you to question:

"Well, why am I doing
this when I've been
forced to give up."

That's when you shed
all these layers and you have
these very perfect moments

where you're able
to just climb as if you
were light as a feather.

[Tommy] I climbed a route
I called the Dawn Wall,

where I took seven years
of just trying to prepare

and I'd go-- go to that wall for
two or three months a year and
practiced the individual moves.

And then I would train the
rest of the year, and it was--

I never really knew whether
I was gonna be able to do it.

And so, that was kind
of pushing my mental
endurance as far as I could.

At times you feel elated, you
feel you can get to the top and
the sun seems a little brighter,

that you know, the sky seems
like a deeper shade of blue,

and other times it can be like
a loss of your relationships.

Like, some of these climbs
become so entrenched in us
that when we finally do them,

it can almost be a letdown.

So, what's the point of doing
this? It's anti-climactic,
you're kind of like, "Okay.

Well, now I like-- I climbed
this-- this wall and now
I'm just gonna walk down

the easier way. I, basically,
just chose the hard way."

If you look at it literally,
it's so stupid, you know.

We intentionally find
the most difficult way to
the summit of a mountain.

Sometimes not even to
the summit, you know.

It's just about finding
the hardest way and
you maybe touch the top.

Obviously, the summit
gives you kind of
an obvious destination.

It gives you something to aim
for, but it really isn't about--
about getting to the top.

If it was, you would always
go the easiest way.

Many people think it's
the climb up for reaching
the summit. Why?

The mountains are much
more beautiful from below.

They are not up--
beautiful from up there.

It's only a massive
stone and some ice.

The key moment of
a climb is afterwards.

Coming out of these dangerous
places and feeling like
survival is the key of life.

And going between possible and
impossible means that we are on
the limit of our possibilities.

Before going to Everest
without oxygen, all the
doctors and the physicians

said openly worldwide
that it's not possible.

We can prove it
with our numbers.

We can make a calculation
that the lack of pressure
in high altitude

above eight thousand
five hundred meters is so bad
that nobody could move up there.

And Everest is eight thousand
eight hundred and fifty meters.

But their calculation was wrong.

Amazing.

They did a wrong
calculation and we
prove that it is possible.

Sometimes no summit
during the expedition,

but I am always happy
even no summit because
I control the dream.

Because I know very
well, if I have a big dream

about this summit, the
risk factor is also bigger.

The thing is people
would typically associate
risk with danger.

So, I hate to say that it's
riskier to have big dreams

because it's not
necessarily more
dangerous. I mean some-

some big dreams are
just more audacious or
require more hard work,

more preparation, but they
aren't necessarily dangerous.

And I've certainly
had a lot of big goals or
big dreams in climbing

that aren't dangerous at all,
they just require, you know,

buckling down and training
quite hard for a long time.

Argh!

[Adam] I don't say
that everything I climb
is hundred percent safe.

I always try to value the
risk, if it's worth it or not.

And I think, eliminating
all the risk from our life,
like, destroys all the fun.

[Leo] What is acceptable or
unacceptable risk? There's no
hard and fast answers to that.

It's not a finite question.

The truth is you make those
judgments that are based on
your experience, your knowledge.

There's a fine line between
badass and dumb-ass.

There's a fine line between
bravery and stupidity

and it's not easy to recognize
where that line is, but you
know when you cross it.

There's no point in
taking on like real risk
just for a cameraman.

It's so difficult to film
real hardcore climbing.

So, I mean anything
truly extreme you're never
gonna see real footage of,

it's just too difficult to get.

I think that in the in the
Sendero Luminoso footage,

it's one of those things where
the film seems so extreme,

but it's like way less than
the actual experience.

The most poignant scene is this
clip of me making some kind of

difficult moves on
like a thin vertical face.

I mean it looks quite scary.

We went back and filmed
that the day after I'd actually
done the real free solo.

And so, the climbing that
I felt comfortable enough

on that I was willing to
do it again and again,

and just repeat it on command

and we, obviously,
skipped the stuff that
was like truly extreme

because there were
some parts of that climb

that I'm like, I will do
that once and that's it.

Because I don't want to die,
you know, I don't really want
to fall to my death off a wall.

I'm sort of hoping to die
at ninety-four, you know,
with a couple of grandkids,

like just all peacefully.

[Steph] I feel like
the human brain is not
very good with risk.

I think that's partly based
on our evolution and what's
happened to us as humans

in the last two hundred
years with the advent
of so much technology,

so much change from the
preceding thousands of years.

There's so much attached
to safety and sustainability
in terms of being careful,

in trying to provide for what
you think might happen,

and taking a lot of
precautions, and then
there's also just luck.

And to me it's kind of
fifty-fifty and that goes
for everybody in life.

We see standing on top of a
cliff as very, very dangerous

and we're extremely
upset about that.

And then we go back and
we drive the car and, you
know, everyone drives cars,

so our brain now
thinks that's okay.

And we just don't do a very
good job at really rationally,

and objectively
understanding risk.

That is why sports that involve
any sort of fall potential, they
really grab our imagination

or our attention and play
on our emotions so much.

[Chris] I feel pretty safe
climbing up my limit twenty
meters above the ocean

and to other people maybe
that seems kind of risky.

You know these cliffs that
we're climbing on, they've been
around for millions of years

and they've always
just been random cliffs,

but when we come to them
and we've discovered these
interesting pathways,

and we kind of bring
this interaction to them,

they become something
much more than just stagnant
rocks, they come to life.

It's rare when all of these
things come together to
find something that's just

barely possible.

Oftentimes, these climbs I have
to work on, over and over again,
and they do require a lot of-

a lot of suffering, a lot of
frustration, kind of beating
your head against the wall,

but for sure, I think,
accidents in climbing
happen when we're not scared,

or when you get too
comfortable doing something.

[screaming]

I think the biggest difference
in-- in mountaineering and
climbing is that in climbing,

you have to get rid of the fear
because you're doing something
that is relatively safe,

while climbing a mountain,
fear can be something
that saves your life.

[Conrad] Fear keeps me alive.

We all have our fear.
Fear is self-preservation.

So, are you gonna step out into
a busy intersection? No, you'll
get hit by a truck and be gone.

So, you're always analyzing
each situation in terms of
what that risk brings to you

and what the
potential rewards are.

So, when I go to a
mountain there's just
this moment where you

step up off the ground,
and you're on a cliff and
you're in a sea of gravity,

and you make a mistake,
and you can pay
the consequences.

You can break a leg,
you can injure yourself
and you can die.

[Alex] I mean with-- with
climbing, fear is a little
bit more complicated

because then you kind of
have to separate whether
it's justified or not,

like, whether it's just your
mind running away from itself
or if you're actually in danger.

And if you are, what does
that mean and how should you
try to mitigate that danger?

Is it a rational fear?
Do it-- am I experiencing
real risk right now,

or is it just this human
instinct that says, "Hey, it's
not normal to be eighty feet

above your station and on
a rope that's as thick as
your finger," and you know.

But we all still have that
primal fear that we have
to learn how to turn off,

and when you're in the heat
of the moment, it's really
hard to separate the two.

Like you can be convinced
you're in real danger,
even if you're not.

And that's something
I struggle with.

I'll get really scared
and then have to either
myself, or my partner,

just talk myself down and say,
"Your risk here is actually
really low, we're fine."

[Conrad] Moving snow
and ice is my greatest
fear, my greatest worry

and so, if you're rock climbing,
falling is that's the potential,
but you can control that.

You can place the gear, you
can choose to do routes
that are well protected,

you can really dial
in that-- that safety net
that you have in rock climbing,

and choose not to go up
on it because you are going
up, you can turn around.

But when you're climbing
on Himalayan Peaks that are
glaciated by their very nature,

you have to assess
that risk of where that
ice and where that snow is.

[Xavier] Danger can
come from so many different
situations, you know,

it can be a change
of temperature,

it can be a cornice that's
really far away above you,

the snow stability is a big,
big, factor in what we do and
it's a very challenging one.

There can be rocks falling,
they can be you falling,
and it's such a paradox

because you're up there,
it's sunny, it's beautiful,
it's powder, it's the most fun,

and the most exciting
thing to do, but at the
same time in a split second

it can go from an
amazing day to-- to
the worst day of your life.

[Angelika] In Canada climbing in
Helmcken Falls this was actually
quite a dangerous place,

and in the beginning,
when I got there,

I wasn't that aware because
there was this huge cave

with all these
hanging icicles on it

and then there was huge
waterfall coming down.

And the waterfall creates a
kind of cone on the base and
then you walk on this cone,

but this could also collapse
or there are crevasses.

And in the beginning, we moved
on this a little bit easily
and in the evening, I said,

"Okay, this was
maybe too dangerous.

We should really take care
when we walk there."

You know with ice climbing
you have to really be
aware that ice can break

from one moment to another.

That the whole Icefall
can even come down, if
the temperatures are wrong.

So, this is a discipline where
you should have quite
a lot of experience

to calculate how
the quality of ice is.

I think out of the twenty or
so people that I've known
quite a while that have died

in the mountains, most
of them died in avalanches
or from ice falls.

So I'm a rock climber because
rock is a little more solid.

I think the risks are less
in that environments.

You know have I been
on expeditions where I
thought I was going to die?

And the answer is yes,
I have. But I've also seen

death come out of the blue
and just take away life in the
most innocuous of situations.

I don't want to die and I don't
go into the mountains

seeking death by any
stretch of the imagination,
but I also want to live,

and live a life that has
given me experiences
and stories and adventure.

I think it's a really, really
fine line between life and death

and we're so close to it all the
time and we don't talk about it.

But I feel like we should
actually be more
comfortable talking about it

because this is one
thing that we all share,
like, everyone in the world.

No matter who you are,
nobody is going to survive.

I mean I'd rather live a
long happy life, obviously.

That said, you know, there
are risks I am willing to take
to live a really fulfilled life,

and, if I get unlucky,
then I get unlucky and
that's just how it is, you know.

[Steph] I do go through life
saying, "Yes, you know, we are
human. We are gonna die.

We don't know when?
We don't know how? It
can come from nowhere."

It's not necessarily because you
did something wrong, you know.

Sometimes things
just happen, right?

[Xavier] Personally,
I really don't want to
die in the mountains.

You know, you hear quite
often, "Oh, you could-

you know, he died doing
what he loved and whatever."

But I'm not playing with this
and I have been almost
dead a few times in my life,

and you don't feel anything
in a way, and I'm not scared

of whatever afterlife that could
be, but I'm scared for-- for
others, you know, to be in pain.

Of course, everyone's
afraid of dying, you know.

That's the end of the ride.

No more fun when you're dead.

You know, if you could think
after you got killed, you
would feel like an idiot like,

"Oh, I went up there and did
that? Like that's ridiculous."

You know, like big ice faces
where you know it's too
warm and there's like big

truck-size daggers of ice
pointing down the face,

and you know, there's a
ninety percent chance you
stand on top of that thing,

and a ten percent chance
that piece of ice comes down
and kills you, or hurts you.

You know, that's just
like, not good odds.

[Pasang] When I was on K2, 2014,

where I was in the Nepali
women team on the K2

and for the summit day
in the K2, the bottleneck
is like a most dangerous part.

It was like a big serac hanging
over and it can collapse
any time without a warning.

So, under the serac I had to
stop like two hours and every
moment I was like praying.

I was like, "Oh, my God!
If this serac falls down,
what's gonna happen?"

I was just looking at the serac.

I just got very emotional.
I was just crying.

The first time I cry on the
top in the mountain was K2

because I had to go
through lots of challenges.

It took lots of effort to
come there, convince
all the family, friends,

raising funds, and
beyond that-- they are
safely on the mountain.

I was just emotional
and I was just crying.

Still I had little fear
inside me, you know?

Because most of the
accident happened going
down from the mountain.

How you deal with fear
and how you react to it,
is I think, perhaps where

people in the adventure
game who do high-risk stuff-

I think in some ways
we're a lot better at
dealing with it. We know,

you isolate the real stuff
from the imagined stuff
and you compartmentalize it,

and you process it rather
than running away from it
or living in constant fear.

There are some physical,
and some psychological
tools that you can use

to process it, and
push it to one side.

Just having that, like,
anxiety over trying to beat
one's fear and conquer it,

like, that's just not the
solution because it's not gonna
go away. We're all humans.

We're all afraid.

We need to stop being
afraid of being afraid and
just learn how to work with it.

[Tommy] I think I am
the most scared when
I'm not on the climb,

when I'm thinking
about it before, or after.

Usually, on the climb I'm so
engaged in the moment that I
don't experience a lot of fear.

I don't think, but that's
kind of scary in itself.

Like sometimes, I go
and do these risky
climbs and then I get home

and I'm with my children
and I'm thinking to myself
that maybe I pushed it too far.

All that we get-- the
more experience we have,

the fear is coming in us,
especially, before we start.

Normally, the fear
is the fear of the fear.

Only if I am able in
advance of an expedition.
advance of an activity,

to go in balance, or
to put in balance, fear
and of course I can stop.

And the fear is telling
me, "You are going
above your abilities."

So, I have to train better,
I have to study better, I
have to prepare myself better

for the adventure it
is-- which is in my mind.

[Jimmy] Probably the thing that
scares me more than anything is
not having meaning in life, or

not having purpose,
not having something
to be passionate about.

[Hilaree] Without that
suffering and that hardship,

I don't think you get the great
joy of passion up here. So,

you have to experience both,
otherwise, you're just living
kind of in this flat line.

[Leo] I think part of this
game is about setting
challenges for yourself, and-

and trying to achieve them.

And if you achieve them
easily, even if it's a
very difficult objective

that's not-- it's not
that rewarding.

We did a first ascent
on a cliff called El Capitan
in Yosemite, and

I did a new route called the
Prophet, which took a long time.

I first tried it in 2001, and
didn't finish it until 2010.

We faced such incredible
obstacles to overcome it, not
least of all, a massive storm.

You know we were
in a waterfall for nearly
three days hanging in a,

you know, hanging camp
in a portaledge on this

on this giant wall. We're
really wet, electrical storms.

For the first two days of the
storm, we were still kind
of hanging on to the hope

of success of actually getting
to the top of our climb,

but then for the last day
and a half of the storm

success was out the window,
and it was survival.

We weren't even hoping
to do the climb anymore.
We were just hoping not to die.

And then the storm finally
finished, and the sun came
out and I managed to do it.

I managed to find the
energy and the strength
within to-- to pull out

probably the single
hardest piece of climbing
I've ever done,

in the most suboptimal,
physical condition
I could imagine.

[man] Here he is, victorious.

Yeah.

The harder you try, the more
you struggle, the more you
suffer, the more you value it.

[Adam] I might be naive
that climbers willing to spend
that much time outside

doing maybe a bit pointless
activity is just climbing up
the wall, or piece of rock

are just a little
different, yeah.

[Tommy] I do see the life
of a full-time climber as

pretty self-serving
and I struggle with that.

Like I'm out trying to
experiencing things for my
own benefit a lot of the time,

and I hope to change that life,

but sometimes I wonder
if I should have
changed it years ago.

[Lynn] I think you just have to
make those decisions about what
kind of person you want to be

in the world, and if you're
somebody like Tommy,
he's inspiring people, I think.

It really is a very personal
experience when you're climbing
even if you have a partner,

when you're actually
climbing, it's you and the rock.

But that doesn't mean you
have to be a self-serving person
in every aspect of your life.

That's more a
question of balance.

[Leo] There's no question
that finding balance
between, you know,

a healthy normal-ish lifestyle

and performing at a top level
is a difficult thing to do.

I mean in more mainstream
sports, for example,
Olympic athletes,

the most self-obsessed
people you'll ever meet.
You know, they have to be.

In adventure sport,
in risk sport,

you know, some ways it's even
worse because you know most
Olympians don't die performing,

whereas, in this game, people
do and they do frequently.

Watch as the pigeon goes...

[Conrad] Why do we climb?
People are always asking
me this question.

Why do you go do this?
Why do you put yourself in risk

and the potential of pain
for your loved ones?

And it's a form of
self-actualization and you
can find that in writing poetry,

creating symphonies, being an
artist, being great in business,

all these different ways that
when you can really focus

your abilities and get
into that flow state and
do something exceptional.

And I'm fortunate that
I found out that climbing
was that moment for me,

and that was my drive, and
that was my motivation, and,

yeah, obviously, it's not
for everyone, but

licorice, the candy,
isn't for everyone either.

[Jimmy] And I think that
that's probably the
challenge everybody faces

whether they're a professional
athlete, or extreme athlete, or
you know, hedge fund manager,

or doctor, a lawyer, there's
always kind of the difficulty

of balancing ambition
with the rest of your life.

[Tommy] I think that
the real reason we climb

is because it gives us
this intimate connection

with nature, with our climbing
partners, with each other.

I've gone on trips with
Chris Sharma, and Alex
Honnold, and I-- you know,

I see these people inspire me,

and then I just call them
and ask them if they'll
go on a trip with me.

And then, I get to know them,
intimately, and they become
really good friends.

And that's a really great
thing about climbing.

We're humans,
we're built to connect.

Intense experiences
build that connection
more than anything else.

[Erik] We didn't-- we couldn't
even get the Sherpas
to join our team at first

because they thought
that blindness was unlucky

in Nepal. And-- and then this
one Sherpa Ang Pasang
had climbed Everest twice

and he said, "No, I think
you make, you know,
your own karma and-

and you make your own luck."
And so, he joined our team.

And on the South Summit I was

changing my oxygen bottle
and I said, "Do you
think I have enough

oxygen to get to the summit and
get back again to the South
Summit?" He's like, "Yeah."

And I'm like, "Okay, you're a
hundred percent? You're sure?"
You think that, you know,

you can see the gauge and I have
enough to get to the summit and
get back down to this point

because you know
after the South Summit,

you go across the
knife-edge, and up the
Hillary step, and across.

You're kind of out there.
You're kind of vulnerable.

And he's like, "Yes, it's good."

And so, yeah, we climbed
across together and he
was right behind me.

And I thought, you know,
like this is a guy with like
a family, and if I had died,

you know, if I had
like fallen down

and couldn't get up again that
guy has linked his fate to me.

Like he's gonna die with me
and he's accepted that.

Whenever I think
about that I always get
choked up because I I-

I think that's like the
greatest honor of my life that
people have done that for me.

[Pemba] Danger is not mountain.

The danger is ourselves.

The last survivor
of an ill-fated expedition
to the top of K2

was airlifted to safety today.

Eleven other climbers died
trying to conquer the world's
second highest peak.

[Pemba] When I was
in mount K2 in 2008

and some people they
are two hundred percent

interest to climb K2,

they don't want to quit
the expeditions, or they don't
want to stop the climbing,

and they want to take any
kind of risk to get on the top,

and they're always thinking
summit, summit, summit.

Many people on the top,
6:30 p.m. in evening.

Some climbing without oxygen,
they are almost finished, you
know, too much exhausted

and many who climb
with supplementary oxygen,

the oxygen was run out,
those guys they are
in really bad situations.

I found almost fifty
percent of people they
cannot get down safely.

They get very weak,
mentally and physically.

They become mad-- madness.

Eleven people they stay on the
mountain, they never came back.

After summit, they
never came back home.

Some fell down, some
swept down by avalanche,

some people just they
sit down, and they say,
"I want to sit down here."

Next day after the summit,
I climb again from high camp

on that mountain because
still some people they are
alive on the mountain,

but they cannot come down
themselves, they need your help.

If I can save one human life
also, really, really, important

for family and
for the community.

Radio handover for the wilco
and he want to talk with...

Finally, I able to bring some
people down and that makes
a little bit happy for me,

you know, after that
big tragedy and sadness.

For a human, probably
for other creatures, it's
like-- it's like an injury.

This thing happens
and you're really, really
damaged and really hurt.

When Mario, my husband
died that was an experience

that really made me get
a better look at my thoughts.

For me it was more a question
of do I keep living or not

because I was in so
much-so much pain.

Being with someone and
then, them being gone.

That's a really
powerful experience

and it does cause me
to literally live every day
as though it's my last.

And it's not just because
I B.A.S.E. jump, and
climb, it's because

I know that living creatures
die and we don't know
when that happens, ever.

He changed me a
lot, in all good ways

and I was just so lucky
to get to be with him
for as long as I was.

He is part of my every day
and that's really wonderful.

Like I'm-- I'm actually
really thankful for that.

I have lost a surprising
number of friends along the
way and mostly in accidents.

And,

you know, there's such a
small difference between

a non-event and a
life-changing or fatal one.

Small decisions have
massive consequences and
that's true of everyday life,

but it's much clearer in
the adventure realm when,
you know, all day, every day,

you have to make decisions
and there are no right answers,
but there are wrong answers.

You know there isn't like a
prize if you get it right and-

but there are forfeits
if you get it wrong.

One of my best friends
died in a-- in a wingsuit
flying accident,

in a B.A.S.E. jumping accident.

You know this was
the guy who most of the
hardcore adventures I've done,

certainly in the last
eight years, were with
him-- with Stanley.

He was just about to become
a dad for the first time.

I'd just become a
dad for the first time.

We were all on the parallel
trajectories and-- and he
screwed it up really badly.

And to see the mess that
leaves behind, certainly, I
didn't think about that before.

You don't really think
about anybody else.

You certainly don't think about
parents and lovers, or partners.

You just think about
yourself basically.

I had a very near miss myself,
where I came as close to
dying as I ever have done

and it was in the
most mundane fashion.

A last-minute change
in my travel itinerary meant
that I didn't take a flight

and, you know, it was
literally one click of a mouse.

I could have said yes
instead I said no.

One week later that plane
was shot down by Russian
separatists over Ukraine.

It was the Kuala
Lumpur-Amsterdam flight.

The MH17, Malaysian Airways.

Two hundred and eighty-eight
people died and I literally
had a seat on that plane,

and one click of the mouse
was all that stopped me
from-- from taking it.

You know, this was three months
after my friend died doing
something extremely dangerous.

I still had a little baby girl
who wasn't even one yet.

And-- and that shook me
almost as hard as-- as
my-- as my friend's death,

but in a more positive way, you
know, you can't hide from risk.

It's inherent in life that
we are all gonna die.

You know, you shouldn't--
you shouldn't be afraid of life.

You shouldn't live in fear

because before you know
it, you'll be old and
you'll die anyway,

but it's definitely good to try
and be old before you die.

[Steph] And so, in some
ways I almost feel weird

because I think
most people don't live
without awareness

and I think a lot of people
think it's because I do
high-risk activities,

but that's not why.
It's just because I lived
through that moment

where I was standing
next to Mario and then
I never saw him again.

When you have those
moments in life, you realize
how precious life is.

You don't take it for granted.
You want to make the most.

You want to live in the moment
every day and you want to
treat every moment with

meaning and purpose.

In the 90s my main climbing
partner was Alex Lowe and
starting in '93 through '99

we did a whole bunch of
expeditions together and

we're very well
suited to each other.

Similar motivation, similar,
"Let's drink coffee
and go climbing now."

So, we did a variety
of expeditions and we were
together on an expedition

in October of 1999 to
Tibet, Shishapangma.

And an ice avalanche came and
took the lives of David Bridges

who was with us on
the trip and uh, Alex.

And my world changed
at that moment. It was just

in a flash this avalanche came
down and took their two lives
and by some miracle I survived.

I didn't know why. I will never
know why, it's not me
to question and ask that.

It's not fate. It just was.

[David] Conrad and I,
we first met in 2015

and we figured that we
would be quite a good team
together

and wanted to go to
the Himalayas, so we
did that in fall 2015

and we decided to go
to a mountain that I had
heard of from a friend of mine.

We basically went there
the first year and the
conditions weren't perfect

and in the end we-- we had to
turn around only four hundred
meters short of the summit.

In 2016 when we came
back we had a better
understanding of the mountain,

knew what we were getting
ourselves into, knew most
of the route already,

and we felt that our
chances to climb to the
summit were pretty good.

We acclimatized well
and the conditions were
good on the mountain

and the weather
looked promising.

So, we decided we would
start climbing and after five
hundred meters of climbing,

Conrad felt pain in his--
in his chest and he didn't
really know what was going on.

He-- he said he had some pain
in his lungs, or in his heart

and I immediately said
that we gotta go down

because if there is some
problem with his heart, then-

well, you can't do anything
up on the mountain.
So, we repelled down

and at advanced base camp
he didn't get any better and

I immediately called
the helicopter.

And they took him to
Kathmandu to the hospital
and had some surgery done.

I guess this happens to you
once in-- in a life maybe

that someone suffers
a heart attack at almost
six thousand meters.

When it comes to
suffering, you-- you learn
where your limits are

and I guess that's important
for a mountaineer.

If you would have asked
me, ten-twelve years ago, if I
was gonna climb mountains

like this one right now,
I would have said no.

Life often, well, makes
turns that you don't expect.

When I was twenty-one years old,

I went on my first
big international
climbing expedition

to Kyrgyzstan and we
got kidnapped by a group of
rebels from the Islamic movement

of Uzbekistan and held
captive for six days
in the high mountains.

You know we were in a full-on
war scene seeing people get
shot right in front of us and-

and having to run from
the Kyrgyz military under
gunpoint for six days.

It was-- it was a
different kind of fear.

I was used to dealing with
bad weather, and the fear of,

you know, fear of heights
and things like that.

All of a sudden, we knew
that our lives were
not up to us anymore,

like, somebody could
take our lives at
a moment's notice.

We didn't have any food and
very little water for six days.

And we were in the high
mountains without
much clothing either.

So, like, teeth
chattering, shivering.

We got into a place high on
a mountain where we were left
with just one remaining captor

and it became really
obvious that this was the--
this was the way to go.

I'm kinda pushing him
off a cliff and we ran
for, I think, eight miles

down to the nearest military
outpost and that's how
we ended up escaping.

I felt this flood of
energy at some point.

And you know, in the most
stressful, uncomfortable
situation imaginable,

all of a sudden I felt coming--
it felt like I came to life

and I think that ever
since then I've been
curious about, like, about

just the human's capacity
to survive in those
kind of situations

and it's made me wonder about
the limits of human endurance

and so a lot of my
climbing is sort of
an effort to explore that.

[Xavier] I think my biggest
close call was this
avalanche in 2008.

Like always, things
can change quite quickly
and that's what happened to me

and I went down
in an avalanche for two
and a half kilometers.

And yeah, basically, it's a
huge miracle that I made it
and that I survived that.

And, yeah, it's normally
an avalanche where
you get crunched,

crushed by the all the weight of
the snow and that-- yeah, even
if they find you at the bottom,

you're normally--
normally dead.

I was in the hospital room,
and I was like telling myself,

"Oh, never again.
That's it. I'm done.

Stop playing."

But then, I remember clearly
looking out the window

and looking all those
mountains and--

and I couldn't help myself but
just reading lines everywhere.

Without the lows, you
don't have the highs

and you are where
you are, and you are
who you are because of

the acts, decisions, and
processes that happened
to you to get to this stage.

I don't think that life
is mapped out for you.

I think being a fatalist
is-- it makes you lazy.

You've got to get off your ass
and make things happen. Nothing
comes to you in life for free.

You have to-- you
have to chase it.

[Lynn] I think that we have to
make good choices every day.

We have to reaffirm
and question things.

Mostly questioning
ourselves, whether
you believe in fate, or not.

This was what I told myself.

This is my journey.
This is my destiny.

I need to do this because
I can, I'm in this position.

That gave me energy
beyond myself.

It was a bigger
thing than just me.

[Maureen] As I get older,
it's easier to care less about
what people think of you,

and climbing is a hard
sport like that because
there are grades.

You get graded and
there's benchmarks
and difficulties and it's-

so it's hard to not think,
"Oh, I'm a worse climber
than that person is

because they climb harder."

Um... And as I got older,
it's easier to say,

"I don't care anymore,
I just want to climb. And

I don't care if my partner
climbs harder or worse than me.

We're all climbing."

[Steph] Even as a mountaineer,

and you think, "Okay. Well,
we're being told that to
be the best you have to do

the newest mountain, or I did it
the fastest of this group." And

does that mean
that you're the best?

I'm kind of having to
really re-examine these
deeply held assumptions

that you get as a
climber that you don't really
question in the beginning.

You know we've been
talking about wingsuit
B.A.S.E. jumping

and in the last five years,

as the sport is kind
of finding its legs, and
trying to figure out what it is,

and what it means to be good
at it because it's so new.

I was just watching the
jumpers go down this-- to
me kind of dead-end road

of doing stuff that's more and
more and more dangerous,

and that means
you're the best one.

And I just looked at that and
said, "That's so unsustainable.

That's-- that's not progression
when the next step is dying
for-- for the people

that are trying to make
their mark and say that
they are the best one

because they did the most
dangerous thing. And

you know that ends
when you hit the ground.
That's-- that's not limitless.

That has a very powerful limit.

And so

I started to think
that's just this paradigm

that these guys are making and I
don't-- I reject that paradigm.

I see it as the opposite
of what they're seeing it as.

My paradigm is sustainability

and longevity and that causes
me to jump very differently.

Lynn Hill kind of set
the bar really high
at the very beginning.

And so, women have had--
we've had a lot of mentors,
and a lot of, like,

really strong female presence
in climbing and I think that
that's kind of insulated us

a little bit from
that kind of macho

vibe that you get in a
lot of outdoor sports.

[Maureen] She was one of the
very first females that were
climbing on par with the men.

You know, and she freed
the nose. That was
the ultimate-- just like,

"Just because you think
I can't, I'm gonna do this."

And I think that's the attitude
I hope to-I hope to have.

[Lynn] I grew up in the 60s
and I believed that girls
were equal to boys.

I wanted to convey
the equality that I felt.

Why be limited by what
other people think?

I knew that people just
didn't understand how much
further we could go in climbing

and I figured, "Well, I am
here now. I see this now.

I better do this now because
this will wake people up

and show them that it is just
a matter of what you think."

And you know, of course,
you do have to have the
preparation and-- and I did,

and I did what was necessary
to get that job done.

My main motivation was
that I thought I could do it.

And I wanted to prove that even
though there weren't that many
women that did first ascents

in Yosemite, there was no reason
why I couldn't make that move
and do something before the men.

Nowadays, you see so
many women that are really,

really, strong,
graceful, brilliant climbers.

And that's what I wanted
to encourage really-

is that we have all of what
you need to be great climbers

and everybody has their own
style and there's room for that.

So there's always going
to be a difference

in your physical
stature and what's going
to work for you better,

but the rock doesn't
discriminate, you see.

The rock is what it is
and it's up to you to
adapt yourself to the rock.

[Adam] Some professional
climbers when they know that
they can't climb on their limit,

or as hard as they were
climbing before, they
would just quit climbing.

I know that that-- that moment,
eventually, will come,

but I'm not afraid about that.

I am pretty sure that
climbing will still give me
the same satisfaction.

I-- I see myself still climbing
forever, but I mean, it's
definitely a question mark,

how hard you'll be able to push
yourself as you get older.

I would say like,
mentally, I'm stronger
than I ever have been

and on good days,
like, my body's super strong,

but sometimes, you know,
you'll get like this crazy
pain in your knee and

you're like, "Oh, my
God! I can't run today.
What the heck?"

You know, it's a question
mark of how long you
can sustain this and,

you know, not
because of blindness,
but because, you know,

your body's starting to
become a bit of a liability.

[Conrad] We live a very
oversubscribed,
busy, hectic life

with seven point
four billion people

streaming around this
planet all wanting to
do something unique.

To escape the pressures
of society, I get outdoors,
I am happy with who I am

and what I've climbed and being
able to inspire other people

to discover the mountains
and look into their own
soul and see what they're-

what-- what life is about.

If they can be inspired by what
myself and other climbers have
done that's a pretty good thing.

[Jimmy] Doing what I do has
given me a particular
relationship with death

in a way that's very healthy.

I think that most people
avoid looking at death,
are afraid of death,

and if you don't have
a relationship with it,
in a way for me it seems

like it's hard to make
decisions with what you do.

But I also in a way,
I feel like, if it's your
time it's your time.

If it's not your time,
it's not your time.

Getting older, it means to
cope, means, getting older

not-- not with death
immed-immediately,

but this defect to get older.

And I had a few moments,
only a few moments in my life,

where I had really the
feeling-- now it's gone.

I'm gone. I will die.

And it was easy, before
it was not more difficult.

If still there is a small hope
little bit of hope to survive,

you do everything to survive
and fear is behind, and
aggression is coming up.

But if you feel, now,
there's no more chance,

at least I had the feeling, I am
able to let me fall and death.

It was a liberation,

but I was lucky,
so I'm still here

and I am approaching death quite
soon and I'm happy about it.

But I will be active, if it's
possible with my health,
up to the last moment.

[Maureen] You know Reinhold
comes from that pure place.

I kind of wish I was around in

his generation where it was just
quieter and you didn't have the
Facebook, and the Instagram,

and you know, Reinhold
didn't have sponsors at first.

He just got out there
because he loved it and-

and those are the kind
of people, they still exist.

And those are the people I
usually enjoy climbing with the
most or camping with the most.

The people that maybe
they could be sponsored,
maybe they could be the one

in front of the camera instead
of me but they are just-

they're able to pursue
it in such a pure way.

And maybe, if I didn't have as
much of a message about, you
know, people with disabilities,

I could be like that, too,
but I guess, I'd like to get
my message out there.

[Xavier] I am, I think
like everybody else.

You know, I have
a very hectic life.

I'm always hooked to my
phone, on my computer,

there's always things
to be doing because
after all, you know,

you're sucked into it
and you become this
kind of ball of tension.

You just need to
go out there to

put everything aside, and
receive perspectives of life.

And I would really
recommend people to try

to go out there and take
the time to appreciate it
and to get into it because,

yeah, nature is beautiful,
and it can be the mountains,
it can be the sea,

it can be the jungle,
it can be anything.

I think it's worth to get
out and feel that we're--
we're just animals, and,

yeah, this is our element,
and it brings so much
to us, it has such a life,

and so much
energy to give us.

[Jimmy] I love powerful
landscapes and I just think
that that's part of

being alive and being human,
being animals that like we
are connected to this Earth,

and a lot of modern-day life
you're not that connected to it.

You're very extracted from it.

I can have a lot going on
in the rest of my life,
but if I have a few hours

even, up on the trails
here, or climbing, it's just
something that, you know,

essentially, makes me feel
good and kind of allows
you to like take on

pretty much anything
else that's happening in
your life in a lot of ways.

I don't see a therapist, I
basically go out, and it does
everything that I need it to do.

Today's world of being
a professional athlete
is pretty interesting

in that we are asked to be
these kind of self-promoters

and have our smartphones
with us all the time and be

sort of like portraying
what we're doing to
the greater masses.

And it's new, you know, that's
a new thing like we used to go
into the mountains and be just,

you know, us and our climbing
partner, and the mountains.

We're no longer focused
on what we're doing,
we're focused on the story

that we're gonna
tell as we're doing it.

We have the privilege to inspire
in the way that we never
could have done in the past.

But I do feel like there's a
loss, like, going up there and
pulling out your smartphone

all the time and thinking
about that story, takes
away from the moment.

And so, I try and walk
that balance delicately.

Like on the Dawn Wall,
specifically, we had
great cell phone service.

We had photographers with
us, which were our friends,

and we were constantly
updating our social media feeds.

And I started to feel like after
a while that it was disingenuous
and it didn't feel real.

And then at one point I
dropped my phone and
suddenly it was almost like

going back in time
fifteen years.

And suddenly I-- I was
noticing all the little details

of this-- of our surroundings.

You know I'd be-- in the quiet
moments, I'd be looking down
into Yosemite Valley

and watching the ice form
on the rivers and break down.

And I all of a sudden could
experience that moment
so much more vividly.

[Angelika] I feel now with
social media there is easily
people being envious.

A lot of people they
maybe look what you
do but they don't like it.

It's a game that puts pressure
on people to think about what
are they gonna post today

instead of what am
I gonna climb today.

When I first started climbing

that would be considered
really bad style to
boast about yourself.

It was a nicer attitude to
just be part of the community
and support each other

and not judge each other
based on who is doing better
or who is maybe scared.

I think the best thing about
climbing and I guess
any of these sports

is just understanding your
place in the natural world

because I do think
it's really easy if
you live in a city,

and you never leave
the city, and you're in a
man-made environment

where everything is controlled.

I think it's very easy to think
that that represents reality,
and I don't think it does.

When you spend time outside,
you understand that you are
not in control of anything

and you are just
one little creature.

As a climber when you
see a lizard, you think,

I'm pretty terrible at
this compared to that guy.

And so, to then, you know,
want to be impressed because
you're doing it more or less

than another human
that's almost so silly

because we're inherently
never very good at it.

And you know, same with air
sports, look at the birds.

We're never gonna be
that great at it, but so,
it's almost silly to be looking

at the person next to
you and thinking that
says something about you.

You have to do your own path.

[Maureen] I don't want to be
an inspiration just because

I climb with one hand, or I live
with one hand, you know.

I get lots of people
in the gym even
that are just saying,

"Oh, good for you for not
letting that keep you down."

And I just think, "Why would
it keep me down? Like,
where else would I be?

Why wouldn't I be out climbing?"
And so, for someone to say,

"That's so inspiring just
because I got out of bed."

Like that-- it's-- it's-- that
I'm less than psyched on.

But you know, when I do
something that's hard for me,

or I do something that's
hard for anybody,

and someone says,
"Okay that's inspiring."

Then I know they're actually
giving me credit for something
I've done versus just existing.

Oh my God!

[Lynn] Climbing
is a lesson in life.

You learn how to take
these situations and do
your best and turn around.

Oftentimes, if you're trying
something really difficult,

you know that you're
probably not going to make it
successfully your first time.

You've got to solve
the problems.

You know, your life
depends on it, so you have to.

But that gives you confidence
in so many other aspects of life

because if you come up
against that in something
outside of climbing,

you can take the lesson
of "Okay. Well, I didn't get
what I wanted right away,

but I'm gonna try
a different technique,

or try again, or-- or maybe
this means that I need to shift
my direction a little bit."

Along the way, of course,
you're going to fail because
falling is part of learning,

and it's a necessary
part of learning.

[Angelika] After all these
years of-- of competitions,

I-- I know how
to handle if I fail,

and this is something
that actually is going to
happen in our lives as well

because we, for sure, can't
accomplish everything
we-- we try to do.

I'm three times world
champion in ice climbing,

and I came two times second
at World Championships

which is still a very good
accomplishment, but,
yeah, I didn't win.

[Erik] You know like
when after I did Everest,

one article came out, it
was like in Time magazine,
it was "Blind to Failure."

And I was like that's-- that's
nice, but I easily could
have failed, you know.

And like people said, you know,
"Oh, you blew them-- world's
expectations out of the water

and you've shattered people's
perceptions of what's possible."

And what they don't realize
is that you're constantly
doing that inside your mind.

Like forget the world's
expectations and the
world's perceptions,

you're shattering your own
perceptions, constantly.

So, for me, it's not like
is there advantages and
disadvantages to being blind,

you make everything
an advantage.

[Tommy] But I think there's
phases in life, like, you need
to spend a part of your life

sort of filling your
own fuel tank.

You need to spend a
lot-- part of your life
being introspective,

and thinking
about yourself and
your experiences,

but then you also need
to spend part of your
life trying to serve.

If I had never become a
climber, or if I had never
learned about the mountains,

I wouldn't be able to
understand the power to
pay it forward to my family.

And so, I'm incredibly
happy that I spent
a big part of my life,

essentially, being selfish
[chuckling] because it
made me into who I was.

You just have to figure
out when to make the shift.

[Conrad] There's always this
quest for knowledge and
that's a unique human trait.

The ability to imagine, to
dream, and then to explore

those imaginations
and those dreams.

I hope that there never comes
a day when I wake up and
I don't have any crazy ideas,

or any thing I want to achieve
because I feel like that's the
end of the dreaming phase

and I don't want
that to happen.

[Xavier] To me life is made for
living and, you know, I love it,
I embrace it, I learn from it,

and I know that, you know,
the price of challenge is that
you may die along the way.

And I probably didn't
choose the safest route

but I love it and I wouldn't
change it for anything because
it makes me feel so alive.

[Steph] As you get older,
you just get better at things

and you have so much
more perspective
on the world and people

and the things that happen,
and it just gets so much richer,

and it's fun to be good at
things, and it's fun to kind
of have your life together,

and to be smarter, and, you
know, more experienced, and it
just gets more fun all the time.

So-- so we don't
have that long and-

and I'm just really
thankful to still be here
and get to be doing this.

I am still hungry person
for the next horizon.
I'm always interested to see

above the next horizon
but there is no end
of the next horizon.

This is infinite.

I think it's a-- it's
a really big lesson in
enjoying that process

because, you know,
once you get to the top,
it's on to the next thing.

And it's easy to go through
our life like that, and always
thinking about the next thing

that we want to do and
never enjoy or appreciate,

you know, the moment that
we're-- we're living right now.

And you know, whether,
it's climbing in the high-- high
mountains of the Himalaya,

or free soloing, or bouldering,
or competitions, or whatever
it is in life really,

to see someone
that's really,

doing what they're, you know,
doing something with passion,
you can appreciate that.

The more I've lived this
life the more I've realized
that it is, you know,

the climbing is almost
an excuse, a purpose

to go to these incredible
corners of the Earth
where nobody goes there.

You know they're some
of the most spectacular
works of Mother Nature.

Watching the Northern Lights
from a cliff thousand meters
tall, it's been minus ten

for two weeks, and then the
weather breaks, and you see
an incredible luminescent sky

shining down on you, or there's
a cave halfway up this mountain
in-- in the Amazon jungle,

uh, tepui, a big table-top,

a big tower of rock that
sticks out of the jungle
for hundreds of meters.

There's a cave halfway up
that's called the Cueva del
Autana, the caves of Autana.

And it-- it's made
out of quartz.

It's a cathedral sized cavern
in a super remote place
that no one knows about,

let alone has been there.

We spent nearly a week
camping inside that thing,
and one day in that week,

we got the glorious sunrise,
where, you know, it's
just-- it's beyond words.

To see the light and the
timing, and-- and all those
things coming together.

It's not about adrenaline fixes.

It's not about
high-fives in rad places.

It's a very fundamental thing.
It--it's-- it's soul nurturing.

It's about inner peace.

It's about living your life
and sharing those moments.

Not missing out, making
yourself a better person.

It's a beautiful world.

♪♪♪

♪♪♪

[music ends]