This Fall’s Scariest Movie Has Nothing To Do With Halloween
This time of year, Hollywood churns out a handful of fright flicks to coincide with Halloween. However, the scariest movie coming to theaters this fall has nothing to do with…
Joe Scarnici/Getty Images for National Geographic
This time of year, Hollywood churns out a handful of fright flicks to coincide with Halloween. However, the scariest movie coming to theaters this fall has nothing to do with horrific monsters, blood-thirsty killers, or psychotic clowns. It's about rock climbing.
If you've ever hiked at nearby Crowders Mountain State Park or up in the Blue Ridge, you may have seen climbers with helmets, ropes, harnesses, and other specialized gear. It's unlikely that you've seen anyone do a free-solo climb. That's when someone climbs alone without using any safety equipment. None. It's just him or her and the mountain. That's the subject of National Geographic's new documentary, Free Solo.
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Alex Honnold was an engineering student at UC-Berkley when, at 19, he dropped out to make a career out of climbing. The now 33-year-old is particularly fond of Yosemite National Park and holds the record for the fastest ascent of the Yosemite triple crown, which includes Mount Watkins, The Nose, and the Regular Northwest Face of Half Dome. He did it in 18 hours, 50 minutes. But Honnold's dream was to free-solo Yosemite's iconic and forbidding El Capitan.
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At 3,200 feet from base to summit, El Capitan is hardly the tallest of peaks, but it couldn't get much steeper. It's essentially a vertical wall. That's what makes Free Solo such a remarkable film. Not only did Alex Hannold attempt to scale the sheer face of El Capitan without a rope; cinematographer Jimmy Chin had to follow him.
Free Solo opens in theaters on Friday, September 28th. Here's a hair-raising preview:
