Alex Honnold’s latest climbing project has taken him back to Yosemite National Park.

Honnold, star of the Oscar-winning 2018 climbing film Free Solo has spent the last few weeks attempting to free climb El Capitan’s famed route The Nose, the 2,900-foot vertical climb that is among the most famous routes in American rockĢżclimbing.

You might be wondering:ĢżHasn’t Alex Honnold already climbed The Nose? He has, maybe 50 times by his estimation. Honnold actually set the speed record on the route with Tommy Caldwell (1 hour, 58 minutes, 7 seconds) in 2018. But Honnold has never free climbed the routeā€”a style that allows climbers to use ropes and climbing gear for protection but not to aid the ascent.

Since Lynn Hill first freed the Nose in 1993, about 15 other climbers have ascended it in this style, including Caldwell. Honnold has been working on the endeavor for one month now, climbing with a variety of different partners. He caused a big reaction on Instagram on November 29 when he posted photos of his attempt to free climb the Nose with the actor Jared Leto.

ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų caught up with Honnold in Yosemite while he was hunkered down in his van with his family, waiting out a storm. He opened up about his latest project, why he roped up with a Hollywood heartthrob, and why the Nose remains the greatest big-wall climb in the world.

OUTSIDE: What was the catalyst for you to attempt to free the Nose? Itā€™s been done more than a dozen times before so itā€™s obviously not a world first. Is this personal?
Honnold: It gets done and it’s certainly doable, but it’s still a very significant thing in climbing. The Nose means a lot to me personally. Itā€™s been there throughout my entire climbing life. It was my first El Cap route; I aid climbed it in 2005 or 2006. I started working on the speed record with Hans Florine in 2012, and then working on the speed record again with Tommy Ģżyears later. The Nose is part of big linkups Iā€™ve done like the Triple Crown.

Itā€™s been this yardstick against which I can measure my own progress as a climber, starting from just the aspiration of climbing the Nose, and then trying to climb it faster, and then trying to climb it free. Thereā€™s always something hard you can do on the Nose.

 

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It’s also sort of unfinished business. I made some preliminary attempts to free it the same season that Tommy and I were working on the speed record. I thought it would make sense to try to work on a free climb at the same time. But it turns out they’re mutually exclusive goals because the style of climbing is so different [speed climbing the Nose involves aid climbing, among other tactics]. It’s too hard to train for both at the same time. So I focused on the speed record. This season, Iā€™m re-focusing on free climbing it.

Youā€™ve been posting photos to Instagram of some of the people youā€™ve crossed paths with on the Nose while attempting to free climb it. Thereā€™s a lot of them. How do you manage that?
It was particularly crowded this fall season. I think there are more climbers now and the level of climbers is rising over time. People are just more able to do things like that. Which I think is great.

Thereā€™s definitely been some complaining about overcrowding on walls in Yosemite. It’s hard for me to say because I always have positive interactions with everybody on the wall. Climbers I encounter say, ā€˜Oh my God, can I take a selfie?ā€™ And they’re all really nice. It’s allĢżreally chill and fun. But I don’t know if that’s the experience that everybody has.

I think the key is clear communication, for passing parties, rappelling through parties, whatever. Just being like, ā€˜Hey, how are you guys doing? What are you planning to do? Hereā€™s what weā€™re doing. How is that going to impact you? How can we work together to make sure that nobody is held up by the things that we’re each trying to do?ā€™

In my experience on the Nose, everybody is up there having the big adventure of their life. And generally everybody wants to have a good time up there.

How do you prepare to free climb the Nose?
The main way Iā€™ve been practicing is by rappelling it, and I did that mostly with Brette Harrington. She was also working on free climbing the Nose. Brette and I rappelled it together maybe like a half-dozen times. You rappel the whole wall, stopping to work on the key pitches as you go down.

There are two hard pitches: Changing Corners and the Great Roof. I mean, there are a lot of other pitches that are challenging in their own ways, but those two pitches are so much harder than the rest that they’re kind of the only two that matter.

Iā€™m doing a variation on the Changing Corners which has never actually been done, which has a long and storied history of various people checking it out, but never quite committing to it. I did it on top rope years ago, so I know that it goes, but nobody’s quite done it that way yet.

Tommy gave me a lot of grief for it. Changing Corners is super historic, because that’s the way Lynn Hill did it. And there are iconic photos of her on it. There are iconic photos of Tommy Caldwell and Beth Rodden, when they did the second and third ascents. Everyone’s grown up seeing these cool images of the Changing Corners. So Tommy was like, What are you doing going around it? You’re ruining a classic! Youā€™re destroying the Nose!

But then he belayed me on it [last week], and after watching me on it, he was like, Okay, you’re not destroying a classic. Because basically [the variation] is still very high quality, it’s still quite hard, and it looks pretty. Itā€™s also really sharp granite thatā€™s so far split open every one of my fingertips.

Has your perspective on the Nose changed at all since youā€™ve started trying to free climb it? Has it taught you anything new in these past four weeks?
Itā€™s more that my perspective on it hasn’t changed, and that it hasnā€™t changed all that much in the not quite 20 years since I first climbed it. The thing with El Cap is that despite all the things that I’ve done on it over the years, you still look at the wall and you still think, Man, that is impossibly big and looks so hard. Itā€™s just still so inspiring.

El Cap is still the most magnificent wall on Earth , and the Nose is still the most striking line up it, and when it really comes down to it, is still quite hard to climb. It always commands respect.

Okay so then how does Jared Leto fit into all this?
Heā€™s always wanted to climb El Cap, and we were both in the Valley and it just kind of worked out. Heā€™s been wanting to climb it in a day, but hasnā€™t had the time to get that kind of fitness. I was planning on going up wall-style [spending multiple days and nights camping on the wall] to try to free the Nose. I texted him, half-joking, Why don’t you join us? We can camp together. He texted back, ā€˜Wait, like actually, can I come?ā€™

 

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We’ve been climbing together for almost ten years, just very sporadically. It started when he first got into rock climbing, which I think was 2015, and decided to make a little film project about it. He hired Renan Ozturk to film him going rock climbing around the West. One day Renanā€”heā€™s a friendā€”texted me, ā€˜Hey, would you go solo Matthes Crest with Jared?ā€™ I was in Yosemite climbing anyway and was like, ā€˜Cool, an active rest day.ā€™

At the time, Jared was training to be the Joker in a movie and was super fit for it. He was really muscular. And he had green hair. We had a great day climbing. Since then, we’ve climbed in the same places a few times. I took him up one of the Flatirons in Boulder once, because he was in Denver for a concert, things like that.

He was great on the Nose. It was awesome. He top-roped like ten of the 31 pitches and jugged the rest. It was pretty impressive. Nick Ehman, who was the third person climbing with us, commented, ā€˜Jared doesn’t get scared.ā€™ Thereā€™s all these weird things on the Nose, like lower outs and swings, and one part where he was basically dangling on a rope in mid-air at the very top of El Cap. It just does not bother him at all.

Want more ofĢż°æ³Ü³Ł²õ¾±»å±šā€™sĢżnews stories?Ģż

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If, like most people, you live your life outside the small community of elite ski mountaineers, you may have never heard the name Greg Hill. Born far from big mountains in Quebec, Canada, Hill moved west to Revelstoke, British Columbia, with dreams of becoming a heli-skiing guide. After years of watching the Selkirk Mountains change with a warming climate, he gave up mechanized travel in the mountains seeking a greener approach.

In 2010, when Hill was 35, he climbed and skied more than two million vertical feet. His 2019 film, ElectricGreg, documented his quest to climb and ski 100 peaks without burning any fossil fuels. Hillā€™s most recent achievements, like setting the FKT of the Rogers Pass to Bugaboos Ski Traverse, are near his Revelstoke home.

In October, Hill published a memoir, titled I Could Die At Any Moment. The book, written with Hillā€™s rare blend of humility and audacity, was ten years in the making. It explores his compulsive drive to reach maximum potential, even in the face of life-threateningĢżrisk.

ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų caught up with Hill to discuss risk, reward, and an unexpected insight that came from writing his story.

OUTSIDE: The bookā€™s title is pretty dark, but then the cover shows you and a climbing partner looking overjoyed atop a mountain. Is this contrast intentional?

Absolutely. Itā€™s a juxtaposition. The photo is me and my buddy Chris Rubens on top of Bugaboo Spire in British Columbia. The Bugaboos are like the Patagonia of Canadaā€”these incredible granite spires. It was a dream of mine to climb that peak. It was just a moment of pure exhilaration at having finally accomplished that climb. The idea with the cover is that, yes, we all know we can die, so let’s live this life to the fullest.

Thereā€™s inherent risk anytime you enter the alpine. I donā€™t let myself get weighed down by the darkness, but at the same time itā€™s important not to forget that youā€™re going to dieā€”that weā€™re all going to die. There’s this cheesy saying that every day is a gift, that itā€™s a present. By really embracing the fact that we die, it allows us to fully embrace the fact that we’re alive and to go for it.

You’ve led a life full of accomplishments in the mountains. Why did you decide to record it in a memoir?

Iā€™ve always wanted to write a book. I have journal entries about it from the time I was 18. Iā€™m 48 now and I guess I finally felt like I had enough maturityā€”it takes a certain maturity to be ready to speak about things that are hard to speak aboutā€”and I wanted the book to be as open and vulnerable as possible.

After the kids were born, I started leaving a letter on my computer desktop for Tracey [my wife] to find if I were to die in the mountains, because if you’re a risk taker there’s consequences if things mess up, and I’ve always understood that. I wanted my kids to have something to help them understand why I would risk it all, even though I knew the consequences. And the same goes for my wife and my friends.

Thankfully, I’ve lasted this long. My kids are now 17 and 19, and they know me really well, which is awesome. The book was basically an extension of the idea to leave something behind that tried to explain what I do and why. There are lots of people that lose friends and family to adventure. I feel like if thereā€™s a way to somehow explain why we do it, then I should try.

How does the mental load of writing a book compare to that of pushing your limits in ski mountaineering?Ģż

Anytime youā€™re doing something that has value and is challenging to you, there’s going to be doubts, there’s going to be fears. Overcoming them and moving forward is kind of the biggest challenge. For months, I was so scared that I’d finally written this thing, that I was putting it out there. And now itā€™s like, okay I did it, here we go! Having big goals and dreamsā€”be it a physical or mental challengeā€”and finally accomplishing them is so rewarding.

Could you tell us a little about the added features loaded in the ebook that hardcover readers will miss?

I have all this footage of me doing all these different things in the mountains. I felt like if I could use it properly, it would add another dimension to reading by creating this emotional layer that brings you deeper into the story. Iā€™ve embedded more than a dozen videos into the ebook. They are raw, unedited moments that bring you straight into my mountain experience.

Like after the avalanche in Pakistan when I broke my leg, you can see me talking into the camera about my thoughts on risk and reward and whether it’s worth it. It’s almost like breaking down the fourth wall and really getting to know the protagonist by seeing me sitting there crying and dealing with the consequences of risk.

What accomplishments are you most proud of, and is there anything in your career that you regret?

Iā€™m most proud of my kids. I mean, I love all these things Iā€™ve accomplished, the personal challenges and stuff, but it became very clear that they are the most important things that I’ve created in this life.

I’m realizing more and more my biggest goal is to impact others and ideally empower them to live their dreams. Looking back on chapters of your life, there’s these things that made so much sense and were so important, but then as you grow and change, theyā€™re not anymore.

There’s lots of unfinished things out there in the mountains for me, and I think I have to accept that and move onto what has more value now and is more important now. My latest goal is inspiring others to live life to the fullest.

As for insights, I talk about my weed addiction a little bit in the book. I feel like I want to be more available, to be a better person, especially for my wife. I havenā€™t smoked in three months, and I won’t until my 50th birthday, which is a year and a bit from now, just to really try to be as emotionally available as possible.

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You may have heard about the diabolical running format called , in which competitors must for days on end. One by one, runners drop out until only one remains, and he or she is crowned champion. On October 19, the world’s best backyard ultrarunnersĢżmet in Bell Buckle, Tennessee for the annual Big Dog’s Backyard Ultra, which this year hosted the team world championships for the format (on even years the race serves as the individual world championships).

Scott Snell recorded the top distance this year, completing 366 miles in 88 hours. But the star of the event was Megan Eckert, who finished in second place. Her distanceā€”362 miles during 87 hoursā€”broke the previous women’s record by a whopping 51 miles (and 13 hours).

Eckert, 38, is one of the world’s top ultrarunners. She also teaches special education and coaches high school cross-country in Santa Fe, New Mexico. ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų caught up with Eckert to learn what it’s like to run for nearly four days without stopping for more than a few minutes between laps.

OUTSIDE: What attracted you to the backyard ultra format?
My first backyard ultra was actually in January, 2024, at the Saguaro Showdown in Mesa, Arizona. I had just completed a race in Houston where I ran 218 miles, and a friend suggested I try the Backyard Ultra format. I loved the open-ended nature of the event. You line up in the starting corral once every hour and go out and run this 4.167-mile loop, but how many times you’re doing to do that loop, nobody knows.

I love having a chance to see how far my body can go. I know that I’m going to face challenges out there. I know I’ll maybe get 5 minutes of rest every hour, if I’m lucky. I know I’m going to have to troubleshoot so many things during the raceā€”how much to eat, and drink, and rest. But otherwise everything else is unknown. I love the appeal of a race in which you have no idea when it’s going to end.

How do you keep your mind engaged while running for nearly four days?
I try to focus on the lap I’m in and not the ones that are coming up. During the night at Big’s I’d listen to music, and during the daytime I’d try and chat with other runners. I love to talk to people out there. In fact, at one point a few other runners told me that they wanted to run in silence. I was like “Oh, OK, sorry.” I find conversations with other runners to be really helpful to staying engaged.

Another thing I’d do out thereā€”I’d sing a song while I was running. But I’d often just sing every other word. I kept passing one guy when I was singing.ĢżI was like “Oh, I’m so sorry! I have such a terrible singing voice and you’re just hearing every other word.” He was amused. But sometimes it gets really quiet out there and it helps to talk or sing to yourself. Another thing I did was dance when I hit the road sections. Dancing helped keep me awake.

Do you think backyard ultra races have the potential to attract casual competitive runners?
Absolutely, because you can pick your distance you’re aiming for before going in. Maybe you want to do your first 100-mile run and finish in under 24 hours. Maybe you just want to see if you can run through the night. Maybe your goal is 50 miles. You can map that out really easily at a Backyard Ultra because of the 4.167-mile lap distance.

A Backyard Ultra teaches you good pacing, because you don’t need to run as fast as you can. If you finish the lap in 40 minutes or 55 minutes, you still head back out after an hour. Also, you always come back to the same place after each lap, so you can fuel and hydrate properly . I see it as a welcoming format for a large swath of runners who are looking to push themselves to that ultramarathon distance.

I’m curious if the backyard ultra format has taught you lessons that you can apply to your everyday life?
I’ve noticed that when I come off of one I seem to have a lot more patience for things in my life. This lasts for weeks afterward. You realize you don’t have to always move so quickly during one of these races. After all, you’re just doing one thing, and you’re doing it for a long time. So yes, it teaches you about perseverance and patience. You become more kind. You become a better listener. Life slows down after one of these races, and you often feel like you’re living in a slow-motion situation.

What wisdom from your life as a professional runner do you try and pass on to the high school runners you coach?
I want the athletes to have fun and I want running to become a passion for them. Results are fine, of course, but you need to enjoy what you’re doing first. Yes, I teach them that they will sometimes have to push through pain, but I want them to enjoy the process of training, preparation for a race, and the lifestyle. And the other big thing is teaching them confidence. I ask my athletes to set goals before meets, and to talk about them with me. We create a plan for them to reach those goals by breaking things into smaller steps. Confidence can come from goal setting.

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Ben Rodden is one of climbing’s most influential athletes. In the nineties she gained attention for her junior national titles and impressive ascents of big walls in Yosemite. Then, in 2000, Rodden was thrust into the mainstream when she and her partner Tommy Caldwell executed a harrowing escape from kidnappers in Kyrgyzstan. In the mid-aughts, she and Caldwell became two of the most visible climbers on the planet.

In 2014, after becoming a mother, Rodden began speaking and writing about her internal struggles during this period, shattering the illusion that she’d enjoyed the perfect career and life. She wrote candidly about her 2009 divorce from Caldwell, whoā€™d been her climbing partner on many of her groundbreaking ascents, yet wasnā€™t the love of her life.

I found Rodden’s openness to be extremely relatable, and at the time I was dealing with a resurgence of clinical anxiety that I thought I’d beaten. In her essays, Rodden revealed that she, too, struggled with anxiety, shame, and a host of other mental health hurdles including PTSD and disordered eating.

Earlier this year, Rodden, now 44, published a memoir, titled . The book is a compilation of everything sheā€™s learned in the decade since she began opening up about her inner landscape. I recently caught up with Rodden to talk about the book and her experiences in climbing.

OUTSIDE: What motivated you to writeĢżA Light Through the Cracks?
Rodden: I grew up climbing in the nineties and early aughts. Back then, vulnerability was seen as a weakness, talking about fear was seen as a weakness, eating issues were prevalent but never talked about. Attempts to talk about mental health were shut down.

As I got older, I saw how much of a disservice those kinds of attitudes did me. I thought that if I had heard people talking about any of that stuff, being vulnerable, showing anything except the highlight reels of their sends and how they conquered the mountain through suffering and all the chest thumping that was happening, it would have really helped me.

I first started talking about some of these things, and writing about them on social media and for ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų because I felt like it was a huge void in our community that needed to be filled. With the book, I hoped to be able to shed a broader light by using a longer medium. Donā€™t get me wrong, I love a good entertaining, reaching-the-summit story, but thereā€™s more to people than just that. And the fact that we’re not sharing that is, I think, a real missed opportunity.Ģż

Climbing has struggled with sexism. Where has the sport made progress since the nineties, and where do you see room for more work to be done?
When I started climbing there were just so few women and girls in the sport because climbing’s culture was so male-dominated. When I became a professional, there were just one or two women on a companyā€™s team of sponsored climbers. And they were token women, so that the brand could check the diversity box. Like, ‘oh yeah weā€™ve got women!’ Now, you look at the teams and itā€™s way more equal, sometimes even skewed toward having more women on the team. Thatā€™s been a huge transformation and an ongoing progress.

But I don’t feel like the outdoor or climbing communities have crossed the finish line. If you look at feature films or a lot of books out there, or you look at the media, it’s still pretty male-dominated.

For mental health issues and body shaming and disordered eating and those types of things, we’re shedding light on them, but I don’t feel like we have reached a point where theyā€™re no longer prevalent issues in our sport. If you look through a typical climber’s social media feed, I bet 90-percent of the images are of really fit people. Go into any climbing gym and thatā€™s not an accurate representation of who’s climbing. I feel like there’s this image, or this myth, out there that you have to look a certain way to be strong, but in real life strength comes in so many different shapes and sizes. Marketing could better reflect our whole community instead of just the top one-percent.

Two years ago you launched the short film This is Beth, in which you confront some of your struggles with body image, including your self-described ā€œsoftā€ abdominal region. What did you take away from that project?
That was the first time I’d worked on a media project that was fully women led and run. It was a joy to work with them. Nothing against the male producers that I’d worked withā€”they’re some of my best friendsā€”but it spoke to the change that’s happening in the industry that there could be an all-women production team.

Itā€™s so great that the film was able to have so much traction. It talked about something that would neverā€”at least not when I was growing up in climbingā€”have had the opportunity to be shown. And the more people can talk about these so-called shameful topics, the less power theyā€™ll have over us.

What are your go-to practices for keeping perfectionism, negative self-talk, and other damaging elements of the psyche in check?
None of those things are like a box that you can just check and be done. For me a lot of times, if I feel myself kind of slipping down that slope, I stop and ask myself, Why am I feeling that way? Who or what made me think that way? And that’s always such a big eye opener. Iā€™ll realize something like, ‘Oh, it’s because of that magazine shoot in the late nineties when the photo editor asked me to suck in my stomach.’ And then I’m like, ‘Oh, well, that’s silly. Clearly, I don’t need to try and impress, or listen to, that guy.’

I usually find that the reason Iā€™m feeling that way is because of some sort of external dialogue that I subscribed to that doesnā€™t deserve that power over my body anymore.

What’s your next project?
Iā€™m getting ready to head to Banff for the Festival. Iā€™ll be there talking about the book. I first went to the festival like ten years ago and was really blown away. All the films that I saw and the topics I went to were just so engaging and inspiring.

It was really busy this spring and summer with book promotion. Now, I have some stuff for fall, but it’s one of the first times in my adult life where Iā€™ve purposely not tried to fill the void with some big thing, whether it was a climb or a creative project, because the quiet times are when the creative things happen. It’s easy for me to just stay really busy, and I’m purposely trying not to do that, to just give myself a little bit of time and space.

This interview was edited for space and clarity.Ģż

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Rock fans of a certain age likely remember the gritty nineties punk band , rose to fame amid the mainstream success of Green Day, Blink 182, Rancid, and other groups of that era. If you attended the Van’s Warped Tour (which I did, multiple times), you probably saw them live.

Hot Water Music was co-founded by guitarist and singer, Chuck Ragan, who is also a passionate fly fisherman. These days Ragan, 50, operates his own river guiding business at his home near Grass Valley, California, and he continues to , as well as with Hot Water Music. We caught up with Ragan to learn about .

OUTSIDE: How do you make time for fly-fishing when you’re on tour?
These days I tour with two entities: Hot Water Music and my own solo stuff. Touring with Hot Water Music makes it tougher to fish, because I have less control over the agenda, so I just try to get out whenever I can. It’s rare, and it takes a lot of effort. Recently we were playing a show in Denver, had a night off, and then had another show in Phoenix. I was able to get out with my buddy Jim to a lake outside of Denver the night after the show while the rest of the band traveled to Phoenix. We fished for white bass. Then I had to jump on a flight that night.

When I’m touring on my own, I sometimes set up my traveled based around fishingā€”the time of year, the species that’s running, stuff like that. My agent may suggest I play in Detroit in January. Well, I love to fish there in March, so that’s when I’ll go.

Ragan: Did you fish much when you were on tour 25 years ago?
I remember it took me years to realize the fishing opportunities I was missing when we were on tour. Now, I look back and think that I was just blowing it. We were going to these amazing places, but we’d be staying up late, ripping it too hard, and then the next day just wake up feeling worthless. You walk outside the hotel room and here we are on the Blackfoot River or some other gorgeous place. I’d love to hit rewind and do that over. I remember on one tour thinking ‘Man, one of these days I’m going to visit these places again and really get out and explore.’

What advice do you have for people who travel frequently but also want to fish?
You really have to plan ahead. These days I find that pretty much everything I doā€”other than little opportunities that pop upā€”was planned out a year in advance. I sit down at the beginning of the year and black out the obligations for family, then guiding, then the tours. And I look at the days of the tour and just see where the opportunities lie. For my fishing, sometimes it’s based around moon phases, or when different species are good to chase.

When I do fish on tour, I’m all for supporting local guides, so I’ll usually hire one and use their gear. My advice: if you’re following a guide on social media and you admire then, and they’re chasing a species you like, reach out to them and drop them a note. Find a good time of the year when you may have a trip there, and hire them. For me, fishing on tour is more about the experience of being on the water and connecting with people and learning new methods than actually carrying fish. If we catch a fish, that’s great. But I’ve already caught plenty of fish in my life and I don’t need to chase any records while I’m out there.

How does fly-fishing inform your music?
I’m always working on melodies and phrases and recording them to my phone when I’m on river trips. In the old days I’d walk around with a cassette recorder and more or less do the same thing. When I’m guiding there’s a lot of down timeā€”commuting, standing in the waterā€”and this is when my brain starts working on my music. A lot of times I end up singing into my phone, or reciting some phrase that comes to mind. Then I go back and sift through the stuff, and every once and a while something good comes out of it. I’ll listen back to my voice memos and I can hear me howling lyrics while the river is raging behind me, and I remember that at that moment something came into my mind that made the hair stand up on my neck. I knew at that moment it was important and I that I should document it. It’s been this way for a while. A lot of those classic Hot Water Music songs were either started or finished out in the woods or at the lake. A lot of my songs have been written this way.

Are there any similarities between professional river guiding and playing music?
There are a lot of parallels between being an independent musician and a guide. I’m out there to have a good time and to share something I believe in with people. If my clients or fans can leave their troubles at the door and enjoy themselves for a minute, then that’s all the better. Playing music is just like going on those fly-fishing tripsā€”I’m not there just to catch fish. If I do catch one it’s a bonus. If someone leaves my show and enjoys the music and gets something out of it, then that’s a big bonus too.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.Ģż

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In 2005, Hawaii’s John John Florence became the youngest surfer ever to enter the Vans Triple Crown of Surfing at age 13, which established him as the sport’s wunderkind. Florence is 31 nowā€”older than many of his competitors on the World Surf Leagueā€™s pro circuit. Heā€™s also a new dad: Florence and his wife Lauryn CribbĢżwelcomed their first child, Darwin, in May. And Florence is also a veteran of the painful injuries that surfing dishes out. Heā€™s broken his back, torn the ACL in both of his knees, cracked bones in his wrist, leg, and arm, and suffered too many sprains and strains to count.

But Florence is still one of the best wave riders on the planet, and earlier this year he won his third world championship. The accomplishment, when added to his hefty trophy case, makes him one of the most decorated competitive surfers ever.

We caught up with Florence to discuss the demanding regimen that keeps him atop a field of athletes that gets younger every year.

OUTSIDE: It’s been seven years since your last world championship win. What did it take for you to achieve that this year?
Florence: It was the best journey that I could have ever imagined. There were a lot of years where it seemed like I was on my best roll, and I was like, ā€˜this is my year to win another one,ā€™ and then thereā€™d be injury after injury. But I think that’s what made this one feel so special,Ģżall that work and sacrifice and everything that went into it.

Meditation was a really big part of my whole program this year. The first thing I do when I wake up each morning is a 20-minute meditation, and then usually later in the day, I do another meditation, more of a visualization of the lead-up to a competition heat. Visualizing what it looks like an hour before a heat, and then 30 minutes before a heat, and then five minutesā€”down to the moment it starts. For me, I don’t necessarily love visualizing specifics in my surfing, but more the way I feel.

I visualize how I feel when I surf my best, and how it feels when I’m really enjoying myself. It’s like this kind of relaxed confidence, and I put myself there over and over and over again, seeing everything from the water to the sun to putting my jersey on to the feeling of the sand. Thinking about all that and trying to build the most real picture you can. It’s crazy how well it works.

I definitely showed up to the world championships with more intention in what I was doing. I put a lot more preparation and energy into it, and then was able to really let go and feel good. That happens a lot during the year in certain heats or events, but it doesn’t happen in every heat.

That’s what I was worried about, was showing up that day, not being in the right headspace and really nervous or anxious and that’s when I don’t surf my best or perform my best. To have gotten myself to get there for that specific heat was special.

How does your training and injury prevention differ now fromĢżwhen you first started?
When I first started, I didn’t do any. Now I spend a lot more time on recovery and making sure my body and my mind in the right place. I learned a lot about how much my mind has an effect on my physicality. The times I’ve been injured have been when I’ve been anxious or not wanting to be there. So now I do a lot of work behind the scenes. Almost nonstop, actually.

I do a lot of meditation and mental stuff. And then on the physical side, I like to make my training fun. I do a lot of cardio and leg work, whether it’s cycling or riding a foil board, or just things that I like to do, like hiking in the mountains. And then I do a lot of this newer stuff called Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization. Itā€™s smaller movement, more functional muscle activation.

That has made me feel pretty solid in my knees and my old injuries. I’ve gotten to work with a few people over the years: Chris Prosser, Tim Brown, and Drew Morcos at MOTUS Physical Therapy here in California. Learning from them and trying to create a program for myself that makes sense. These workouts impact everything in surfing, from quicker recoveries to less soreness. I’ve had two ACL surgeries back to back. Both knees, if you don’t do anything for them, can get stiff and sore. Now I don’t even think about it. I forget that they happened. I attribute that to a lot of the work I did behind the scenes.

For recovery, I do a lot of sauna and ice. At my house I have a little recovery center. I have a float tank too, which is cool for mental training. You can fill it with Epsom salt. I also have a hyperbaric chamber. I kind of go in and out of using them based on what I’m feeling like I need. So I have a lot of little knickknacks and things

This summer you again competed in the Olympics. How was the experience different from Tokyo?
It’s funny because the first year I went to Tokyo, I came to the realization that it feels like any other event. When you’re in the water and you’re surfing and you’re competing, it feels the same, almost.

But then, when I went to Tahiti, I underestimated everything that was around the event, and I guess I didn’t really prepare myself in the best way for that. On the tour, I have my team that I travel with, and I have a lot of control over how I set up my program in and around the event. Going into the Olympics, you’re going with Team USA, and they’re setting up everything, and there’s a whole new set of people that are there helping. It’s incredible support that they gave to us down there, but it’s just different. And the Olympics ā€“ the structure around the event ā€“ is also very different; it’s much, much more structured than we’re normally used to.

Those things that were around the event made me nervous once I was there for a week. I got a little anxious about it. As a whole for surfing, it was amazing to have the waves that they got, though ā€“ other than my result, personally, I was kind of bummed.

How has being a dad changed the way you surf for fun?
My normal surfing hasn’t changed that very much. But my feeling around competing has really changed. My wife and my son were down at the finals at Trestles [in Southern California]. It was such a tense environment down there. But when I would look at my sonā€”he’s four months old, so he’s tinyā€”he’d smile. For me that changed it from life or death in the finals to ā€˜Okay, that’s a game. This is my life. He’s my life.ā€™ It took the pressure off in a way and made it a little more clear for me to be able to take a step back. ā€˜Okay, I just got to go there and surf. I know how to surf, right?ā€™ Rather than being a little bit lost and like, ā€˜Oh shit. This is intense.ā€™

What advantage do younger surfers have on the old guard in competition, in the U.S. and overseas?
Everyone just gets better and better at surfing. There’s that. And then, I think the guys are starting to take it more seriously earlier on. So these guys are coming on to the tour and learning at such a quick pace how to compete and how to wrap their mind around the events, and whether they’re meditating or training or nutrition or whatever it is, everyone’s going like, 100 percent into it. When I first got on tour, there were probably a handful of people taking it super seriously, and now it almost seems like it’s everyone. It pushes me. It pushes the sport.

This year I went all-in with nutrition and chefs and bodywork. I told myself, ā€˜I’m going to do everything I can.ā€™ And you have to now, because a lot of guys are doing that. Maybe itā€™s the pure drive of wanting to win. Everyone wants to win so badly now.

This interview was edited for space and clarity.Ģż

The post Pro Surfer John John Florence Makes Winning Look Easy. Itā€™s Not. appeared first on ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Online.

American ultrarunner Ģżis still recovering from her eye-popping effortĢżlast weekend at France’s Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc. Schide, 32, in 22 hours, 9 minutes, and 31 seconds, slashingĢżnearly 21 minutes off of the course record, set in 2021 by Courtney Dauwalter.

When I read about the accolade, I immediately thought of Dauwaulter’s aura in women’s ultrarunning. In recent years she’s been Ģżuntouchable at the biggest events: Western States Endurance Run, Hardrock 100, and UTMB. In 2023 ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų contributor Meaghen Brown called Dauwalter a “once-in-a-generation athlete” and “the best female trail runner ever to live.”

Well, Katie Schideā€™s UTMB record is a sign that she’s approaching Dauwalter’s level. I recently spoke to her about chasing after ultrarunning’s GOAT.

OUTSIDE: You won the Western States 100 in late June and then turned around and won UTMB on September 1. What did your recovery and training look like between the two events?
Schide: First, I do not think running these two races in the same season should be considered normal. I never thought I’d race them in the same year, and I don’t think it sets a great example to do two big races so close together. That said, I do think the sport has evolved quite a bit in recent years and the way in which we train before and fuel ourselves during races have allowed people to recover faster. My first UTMB was in 2019, and now, five years later, I have a much better sense of how my body reacts. So, I took an entire week off after Western States. I traveled back to Europe, and adjusting to the time change alone took a week. Then I had another week with easy jogs, maybe 30 to 40 minutes. Then I started to get back to my normal training. I traveled to Chamonix six weeks before UTMB and I was back to my normal training for three weeks and then it was time to taper again.

A lot of American ultrarunners live in the Rockies, or in communities with other runners, coaches, and training groups. You live in Saint-Dalmas-le-Selvage, a tiny village of 60 inhabitants in the Alps. What advantages and disadvantages does your location have?
The biggest advantage is there is really nothing else around here so there’s nothing to do other than train and rest. Living here truly allows you to rest. On a rest day you can’t also go get coffee with a friend, and then go to the bookstore and the grocery store. If I have a rest day, there’s really nothing I can do except sit on my couch and maybe go for a little walk around the village. I love going out for fancy coffee when I’m in a city, but it’s not the lifestyle I need every day. Living here gives us (she lives with her partner, professional ultrarunner Germain Grangier) quiet and allows us to disconnect.

And the disadvantagesā€”we don’t have many healthcare resources here, so if I want to see a physio or get a massage, it’s an hour and a half drive. Our grocery store is also an hour and a half away. That makes us really have to plan ahead. When I was training in Flagstaff, Arizona before Western States, it was so easy to go see a masseuse when I needed one. But these disadvantages go hand-in-hand with the advantages,Ģżso it’s a trade-off you have to choose.

Courtney Dauwalter has received a glut of mainstream media attention over the past few seasons. Has your view of Dauwalter changed as you’ve progressed in the sport?
Courtney’s been there since the beginning of my ultrarunning career, always raising the bar higher than any of us were ready to go at any given time. I first raced against her in 2019 at UTMB when she reset the standard of women’s racing. I remember sharing a few footsteps with her at that race, and her telling me that I would love my first 100-miler, and I was absolutely hating it. She also been a great ambassador for the sport and has brought a lot of non-endemic eyeballs to ultrarunning, which we can thank her for. What she’s done benefits everyone. She redefined what I thought was possible in these races, and because she was so far ahead of the other women, I think we all recognized the gap between us that needed to be closed.

Did it seem possible to narrow Dauwalterā€™s margin?
I never thought of my end point as getting within reach of her. But when you saw the margin between her and the other women, there was definitely space. I was like there shouldn’t be this much space between us, so in a way she inspired me to try and close the gap. But back then I never thought I would be able to get this close to her. I think she’s glad that we’re starting to close the gap.

How do your strengths and weaknesses measure up to Dauwalterā€™s?
Courtney definitely has the advantage with experience. She’s done more ultras than me, so that is a clear advantage. Her husband is a big advantage, because he always crews for her, and if you can have a consistent crew you can dial in and always trust them. My partner is also a professional athlete, so we can’t crew for each other. My advantage is, well, I’m not sure. I don’t like to compare athletes, because ultrarunning is a sport where there are so many differences between athletes, and that’s what makes it interesting. It’s not like cycling where you can say this person has better power-to-weight, or this person is a better individual time trialist. In running, we don’t all come from the same sporting backgrounds, so we try to bring our strengths together on the same day and see what happens.

The post Katie Schide Is Ultrarunningā€™s Newest Star appeared first on ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Online.

I love outdoor survival shows, and over the past decade have watched far too many episodes ofĢżAlone, Naked and Afraid,Ģżand of courseĢżSurvivor,Ģżto count. In 2023, I was excited to see Netflix launch its own program, called Outlast.ĢżThe show added a few twists to the tried-and-true format, namely that contestants wage war on each otherĢżthrough vandalism, theft, and psychological bullying. I wasn’t a huge fan of season one. But after the show aired, I was amazed by how much dialogueĢżOutlast .

Outlast returns for its second season on Wednesday, September 4. I recently spoke to the showrunner and executive producer Mike Odair about the show’s format, and how outdoor survival reality shows can stand out within the saturated genre.

OUTSIDE: Outdoor survival shows have been around for more than 20 years. Why do you think audiences still tune in?
Odair: These shows get us at our most primal core. Some people in the audience are weekend warriors, others are couch potatoes, and others are hardened survivalists. Everybody wonders “could I do this?” And if the answer is no, then you start to wonder “what can I do to get this knowledge and skills?” There’s another part of itā€”no matter if you’re in the woods or in a tower downtown in corporate America, the instincts of survival and the cutthroat way these games are played are not that different.

The genre has become pretty crowded in recent years. How can a show stand out among so much competition?Ģż
Do I get concerned that we’re making a show that’s a little outside of the pack of other survival shows? I think that’s how we make a mark. The fact that audiences are responding to the show is proof that it’s working. I think it comes back to the show’s origin. The reason this idea was so interesting to [executive producer] Jason Bateman was because he became a huge fan ofĢżAlone during the pandemic. That was his foray into the survival community.

Our idea had some of the same DNA that Jason liked aboutĢżAlone,Ģżwhich is that survival is up to you. But our idea added a twistā€”all you have to do is be on a team with at least one other person. The other survival game shows, dating back toĢżSurvivor,Ģżare games. Ours isn’t that. There’s just one rule. The rest of itā€”you can do whatever you want to survive. But this model shows you the best of humans as well as pretty dark stuff.

That’s what is different about our show. Like any social experiment, I can initiate a variable and see how the participants engage with it. But it’s not like I’m giving them a challenge that they must finish. If they choose to engage with what I give them is up to them.

How do you measure the showā€™s success or failure?Ģż
From a creative and showrunning standpoint, I gauge success based on audience engagement. Are they talking about it online? Even though people had conflicting opinions and feelings about season 1 of Outlast,Ģżthe fact that I saw so many people arguing about the show on Reddit and referencing the right way and wrong way to live in nature made me feel it was successful. And if it weren’t for engagement, we wouldn’t be here right now.

I’ve always lovedĢżAlone for its emphasis on veritĆ©-style storytelling. How much prodding or scripting do you give contestants on Outlast?Ģż
We are 100-percent organic. There’s no scripting this. We do prompt the contestants to discuss on camera what they’re doing or feeling, which is normal. I have friends who work on Alone and they’ll still prompt participants with questions about clarity and then marry the footage with the audio so that the audience can understand a process.

The only difference is we have someone standing across from the contestants asking them the questions, instead of sending them a list and having them film themselves. But I can assure you there is no script. What you see is what you getā€”it’s raw. Now, I can introduce variables like giving them tools, which they don’t do in Alone.ĢżBut that’s really it.

Really? There were episodes of season two where I saw a contestant act completely crazy, just totally against logic and reason, and I assumed it was because they were being steered by a producer.Ģż
Ha. I read feedback on these Reddit threads and saw people saying “Well, they clearly scripted this part of the show,” and I’m like nope. I know that a lot of audiences have a hard time believing what they see during a reality TV show. But sometimes, what happens out there in the wilderness is too weird to be scripted. People are exhausted and hungry. It may seem too bizarre or too perfect to not be scripted. But that’s what went on. We don’t put our thumb on the scale.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.Ģż

The post Why Do We Love Outdoor Survival TV? A Producer Weighs In. appeared first on ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Online.

Diligent readers of ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų, and its sister publications Trail Runner and ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Run, may recognize David Roche and the he wrote for years. These days Roche coaches a cadre of elite and age-group runners, and he also manages a popular trail running podcast called .

But Roche is no slouch himselfā€”he’s scored impressive trail running results at events across the West. For 2024 Roche gave himself a set of racing goals that, at the time, must have seemed overly ambitious. He wanted to do his first 100-mile running race, and chose the Leadville Trail 100 run. Not only did Roche want to complete the event, he wanted to win it and break the course record (15:42:59), set in 2005 by legendary mountain runner Matt Carpenter.

This past Sunday, Roche crossed the finish line in downtown Leadville with a completed set of goals: he finished, won the event, and set a new fastest time of 15:26:34. We caught up with Roche to discussĢż his amazing performance.

OUTSIDE: Prior to Leadville you’d never raced 100 miles. What advantage did this give you?Ģż
Roche: I wasn’t burdened by bad past experiences at that distance. Bad races can and do happenā€”if I’d run this distance 100 times already then I’d probably have a DNF or a race where I blew up. But a blank slate allows you to channel belief. Writing “I believe” on a blank page is different from writing it on a page filled with scuff marks and stains. That said, I did have an unfair advantage because I’ve coached elite athletes at Leadville, so I’ve had a chance to absorb a lot of information and experiences. I had zero fear of disrespecting the distance. There is this classic wisdom in ultramarathons to ā€œrespect the distance,ā€ and I’m sure that some people who were tracking the race probably thought that my early pace was just ā€œDavid being aĢżdumb dumbā€ and they assumed I’d blow up.

But I knew that once you get yourself super fit, you’re really only limited by the amount of glycogen that’s available to your body. If you’re efficient enough, you can run pretty fast at a relatively controlled heart-rate so that your burn rate of glycogen isn’t that fast. If you combine a low burn rate with a high consumption rate of carbohydrates, then the conventional wisdom falls by the wayside.

How was it a disadvantage?Ģż
I knew that I was probably going to fade in the end, so maybe I could have been better at not fading quite as much if I’d had more experience in 100 milers. But honestly, I don’t think it was a disadvantage. The idea that you need to have done something before in order to make a result more probable can limit your ability to have a breakthrough.Ģż Yes, I had a plan, but throughout the race I was open to learning on the fly. Yes, I faced adversity, but that was also the cool part. That was the part I was honestly looking forward to. The day before the race I posted online that I was really looking forward to experiencing the pain caveā€”that Courtney Dauwalter-inspired zone where you’re moving forward through pain and suffering and all of these feelings. I didn’t care if it happened at mile 20 or 90. I just wanted to experience it.

When did you experience the pain cave?Ģż
Mile 80. There’s the Powerline climb, which is quite steep and climbs to high altitude, and the problem is that a lot of athletes experience nausea there. On the climb I was applying one of my training rules, which is that I decided I’d run every single step, no matter what. You’re going up this 22-percent grade. I was running but I was also having these deep burps and wasn’t feeling so hot. At the top I saw people cheering, and I stopped briefly to hug someone, and when I did that I almost passed out. That was the moment when I realized I needed to be more focused on managing my body. My pacer, Teddy, said the only way to get through it was to get to lower altitude. We descended and I felt better, and after that it was just about controlling the burps to the finish.

This spring you were hit by a driver while riding your bike, and the collision left you with major injuries. How did that impact your mental approach to the race?
It made me open to entering the pain cave at Leadville. The collision was a random and shocking event. My agency was taken away. The after-effects, including a major head injury, were totally unmooring. My family and I went through other adversity this year in the form of online trolling, and when you combine it all, I felt like I went through pain and suffering that I had zero control over. And I felt so much gratitude in the process, and from people who gave me love during the ordeals. By stepping up to Leadville, I really wanted to reclaim adversity as something I inflict upon myself, and not something that a car or online trolls inflict on me. So, after the accident I focused a lot on enjoying the hard parts of running.

As a coach, would you ever encourage an athlete to set such ambitious goals when trying a distance out for the first time?
I always want athletes to anchor themselves in the processā€”the day-to-day grind of training, rest, recoveryā€”rather than a result. Setting goals that are really high can add purpose and meaning to that grind. When I was thinking about what my 2024 would look like, Leadville intoxicated me with its history. It’s in the book Born to Run. When I first started running after quitting football I read about the raceĢżin Anton Krupicka’s blog. So, when it came time to move up in distance I figured, what a better goal than to chase this historic record in trail running? When I first set that goal, I’m sure that I didn’t think it was possible on a deep level. But as I got closer to race day the process was really clicking. And while my training doesn’t look as monumental as that of other athletes, I just thought it was possible.

That’s why I tell my athletes ā€œshoot your shot.ā€ It doesn’t always go in, but sometimes you need to take 100 shots to have that one that changes everything.

This interview was edited for clarity and length.Ģż

The post In His 100-Mile Debut, This Running Coach Won the Leadville 100 Ultramarathon appeared first on ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Online.

A on the hiking route up Half Dome in Yosemite National Park was horrifying and tragic. On July 13, 2024, Grace Rohloff, an Arizona State university student, was descending the popular passageā€”which is traversed by metal cables for protectionā€”when she lost her footing and slid just beyond her fatherā€™s reach.

Jonathan Rohloff watched his daughter tumble 200 feet to her death. The two were expert hikers. The incident happened during a sudden rainstorm, which made the granite path slippery.

Grace is the seventh hiker since 2006 to have died slipping off the Half Dome cables in wet conditions. Others have had close calls. The last incident was in 2023, when three people slipped in three separate incidents, but fell onto rock ledges and survived.

The regularity and similarity of these accidents has some people, including Graceā€™s father, wondering if the Half Dome cables should be modified, or even shut down. ā€œItā€™s not going to bring my daughter back, but I would like to strongly advocate for a safer way to get to the top of Half Dome,” he told SFGate.com

I regularly recreate in the mountains with my 23-year-old stepdaughter, and I canā€™t help but ask myself a similar question. Are the Half Dome cables worth it?

Climber Alex Honnold, of Free Solo fame, thinks so. ā€œPeople have totally transformative experiences hiking Half Dome,ā€ he says. ā€œThey propose up there, they spread ashes up there.” Honnold told me he believes the cables should remain open.

The Half Dome cables protect the last 400 feet of an eight-mile hiking route to the top of the iconic batholith. The cables section is a Class III scramble with high-consequence exposure. Itā€™s about as steep as a typical staircaseā€”45 degreesā€”but without steps, just smooth granite beneath your feet.

The Sierra Club installed the cables in 1920. The steel system has since been rebuilt and reinforced, but the original idea is the same: a series of poles with cables strung between that serve as handrails. There is also a wooden plank across the path at each pole, approximately ten feet apart, to help brace against slides.

Hikers walk single-file between the cables. To prevent overcrowding, the National Park Service limits access to 225 people per day, using a permit system. Thousands of people summit Half Dome in this manner every season.

Rock climbers also use the cables. The method is considered the easiest, safest way to descend after climbing one of Half Domeā€™s technical faces. Honnold says he prefers to walk on the outside of the cables, grabbing onto just one. ā€œYou can pass people more easily,ā€ he explains. ā€œAnd the rock is actually a lot more textured on the outside because fewer people have walked on it.ā€

I doubt that Yosemite rangers would recommend this approach. I reached out to the NPS for comment, and they declined. The organization has published extensive information online about how to safely hike Half Dome, including tips for limiting your risk on the cables and elsewhere. The park service responds to about 100 injuries a year on the route, across all sections.

on the Half Dome Day Hike webpage, park ranger Vickie Mates says, ā€œMost deaths and injuries on Half Dome have happened when the rock is wet.ā€ She advises to check the weather before starting the hike. ā€œIn the summer, mornings can be deceptively clear and warm, but in the afternoon, cold rain and lightning can quickly move in,ā€ says Mates.

Honnold says the general consensus in Yosemite is that the park service does a good job helping people understand the risks. ā€œJust to pick up your permit, you have to go through a safety briefing,ā€ he says. ā€œThere are signs starting at the trailhead saying things like this is dangerous and you could die, and even a ranger present at the subdome [the section just before the cables] checking permits.ā€

The Park Service also closes down access to the cables during the shoulder seasons, when rain and snow are more regular.

And yet, experienced hikers like Grace Rohloff still end up on the cables in the rain, and pay the ultimate price for it. Which, according to Honnold, isnā€™t because the cables are dangerous, itā€™s because recreating in the mountains is inherently risky. ā€œYou can never make the mountains completely safe,ā€ he says.

Climber Hans Florine, who has owned a home in Yosemite National Park for more than 35 years, echoes Honnoldā€™s sentiment. Florine adds that one element of visiting the park that people miscalculate is the frequency of summer afternoon rainstorms. Even with his years of experience, heā€™s still been unexpectedly caught in the rain, including on Half Dome.

ā€œThe sky looks clear and blue in the morning so you think youā€™re safe,ā€ Florine says. ā€œBut you canā€™t actually see the entire sky because Half Dome is blocking up to half of your view. You get to the top and suddenly, thereā€™s a dark, nasty thunderhead that crept up from the other side.ā€

Florine says the conversation shouldnā€™t be about whether or not the cables are safe, it should be more pragmatic: how to survive on the cables when caught in the rain. Florine also mentioned the popular via ferrata as an optionā€”the European system for protecting mountaintops with high exposure so that hikers can more safely summit.

It wouldn’t be all that different from the existing system, with the added ability for people to connect themselves to the cable using a specialized carabiner. “But people will still have to decide to clip in,” Florine says. “And it won’t protect them from lightning.”

The post Should Yosemite Close the Half Dome Cables? We Asked Alex Honnold. appeared first on ŗŚĮĻ³Ō¹ĻĶų Online.