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Living on the Edge. Literally.

 Most of us can think back to a memorable date in our past. Maybe this specific date is your anniversary with a loved one, a birthday, or possibly even the date you bought your first home. For Alex Honnold, a professional rock climber, that memorable date is June 3, 2017. On this day, Alex climbed El Capitan, a 3,000 foot vertical rock in Yosemite National Park. This wasn't your regular rock climb. Alex free soloed this mountain, meaning he did not use any ropes, or other safety precautions. Yes, you heard that right.

 Alex Honnold came up with this crazy, yet doable idea in his mind. He wanted to be the first person to free solo El Capitan. Going into this, many people have tried to do this exact climb, and Alex knew that. 25 people have fallen to their death in an attemt to climb El Capitan. 

In 2015 Alex and his film crew started documenting this process of working himself up to a free solo climb. His film crew consisted of some of his very close friends in which he had met through rock climbing. Alex hints that having his friends by his side and not some random film crew really helped him succeed. The film crew never pressured him into climbing this mountain without ropes or other safety precautions; they went on his time. It was getting towards the middle of 2017, early June to be exact when they could see him start to peak in his 2 year training process. Alex seemed more eager than usual, and the his close friends could tell that the free solo was going to happen any day now.

On June 3, 2017, Alex attemted to climb El Capitan, something no one has ever succeeded at. This statistic did not put fear in his mind, but motivation to complete this climb for those who couldn't. After a stressful, gut wrenching 3 hours and 56 minutes, Alex Honnold became the first person to free solo El Capitan. You could sense the relief in everyone once Alex reached the summit. An enourmous amount of weight had been lifted off of everyone shoulders.

Many people considered this "the impossible climb." Alex Honnold proved them wrong, as he does time after time. Most people would take a break after completeing something like this but,
for Alex, his words were, "I wonder what's next!" 


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