Try to name one thing harder than Alex Honnold climbing El Capitan with no ropes.

Climbing Everest solo in winter without supplemental oxygen.

obvious answer wrote:

Climbing Everest solo in winter without supplemental oxygen.

Or climbing K2 in winter. It has never been done before by any team, with or without oxygen.

Taking off from a treadmill in a 747.

Reaching 2900 elo in chess is way harder.

Jean-Christophe Lafaille on his way down the Annapurna in 1992 with is broken arm.

You re welcome.

know brainer wrote:

Easy: Being able to watch the documentary online of Honnold climbing El Cap. There is plenty of hype about this right now, but they are refusing to capitalize on it. Brilliant.

This is the truth. Have been wanting to see this for months. How is an oscar nominated documentary that came out months ago simply not available for online viewing? Someone dropped / is dropping the ball on this in a major way.

But even having not yet seen this, I've seen the dawn wall and feel certain it's the better picture. Was the better feat, too so I guess it should be.

It's still available in theaters if you're in a big city. Nat Geo distributes the film. It will be available, I believe, on March 3 on the Nat Geo channel. Here's another link for folks. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/films/free-solo/

Jumping high enough to launch from Earth's surface and land, on your feet and with the classic ridiculous female gymnast's grin, on the surface of the Moon.

Ted st Martin hitting 5,221 free throws in a row is the most mind blowing record I’ve ever heard of. For me there’s nothing more outrageous that’s ever been accomplished on planet earth.

Alex Honnold's climb was absolutely mind blowing. But, the difficulty was not at all about the physical difficulty - although there was most definitely some, but about his ability to deal and turn off the incredibly high levels of mental pressure for four hours. A lot of people don't understand that most of the climb was not - for him - all that difficult, in fact there were really only a small handful of sections that really challenged him. I was impressed that in his first interview after the climb with National Geographic, he actually talked about how he was going to do a hang board exercise (finger strength training) that same afternoon - sort of like Galen Rupp doing his 5 x 1 mile workout after setting the 2-mile American record in 2014.

Many climbs have been done by Honnold that are physically harder and arguably harder overall. I think the hardest he has done is probably his solo climb of the Yosemite Triple, a route on El Cap and two other of Yosemite's biggest walls, back in 2012 that took him 19 hours. Although he had a rope he actually free soloed 95 percent of the three routes, so for likely over 12 hours of that time he was free soloing on hard, although not super challenging for him, walls without a rope.

Two of the climbs in the big mountains that stand out to me as far harder physically than Honnold's solo of El Cap are Ueli Steck's 2013 28-hour solo effort on Annapurna's South Face

http://www.alpinist.com/doc/web13f/newswire-ueli-steck-south-face-annapurna

and also a number of Colin Haley's efforts. Alex has climbed with Colin in the past, and Colin seems to be far better at the really hard suffering involved in long, big mountain efforts. Check out for example Colin Haley's insane 8-hour solo trip up Denali's fearsome Cassin Ridge.

https://rockandice.com/climbing-news/colin-haley-sets-new-speed-record-on-denalis-cassin-ridge/

As a slow hobby jogger (3 hour marathon) and a terrible climber (struggled to aid climb up the Nose), I still have trouble comprehending Alex's climb. It was not the hardest thing ever, or the most difficult thing ever, but it was most definitely among one of the most impressive and mind-blowing climbs ever.

A couple of the ingredients that make the climb noteworthy: super easy access and super popular - lots of people including myself have climbed El Cap; about the perfect marathon-length chunk of time (most people run a marathon in about the time it takes him to climb); incredible difficulty, but in only a couple chunks of length. Also, want to give a shout out to Dean Potter who actually free soloed a solid chunk of El Cap back in 2011.

https://www.outsideonline.com/1896946/first-almost-free-solo-el-cap

Also, as many of you probably know Ueli Steck and Dean Potter are both no longer with us. Ueli died climbing on Everest, while Dean died during a wing suit jump in Yosemite.

Is there a video? wrote:

John Utah wrote:

herding cats is probably harder

they tried to do it on myth busters and it's basically impossible

That would be interesting to see.

As requested..

There's clearly more dangerous things than that - playing Russian roulette, for example. Ultimately it comes down to a combination of the two, danger and skill, that make what Alex does so difficult, and there are very few things, especially within the realm of athletics, that demand such an expert skill-set and have so little margin for error with such tremendous risk.

macklin wrote:

know brainer wrote:

Easy: Being able to watch the documentary online of Honnold climbing El Cap. There is plenty of hype about this right now, but they are refusing to capitalize on it. Brilliant.

This is the truth. Have been wanting to see this for months. How is an oscar nominated documentary that came out months ago simply not available for online viewing? Someone dropped / is dropping the ball on this in a major way.

But even having not yet seen this, I've seen the dawn wall and feel certain it's the better picture. Was the better feat, too so I guess it should be.

I rarely see movies in-theater, but if you don't see this one in a proper theater, you are a fool.

I saw both on consecutive evenings and they are of equal quality.

Hitting a round ball with a round bat.

Me in a room with the Bowerman babes.

It is up there w/ the most dangerous things/sports, including extreme skiing and speed skiing and is an incredible feat.

Difficult to gauge how 'hard' it is due to climbing being more of a 'niche' sport

Would argue that making a pro sports league in the US (NFL, NBA, NHL) is probably harder because there is much more competition to get past to make it to the top. Am I saying one of these athletes could free climb El Capitan? No, but Honnold couldn't play pro sports either. Not trying to diminish the accomplishment, but just answer the original question.

Feel free to argue.

I once slept with my GF's sister in a drunken stooper. woke up with her passed out on the floor by her front door. I had to sneak out of a bedroom window. We were two stories up. I had to climb down a drain pipe.

Now, THAT was much harder (No pun)...But I did it! I got away with it.

Sitting next to jamin on a 12 hour flight

YMMV wrote:

hofst wrote:

Free climbing the Dawn Wall (with ropes).

That's been done by three people already. Pretty much zero risk of death.

So? The question was to name something harder, not more dangerous.

The Dawn Wall is a much, much, much harder climb.

Amazing feat, but climbing Everest with no ropes/oxygen is tougher. El Capitan is very difficult but you only have to battle the mountain. Climbing Everest you have to battle the mountain + the environment.