Alex Honnold On The Responsibility of Adventure, Olympic Climbing & Reversing Climate Change

With great adventure comes great responsibility. It’s not enough to simply appreciate our natural world—we must also protect it. Preserve it. Regenerate it. All of us. And with our full attention. No one embodies this ethos quite like Alex Honnold. Renowned adventurer and global icon of athletic mastery, Alex is widely recognized for his death-defying ropeless ascent of El Capitan—a 3,600-foot sheer vertical rock face he climbed without a harness or any protective gear whatsoever. It was a feat that stunned the world. Landed it’s cinematic document Free Solo an Oscar. And cemented this unique and compelling individual as one of the greatest athletes of all time. While our conversation back in 2018 covered this incredible accomplishment, much has transpired in Alex’s life since the whole Free Solo affair. So this conversation takes a different tack, exploring a different side of Alex. We steer clear of the more well-trod terrain and topics he has exhaustively fielded at this point and instead venture into new life experiences and other interests post-Free Solo: Alex as storyteller, podcast host, climbing historian, environmentalist, activist, husband, and more. The crux of today’s exchange is Alex’s environmental work with The Honnold Foundation. The impact he’s made thus far. He’s intentions for the future. And the steps he intends to pursue to help reverse environmental degradation: the greatest existential threat to life on Earth. We talk about the challenges of combating the climate crisis and why his current passion is solar and renewable energy. We also discuss his new turn as a podcaster, co-hosting the newly released Climbing Gold, a special miniseries of climbing-centric stories that explore the past, present, and future of the sport. In addition, Alex shares some insight into climbing’s debut at the Tokyo Olympics. But overall, the most important lesson Alex imparts is the responsibility of the adventurer. To be a climber, skier, cyclist, runner, or outdoor enthusiast, you must also be an environmental steward—and take personal action to preserve and sustain nature’s finite offerings. FULL BLOG & SHOW NOTES: bit.ly/richroll591 YouTube: bit.ly/alexhonnold591 Alex is wise, remarkable, and someone I deeply admire. My hope is that this conversation will inspire you to think more deeply about how you can positively impact the world we all share. Peace + Plants, Rich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 1:05Alex Honnold?

  I think that the most important issue facing humanity is climate change, or sort of environmental degradation more broadly, let's say. And at the same time, I think there's no point in trying to solve environmental problems that don't also improve quality of life, that like help the human population. And so, you know, I think that when you focus on environmental issues, it's important to also sort of focus on equity issues, like all humans should be entitled to certain standards of living. And so I think that if you're trying to solve environmental issues without also focusing on the equity side, like making sure that all humans are equally able to take care of themselves, you know, basically it's just not fair to not do this both at the same time. And so that sort of informed the initial projects from the Hahnold Foundation, is like looking for environmental projects that also improve standard of living, that like helped folks.

• 1:50Alex Honnold?

  And over the years, we basically always wound up choosing solar projects because they just often are the most elegant solutions to those kinds of problems, where it's like, good for the environment, good for people, you know, clear win-win. And then after several years of supporting a bunch of different solar projects, we were like, we should just make this explicit. Because at a certain point, I just think solar is such an obvious solution to many human problems. I'm Alex Arnold, and this is the Rich Roll Podcast.

• 2:26Rich Roll?

  The Rich Roll Podcast. Yeah, buddy. That's right. It's true. The Free Solo, a Free Solo global icon of athletic mastery. Alex Honnold is indeed back and in the house. I think at this point, we can dispense with the bio, right? We all saw his death and gravity-defying ropeless ascent of El Cap on the big screen. It's a feat that landed Free Solo a documentary Oscar, of course, and cemented Alex as truly one of the greatest athletes of all time. Alex came on the podcast three years ago, that was March of 2018,

• 3:11Rich Roll?

  after his big climb, but actually before the movie had come out, or I had had the opportunity to see the movie, to talk about all the things that he's been talking about ever since the film's release. His life, his relationship with fear, and the pursuit of mastery. But I would suggest considering episode 351 as just a primer, because today, we explore a new side of Alex. A lot has happened since the whole Free Solo affair, obviously. So this conversation takes a little bit of a different tack, steering somewhat clear of the more well-trod terrain and topics that Alex has exhaustively fielded at this point,

• 3:55Rich Roll?

  to explore some of his life experiences and other interests post-Free Solo as a storyteller, as a new podcast host, a climbing historian, an environmentalist, activist, husband, and more. It's such a good one, definitely distinct from other conversations with Alex you may have enjoyed, and it's coming up in a few. But first.

• 4:28Rich Roll?

  Okay, so this conversation is basically Free Solo Free, focusing instead on Alex's environmental work with the Honnold Foundation. We talk about the challenges of combating climate change and why his current focus and passion is on solar and renewable energy. We also discuss his new turn as a podcaster, co-hosting the newly released Climbing Gold, which is this special mini-series of climbing-centric stories that explore the past, present, and future of the sport. In addition, among other subjects, Alex shares some interesting insights into climbing's debut at the Tokyo Olympics.

• 5:13Rich Roll?

  But overall, this is a conversation about the responsibility of adventure. It's not enough to simply appreciate our natural world. We must also care for it, protect it, preserve it, regenerate it, all of us, and with our full attention. Alex is somebody I deeply admire. He's wise, he's remarkable, and my hope is that this conversation will inspire you to think more deeply about how you can positively impact the world we all share. So ladies and gentlemen, this is me and Alex Honnold.

• 5:56Rich Roll?

  Cool, man, are we good? Oh, we're rolling. Excellent, man.

• 6:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah, we're already recording. Good to see you.

• 6:03Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, good to see you. Do I need to worry about where anything is?

• 6:05Rich Roll?

  I don't think so. Just worry about where the mic is. But you know that because now you're a professional podcaster.

• 6:10Alex Honnold?

  Well, I don't really do the technical side of it.

• 6:14Rich Roll?

  You do have to talk into a mic, though.

• 6:16Alex Honnold?

  I bring nothing to the team except for the witty banter with the guest.

• 6:21Rich Roll?

  Well, I listened to the first little trailer thing. It's all, you do the little like, hey, is this thing on? Or like, let's do take two or whatever. Yeah, which is fun.

• 6:31Alex Honnold?

  Actually, I don't know if I've heard it yet.

• 6:33Rich Roll?

  You haven't even listened to your own podcast yet?

• 6:36Alex Honnold?

  Well, I think I've been gone.

• 6:37Rich Roll?

  But the idea, I mean, it's called Climbing Gold. The idea was the idea at the inception that it was going to be more about the Olympics? And then that had to pivot a little bit?

• 6:47Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, exactly. The idea for the podcast was to focus on the road to the Olympics, sort of the buildup. Going into 2020, it felt like climbing was having a huge moment. It's funny, I'm on the board of a climbing gym organization as well. And it felt like it was this huge moment for climbing because climbing is in the Olympics for the first time. And it's like going off. Obviously, COVID changed that quite a bit. And so when we started talking about doing a podcast, it made sense to like to explore sort of the history and the future of climbing during this moment. And then when the Olympics got pushed because COVID, we sort of went forward with it anyway, mostly because we felt like there were still interesting stories to tell.

• 7:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 7:27Alex Honnold?

  But so now we're still doing, I think we're doing 20 episodes and the second 10 are focused more on the lead up to the Olympics.

• 7:33Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 7:33Alex Honnold?

  Which will be doing this summer.

• 7:35Rich Roll?

  The history and the untold stories and the kind of things that happen. Because so much of climbing occurs outside of the spotlight of the media completely.

• 7:44Alex Honnold?

  And so much of climbing history has occurred before there was media to some extent. You know, before things were easily recorded or, you know, digitized and shared. And so there are just so many classic climbing stories that are sort of lost to history a little bit. So it's pretty fun to uncover some of those and share some.

• 8:01Rich Roll?

  So did you have to be like a journalist and go and find these people and talk to them and have them tell their stories?

• 8:07Alex Honnold?

  Like a very unprofessional journalist, like a very unskilled journalist. Yeah, exactly, exactly.

• 8:14Rich Roll?

  Let's not confuse journalism with podcasting.

• 8:16Alex Honnold?

  Exactly, exactly. No, we, it's not fair to say that we did any journalism, but we, you know, we did seek out interesting guests in different spaces. And I think the thing that we're trying to sort of add to the space of climbing podcasting, as it were, is a little bit more editing and a little bit more of a thematic focus, like, you know, having multiple voices from different people in the same episode, talking about specific themes to sort of help educate about certain aspects of climbing and share a little bit about where climbing has come from.

• 8:47Rich Roll?

  Right. And your co-host has, he did another podcast, right? Dirtbag Diaries or something like that?

• 8:53Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, so my co-host is Fitzcawhall, who's an actual professional podcaster. He actually knows what he's doing. He's the one that sent me the microphone that I used and told me how to set it up and how to use everything. Yeah, he's the one that really, I mean, really the whole reason the podcast exists is because he approached me about working on a project together. And I was like, oh, he's the perfect person to work with because he already knows how to do it.

• 9:15Rich Roll?

  Was there an original plan before the Olympics got pushed that you would go to Tokyo and be, make covering? The climbing competition there, part of the podcast?

• 9:26Alex Honnold?

  So, so fun story. I am actually supposed to be going to Tokyo to do commentary for the Olympic channel. So technically, I have a contract already with the actual Olympic committee or whatever to go and do commentary for climbing. And so part of doing the podcast was because I personally felt like it would be a great way to learn how to commentate. You know, I don't know anything about sports commentation, but I figured I'd learn before the Olympics. And so the podcast seemed like a really great way to get to know some of the backstory, meet some of the competitors, learn about their process. And, you know, so as it turns out, we haven't focused on that so far because the Olympics got pushed. So we just decided to kind of wait and see on that side. But it's almost better this way because this way, the episodes that we have recorded are like the deeper backstory.

• 10:10Alex Honnold?

  And then it allows us to sort of set the stage that when we get to the Olympic side of the podcast, there's already a good context for it.

• 10:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So somebody who doesn't know anything can listen to that. And then by the time the competition starts, they feel like they have a context for anything that's happening.

• 10:24Alex Honnold?

  That's exactly the hope is that somebody who's interested in the outdoors and has maybe climbed once, or, you know, just sort of a general interest could listen to the podcast, understand and appreciate the stories and still feel like they learned something important about the sport.

• 10:38Rich Roll?

  Right. How do you feel in general about climbing being in the Olympics?

• 10:44Alex Honnold?

  I'm pretty into it. I mean, there are a lot of climbers, particularly older climbers, that are sort of crusty about it, that think that it's a, you know, degrades the sport in some way. Or sort of, or really the fact that I'm calling climbing a sport. I think some climbers would take, take, take umbrage with that, you know, because a lot of people consider climbing more of a lifestyle or more of like an adventure. But, you know, I come from a gym climbing background. I grew up going to a climbing gym. So I've always thought of climbing, at least in some part, as a sport. And so I'm excited about the Olympics. I'm, I mean, I'm psyched to go. I'm psyched to see it. It's a

• 11:17Rich Roll?

  I saw a rendering of the venue. It looked incredible. Yeah.

• 11:20Alex Honnold?

  I haven't seen it yet.

• 11:21Rich Roll?

  Huge like amphitheater with the walls and like, you know, the seating. I don't know what it's going to be like now that They're restricting kind of attendance, right? Like if you're a foreigner, you can't go?

• 11:33Alex Honnold?

  But I think there'd be enough domestic attendance that it'll still be crazy. I mean, climbing in Japan is a big deal.

• 11:38Rich Roll?

  Is it?

• 11:39Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, it's really popular and Japanese competitors have sort of dominated the World Cup scene for the last few years, which I think is maybe part of the reason that climbing is in the Olympics in Tokyo this year is because I think the host country has some influence on that. But yeah, Japanese competitors will likely do very well and will likely have enthusiastic support from the home crowd.

• 12:00Rich Roll?

  Right. Well, what's interesting about it now being a sport, well, there's the controversy of it being a sport to begin with, and then there's controversy around how they're constructing the competition, right? Like you have these three events essentially, like speed, boulder, lead, and it's kind of your cumulative score across those three disciplines that determines your ranking.

• 12:25Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, that's exactly it. And so it's a slightly confused system in some ways. I mean, I think it's fine.

• 12:32Rich Roll?

  It skews towards doing it fast though, right? Which is kind of a weird thing, isn't it?

• 12:36Alex Honnold?

  Sort of. It's like, should we just dive into it? It's like slightly complicated.

• 12:40Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I mean, this is like inside baseball, but this is interesting, and especially since the Olympics are going to be happening and we're all going to be watching this.

• 12:46Alex Honnold?

  And actually, so, yeah, I'll dive into like the nitty gritty of climbing scoring. But I think what's interesting about it is that you can kind of apply this to all sports because like the decathlete or, you know, the biathlon or whatever, like to some extent, any sport you see in the Olympics is being arbitrarily scored in a way that the competitors or at least the organizing committees have agreed upon. And so, you know, any sport that you're watching is slightly arbitrary, you know? I mean, other than just the purely elemental like swimming, you know, or running like strictly for speed, other than that, you're always getting into formatting issues and like. It's just, it's just interesting. And so with, with climbing, like you said, it's the combination of the three disciplines. It's a combined format, but it's actually, you

• 13:30Alex Honnold?

  multiply the scores in them. And so it's sort of disproportionately weights excellence in specific categories in a weird way.

• 13:37Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 13:38Alex Honnold?

  You know what I mean? And so in theory, if someone's average, if someone's pretty good at all three disciplines, like they get fourth in all three, you think that's great, but they'd actually, they would do worse than someone who was a great speed climber, but, but not as good at the other two disciplines. So it's this kind of weird formatting style that favors, you know, dominance in one category. And that's one of the reasons that a lot of climbers have complained about speed climbing being included, because most people focus on the other two aspects. Most people focus on bouldering and lead climbing and sort of exclude speed climbing.

• 14:10Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 14:10Alex Honnold?

  And so by combining them all into this combined format, it suddenly forced these otherwise elite competitors to sort of learn this new sport that they don't really want.

• 14:19Rich Roll?

  Right. Like, like trying to tell a middle distance runner that suddenly they have to be a hundred meter sprinter.

• 14:24Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's not a, yeah, it's like telling a middle distance runner that all of a sudden they're going to have to do a hundred meter sprint and that's going to count into their score.

• 14:33Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 14:33Alex Honnold?

  You know, and they're like physiologically, it's different things, you know?

• 14:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 14:37Alex Honnold?

  And more than the physiological difference, there's also a skill difference with climbing, speed climbing, because the, the speed wall for climbing is like a specific track, basically. It's a specific sequence of movements. So you do have to learn that track, like learn how to jump between the holds well.

• 14:52Rich Roll?

  But it's made for TV, because you have two people right next to each other scurrying up the wall as fast as possible.

• 14:58Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, me, me personally.

• 14:59Rich Roll?

  In like five seconds or something.

• 15:01Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, exactly. That's exactly, yeah. Five seconds up a 15 meter wall. Looks completely insane. Yeah. So for me, as a spectator, I think it's awesome.

• 15:09Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 15:10Alex Honnold?

  Like, it's easy to understand. It's incredibly, it's an incredible display of athleticism. Like, when you see people speed climbing at an elite level, you're like, that guy is a good athlete, you know, just hands down. And, you know, I can understand why the climbing competitors aren't into it, but I'm like, I don't know, from outside perspective, it looks amazing. It's great for TV. It's easy to understand. And I kind of like the well-rounded. You know, the fact that it forces the competitors to be well-rounded.

• 15:36Rich Roll?

  Right, right.

• 15:38Alex Honnold?

  It's like a holistic.

• 15:39Rich Roll?

  Rather than just making, like swimming or track and field, where these would each be individual events.

• 15:43Alex Honnold?

  Well, so that's part of the thing is that because climbing is an exhibition sport in 2020, they're only, the sport is only allowed one medal. And so that's why they did a combined format, because that way, had they just excluded speed climbing altogether, that's not fair to the speed athletes. But, you know, with only one medal, like, how are you gonna do it? So they just combined it into one.

• 16:03Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the other one is how far you can climb, like, the height that you can climb in a six-minute interval or something like that?

• 16:12Alex Honnold?

  No, it's, so lead climbing and bouldering, both basically, so lead climbing is climbing a taller wall with a rope. Bouldering is climbing a short wall without a rope.

• 16:22Alex Honnold?

  And both of those are basically just measures of pure difficulty. So the bouldering, the boulder routes that you have to climb are incredibly difficult. And so they, they're like a test of max physical power. So it's almost like powerlifting, but with an incredible amount of,

• 16:38Alex Honnold?

  you know, gymnastic skill and technique built into it. And then the lead climbing wall is the same thing, but on a higher, you know, because you're climbing higher, it's more of an endurance test, basically.

• 16:48Rich Roll?

  So are any of them scored, like diving, though, with, like, you know, numbers, or is it all on a, on a watch?

• 16:55Alex Honnold?

  No, they are, no, they are scored with numbers. But they're scored by numbers because you basically count how many holds up the route you make it.

• 17:01Rich Roll?

  Okay.

• 17:02Alex Honnold?

  So if the lead route is, you know, 50 holds long, like 50 hand movements up, your score is basically, you know, which hand movement you made it to, before you fall off.

• 17:13Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 17:14Alex Honnold?

  But, but in general, if you see somebody successfully climb from the bottom to the top, they're basically gonna win. Like, if someone makes it to the top, you're like, that guy's a champion.

• 17:22Rich Roll?

  He's the dude.

• 17:23Alex Honnold?

  Yeah.

• 17:23Rich Roll?

  Who are the, who are the standouts? Like, are there any runaway, like, favorites here?

• 17:29Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, yeah, there are a few.

• 17:30Rich Roll?

  Careful.

• 17:31Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, exactly, exactly, exactly. I'm like, well, um, yeah. No, okay, so there's, I mean, this is a real test of my future Olympic comment.

• 17:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah, here you go.

• 17:40Alex Honnold?

  But, um, let's just say that by August, I will be much better versed in this. But, um, but so the three, for men, the three that come to mind right now, um, that are obvious standouts are a Japanese man named Tomo and Arasaki, who dominated World Cup scene, had incredible boulder, but also happens to be a very good speed climber. So he kind of has this, this leg up in the combined format where he can really win in any of the three disciplines, which makes him incredibly competitive. Um, and then there's Adam Andra, who's a Czech climber.

• 18:10Rich Roll?

  The Czech guy, right?

• 18:11Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, Czech Republic, who is arguably the best climber in the world. He's, he's pushed the standards of difficulty twice now, like breaking, uh, into new, you know, categories of difficulty for climbing. Uh, and he's also repeated all the hardest walls in the world and he's an incredible climber.

• 18:28Alex Honnold?

  And he basically won all the World Cups that he entered last year. So, I mean, he's, uh, the year before last, since they kind of canceled the COVID season. But, um, incredible climber, not a great speed climber, sort of a self-described poor speed climber, which is ironic because he actually climbs very, very fast, but he's just not good at the sport of speed climbing. You know what I mean? Which is, that's where all this stuff gets so weird because any casual climber looking to Adam Andra climb would be like, wow, he's so fast. But then when it comes to speed climbing, he just doesn't quite sprint fast enough.

• 18:59Rich Roll?

  Right, right.

• 19:00Alex Honnold?

  It's like, it's so weird.

• 19:01Rich Roll?

  I would think that over time though, once this becomes, you know, institutionalized as an Olympic sport going forward, that young people who get enthusiastic about this are going to be doing almost all of their training and learning in an indoor climbing wall, right? Like, what is the relationship between outdoor climbing and kind of, you know, how you, I mean, I know you do a lot of indoor climbing, but essentially you're an outdoor climber.

• 19:24Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, I'm essentially an adventurer, you know, like by the standards of Olympic competition, I'm not even a climber. Like, I'm not even climbing at the difficulty that these competitors warm up on, basically.

• 19:35Rich Roll?

  But your relationship to climbing is one of adventure and outdoors more than it is about an indoor climbing.

• 19:40Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, though I bridge it a little bit because I came from the indoor world, I still love climbing indoors, I still train in, you know, a similar way to competitors, but just at a much lower level. But at least I'm still trying to do the same things. But, um, yeah, it is interesting. I mean, and that's a big part of what we get into in the podcast, talking about in Climbing Gold, is this contrast between adventure and athleticism and, you know, like where is the sport going? Because like you said, people that get into it now, get into it in the gym and train indoors. And, I mean, it's just interesting that an Olympic climber could potentially never climb outdoors. And then even more interesting when you think that the history of rock climbing sort of branches off from classical mountaineering

• 20:22Alex Honnold?

  and like people summoning peaks in the Alps and things like that. And when you think that an Olympic rock climber nowadays could have never even hiked up a mountain outside, you know, never, never even gone hiking.

• 20:33Rich Roll?

  Just divorced from that entire tradition.

• 20:35Alex Honnold?

  Yeah. Which, I'm not saying that's good or bad, but it's just interesting to see how the sport has sort of splintered over time.

• 20:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's cool that it's in there, though. And I guess there's, you know, there's, when you look at Tokyo, there's karate, skateboarding, surfing, right? Like, the Olympics have changed quite a bit.

• 20:54Alex Honnold?

  As they should. I mean, the Olympics should reflect the times, I think. You know, and you know, in like the, what, 40s or 50s, the Olympics included mountaineering. They gave medals for mountaineering back in the day. You know, when you think of old school, like the first ascent of the Eiger and things like that, like classic mountains in Europe, like those received Olympic medals some.

• 21:15Rich Roll?

  I didn't know that.

• 21:16Alex Honnold?

  And that went away and...

• 21:17Rich Roll?

  That feels like a story you should tell in the podcast.

• 21:20Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, yeah, we haven't gotten into it, but we probably will.

• 21:23Rich Roll?

  Cool. When is the podcast launch?

• 21:26Alex Honnold?

  I think the podcast, yeah, I think it's the end of the month. So, um, so I think the 26th of March is the first episode. But honestly, I'm uninvolved with it with the whole launch.

• 21:36Rich Roll?

  Come on, you're the host, though.

• 21:38Alex Honnold?

  No, but I'm, I'm the unskilled host.

• 21:40Rich Roll?

  Everybody's got a podcast. Come on, just embrace it, you know?

• 21:44Alex Honnold?

  It's, it's been fun, though, because, you know, so many of our guests, so many of the people I get to talk to are personal heroes of mine from childhood, you know, people whose films I watch or books I read, or, you know, whose posters I had in my room, things like that. And so it's fun to be able to talk to them about how they got into climbing and what it means to them and just hear some of their opinions about where the sport's going.

• 22:01Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 22:02Alex Honnold?

  Because so many of them are like, that's my hero, you know, that's cool.

• 22:05Rich Roll?

  What do you think this whole thing is that I've created here? You know, it's like the ultimate excuse to like call up cool people and talk to them. And then you get to share that, like, imagine yourself, you know, young Alex at age 12, if a resource like that had been available to you, like, be the person that you needed when you were that young person, like, searching for the thing for you.

• 22:26Alex Honnold?

  No, that, I mean, that is cool. And, and it's interesting because I think a big part of what made me, you know, somewhat successful as a climber in my life was the fact that I had access to a climbing gym earlier than most. And the gym, the climbing gym that I was going to had, you know, it had a little gear shop built in. It had this little video display constantly going with certain climbing films. So you'd always see, like, certain climbing films going, you know, old school VHS, you're like, this is awesome, super inspiring. And, you know, I'd be climbing and then I'd like read all the climbing magazines and watch the films. And, you know, to have that opportunity as a young person, you know, is a big part of what allowed me to, to become a decent climber.

• 23:03Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 23:03Alex Honnold?

  Like, and nowadays, people have that, you know, exponentially more of that, like, more access to information, you know, more climbing footage available to them.

• 23:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's cool.

• 23:12Alex Honnold?

  And they have way better facilities, like way better gyms.

• 23:15Rich Roll?

  Well, the gyms seem to be ubiquitous these days.

• 23:18Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, and not just more common, but just better, you know, better lit, more open, cleaner, like nicer, better holds, better setting, like higher quality training facilities, you know, better pads, like better flooring, which is a big deal. You know, I broke my arm in the gym when I was a kid, not so much because the flooring was bad. But that kind of thing does factor in, you know, like, if you can safely climb in a, like, basically modern gyms are just safe. And so you can climb, you can push yourself super hard physically with no risk of injury.

• 23:46Rich Roll?

  When you were doing the Free Solo Tour, I mean, it would be, you would share like in every city that you would go to for the tour, it was all about like, where's the climbing gym?

• 23:55Alex Honnold?

  Yeah.

• 23:56Rich Roll?

  And like the workout that day before the screening or whatever.

• 23:59Alex Honnold?

  I've sampled like almost every gym in the country.

• 24:01Rich Roll?

  You must have been at every climbing gym in America.

• 24:03Alex Honnold?

  It feels like it, but actually there's so many gyms in America now that I've probably sampled a tiny percentage, actually. But it is true that every major city in the country, I've sampled the gym. Cause I typically would land, I would go from the airport straight to the gym. I would train, I'd take a shower at the gym, I would go straight to the venue, do whatever event I was supposed to do, and then basically either go to a hotel or go back to the airport.

• 24:25Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 24:26Alex Honnold?

  But it's like gyms have always felt like a second home to me almost. You know, I walk into a climbing gym anywhere and I'm like, ah, home sweet home. You know, I take my shoes off, I wander around, I dump my stuff everywhere.

• 24:35Rich Roll?

  But it has to be complicated with you now because if you just want to go and get a workout in, you're gonna have to be a bit of a politician for a while first, right?

• 24:44Alex Honnold?

  Depends, depends. You know, you wear your hood, you have your, you keep your head down, you just like climb.

• 24:49Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 24:50Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, to some extent, it's always a little bit of a scene, but, but on the other hand, any gym in the country, I mean, everyone's there to do the same thing as you. Like, it is nice because you're all just there to climb together.

• 25:00Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 25:00Alex Honnold?

  So when you get past the initial like, oh, what are you doing here? That's crazy. Can I take a picture? Ultimately, you're like, let's just session all these boulders together. Yeah. Cause it's like, we're all just there to do the same thing.

• 25:09Rich Roll?

  Well, it's been a crazy couple of years for you. The first time that you did the show, we talked about the Free Solo climb, but it was before the movie came out.

• 25:18Alex Honnold?

  I know.

• 25:18Rich Roll?

  Do you remember that?

• 25:19Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 25:20Rich Roll?

  So I just remember thinking that I had a grip on what it is exactly that you had done and feeling confident that I understood it. And then you invited me to the premiere, I remember in Beverly Hills, that screening, and I watched the movie and I was like, oh, I didn't understand it at all. Like, I'm sure I still don't, but the movie, you know, took it quite a bit further in terms of, you know, getting me to fully grok what had actually happened. And then, of course, you know, your story's well told with everything that happened with the movie and you went on this crazy press tour and did eight bazillion interviews and I'm sure have completely talked out on this movie. So I want to talk about other stuff today, but before we kind of move off of Free Solo,

• 26:05Rich Roll?

  I mean, in the, in the wake of being so exhaustively interviewed about that, do you feel like there's anything left to say or anything left unsaid? Or anything, you know, looking back on it that you feel like people misunderstood about the movie or you? Or is it just your, let's time for the next chapter?

• 26:24Alex Honnold?

  No, I think, I think it's all pretty well.

• 26:26Rich Roll?

  It's been said.

• 26:27Alex Honnold?

  Yeah. Well, I mean, I think part of why the film did so well is that it is an incredibly honest look at, at the process, you know, leading up to Free Solo, El Cap. So I don't know, I've got nothing but positive, you know, it's like the, the media tour around it was crazy. And like going to the Oscars is crazy and, you know, meeting Prince William or whatever, you know, because we won at BAFTA. So like you're in the UK, like meeting royalty or whatever. Like it's all totally crazy whirlwind tour. But, um, but I can still look back on it and be, be happy about the whole thing, you know? Cause I am, you know, understandably proud of Free Solo, El Cap. Like it was something very difficult that I worked hard for, that I'm proud of. And I think the film reflected that really well, you know, and very honestly.

• 27:10Alex Honnold?

  And so I'm like, yeah, proud of the film, proud of the whole deal. It's like, it's cool.

• 27:13Rich Roll?

  It was a phenomenon though. I mean, everybody was talking about this movie. For a documentary to break out like that was just extraordinary.

• 27:21Alex Honnold?

  Yeah. I mean, I, I don't, you know, I was like so in it that I can't really say, you know, like I was just surviving the tour. It was like such a whirlwind. But, um, but no, now looking back on it with a little bit of perspective, a few years away. You know, I'm like, what a life experience. Like what a crazy whirlwind.

• 27:38Rich Roll?

  Crazy, man.

• 27:39Alex Honnold?

  I mean, before the movie was made, I joked that all I wanted was to see El Cap on IMAX. You know, just because El Cap to me is the most meaningful wall in the world. It's like the most beautiful iconic face and to see it on the biggest possible screen. I was like, that's, that's cool.

• 27:54Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 27:54Alex Honnold?

  And, uh, and you know, sure enough, Free Solo showed on IMAX and I got to see the movie on IMAX a couple of times. And I was like, this is so awesome. You know, it's just, it's cool. I was like, oh, we did the wall justice. We did, you know, Yosemite justice. I was like, I'm pretty proud of that.

• 28:08Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And you did the world of climbing justice. I mean, you, and it was, it was so effective in introducing the magnitude of what you do to the world. And what's so, you know, kind of cherished about the community.

• 28:22Alex Honnold?

  Or maybe too effective because then everyone that doesn't know anything about climbing, they're like, you know, so do you use a rope? And you're like, yeah, mostly use a rope. It's just this one crazy movie like happened to. Cause I know a lot of my serious climbing friends, you know, their families watch the movie and then they're like, is that what you're doing? And they're like, no, no, that's not what I'm doing.

• 28:39Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 28:40Alex Honnold?

  But, and, and that's not even what I'm mostly doing, you know, because I'm typically climbing with partners and, uh, you know, and training and just like climbing normally.

• 28:48Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 28:48Alex Honnold?

  But, um, but obviously the documentary is focused entirely on this, uh,

• 28:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 28:52Alex Honnold?

  You know, this one sort of quixotic goal.

• 28:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 28:55Alex Honnold?

  But, but, you know, even that, I mean, they filmed for two years, uh, you know, the preparation, training and like getting ready for that climb. And then, and I did maybe a half dozen sort of cutting edge free solos to build up to that, but still that's like seven days of soloing in the two years that we were filming. You know, so you watch the film and you're like, he's a crazy solist and you're like, yeah, you know, for seven days out of two years, like, you know, you gotta keep it, keep it perspective.

• 29:19Rich Roll?

  Right. So you go from being, you know, this, living a certain kind of lifestyle to be the climber that you are, and then you have this whirlwind crazy like Hollywood year where you're just like on planes and, you know, going, I mean, your life is upside down. So I would suspect that, um, the pandemic, for better or worse, has kind of suited you to like, kind of get back to just doing what you do and like being left alone so you can just climb and live your life.

• 29:46Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, that's, it has, uh, yeah. I mean, so I live in Las Vegas and, and through the whole pandemic, uh, even during like lockdowns and shutdowns and everything, outdoor recreation was always explicitly allowed in the state of Nevada. So, uh, combined with the fact there's almost limitless rock around town, it was always totally okay for us to go out and develop some new climbing areas and go climbing and do, do things near the house. And so it was an incredible place to live. Um, yeah, I mean, the whole pandemic for me has just been sort of returning to roots, you know, where I have no obligations. I go climb every day. I explore new crags, you know, develop new climbs. It was like, oh, you know, it's not that bad. And I know that's an incredibly fortunate position to be in, though it's also, I mean, you know, I do live there for a reason.

• 30:28Alex Honnold?

  It's like, you know, I moved there because it's the best rock and because of that degree of access. And you're married now. Oh, yeah, I'm married now. Yeah, that also happened during. It's like, that's the thing is, I mean, personally, it's been kind of a good year, you know? But, yeah, but it's like embarrassing to say so because obviously there's been so much hardship for so many other people. But, you know, sometimes things just work out in life and you're like, nothing wrong with. So how are you settling in? How's Sony doing? Yeah, no, Sony's good. Sony's actually great. Sony is in a weird, like, I don't know if podcast listeners care about this kind of thing, but she's like climbing really hard right now, which is like started this whole interesting positive feedback thing where because she's really strong, she's like more excited about it because it's like more fun for her and which makes her more excited to train harder, which is making her stronger.

• 31:13Alex Honnold?

  She's like in this total positive phase of life right now where she's like really cranking. She's like climbing her hardest grades. She's all fired up like. That's cool. Yeah, we just trained in the gym last night and she was like performing to a degree that I was like, huh. It's like, damn, you know, because I've been gone on expedition for a month and she's been basically just like cranking for the month I was gone. Right. And I came home and I'm like, whoa. She, was she even a climber when you guys first met? She had barely started climbing when we first met. She, um, her sister was into it and her cousin to some extent, basically like her family got her into it a tiny bit. And then when we started dating, uh, obviously she started climbing more. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, now she's like pretty good.

• 31:52Alex Honnold?

  Super into it. Yeah. Well, it's just like anything. You get good at it and you get strong and then you're more emotionally connected to it. Yeah, of course. More excited. Yeah. And I think for her, um, you know, I don't know for sure, but I think as she started climbing, there was a little more fear involved. You know, it's like, because climbing is kind of serious and kind of hardcore. And, and I think that because she was dating me, she kind of like went into the deep end right away. And it was maybe exposed to like a little too much of the like hardcore side of climbing straight away. And I think now as she gets like stronger and more able and can like do more as a climber, it's all like much less scary. Right. And so it's like obviously more fun when you're not scared at all. It's like she's doing it in reverse. Like let's start, let's start with free soloing El Cap and we'll work our way backwards to the climbing gym.

• 32:37Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, no, I mean, it kind of is. Certainly psychologically, I think that's. Right. That's funny. And there's some degree of. Luck involved with it all too, because like, because she's been connected with me for years and I know like basically everybody in the climbing community. Over the last few years, there were sort of like a series of unfortunate accidents where like people, prominent climbers died in various ways. And so, you know, all of those sorts of accidents like affected her personally in a way that if had she just started climbing in the gym and not known me, she wouldn't know any of the people and it wouldn't have like touched her quite as much. I don't know. That's the kind of thing that you're like, oh, you know, sorry to-

• 33:14Rich Roll?

  This is the world that you're in, though.

• 33:16Alex Honnold?

  Yeah.

• 33:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 33:17Alex Honnold?

  Well, but there is a degree of luck to that because the, for several years, it seemed like really bad where like there were just a bunch of high profile accidents that were kind of terrible. But then you can go five years and have nobody that you know die. You know, it's, I don't know.

• 33:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but it's, it's one of the few sports where that, like what you just said would even come up.

• 33:35Alex Honnold?

  Yeah. Well, I don't know. If you're road biking all the time, people-

• 33:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's true. That's true.

• 33:39Alex Honnold?

  There was just a terrible road biking thing in Vegas that like totally shook the-

• 33:43Rich Roll?

  Oh, wow. I didn't know that.

• 33:44Alex Honnold?

  It was like a, a truck, uh, basically like drove over like seven cyclists on a group ride and killed six of them or something. It was like crazy.

• 33:51Rich Roll?

  Oh, man. I hate hearing that.

• 33:53Alex Honnold?

  That's, I know. That's the thing is I'm always like, oh.

• 33:55Rich Roll?

  And you're out on your bike. Like I've noticed that you've done, like during the pandemic, you kind of have created-

• 34:00Alex Honnold?

  Yeah.

• 34:00Rich Roll?

  We're gonna talk about Guyana, but you've kind of created these endurance challenges for yourself. Like, I'm gonna ride my bike 100 miles and then climb this mountain and ride home in the dark.

• 34:08Alex Honnold?

  Yep. That's, yeah, that sums it up. Well, it's, you know, because if you live in one place and you don't have access to big mountains, you can at least make the mountains that you do have challenging in an appropriate way, but-

• 34:17Rich Roll?

  It's like, yeah, I'm gonna show up exhausted and see how I do and-

• 34:20Alex Honnold?

  Well, it's, it's, I really love challenges that you can do from home when you just bike out of your driveway and then have this crazy epic day in the mountains and then bike back to your home. And, you know, to be able to do that in the suburbs in Las Vegas is pretty awesome.

• 34:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 34:33Alex Honnold?

  You know, you're like biking along surface streets, just like, and especially in Vegas, I actually ride on the sidewalk a lot, which is kind of embarrassing, but it's the best way to not get hit by a car. I feel like a little kid or something, you know, who's like afraid to bike in the shoulder. But, uh, but there are big sections of Vegas where it's definitely safer to ride the sidewalk. And, uh, you know, you're like, this is totally absurd. But then, you know, three hours later, you're grinding up this crazy hill like a mountainside. And then, you know, a couple hours after that, you're like hiking through the woods by yourself.

• 34:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 34:58Alex Honnold?

  And you're just like, it's pretty amazing to have that kind of access.

• 35:08Rich Roll?

  So let's talk about Guyana. You were like off the grid for like a month.

• 35:13Alex Honnold?

  Yeah.

• 35:13Rich Roll?

  It's like this Nat Geo project. Can you talk about that?

• 35:16Alex Honnold?

  I think so. I mean, who's gonna stop me?

• 35:18Rich Roll?

  I don't know. I'm not.

• 35:19Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, exactly. No, no, I think it's all totally fair.

• 35:21Rich Roll?

  There's no network boss that's gonna call here and tell you to shut up.

• 35:24Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, no, I think it's all fair. Yeah, so it was being filmed for an episode of National Geographic Explorer, which I think is a series. It was being filmed by some friends of mine. And it was a crazy trip. Yeah, so we flew into Guyana, into Georgetown. And then the goal was to climb this Tapui, which is like a big sandstone, well, a sort of quartzitic sandstone wall that sticks out of the jungle. And there are a bunch of Tapuis that are kind of scattered across Venezuela and Guyana and Brazil. Actually, have you seen the movie Up? The really charming Disney movie, Pixar movie, whatever, with like floating balloon house like over there. Those are Tapuis. So that's like what we were trying to climb.

• 36:04Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 36:05Alex Honnold?

  Or if you've seen the new Point Break, that was also filmed on Tapuis.

• 36:07Rich Roll?

  There's something like that in Avatar, too.

• 36:10Alex Honnold?

  No, the ones in Avatar are modeled on this area in China. That's like limestone. It's like a different, it's caused in a different way. Like, it's a different geological process that creates the Avatar Mountains. But yeah, it is kind of a similarly surreal mountain landscape with dense jungle around it. But anyway, so we were going to climb this wall that hadn't been climbed. And then we also had this sort of renowned biologist with us. This guy Bruce Means, who had done extensive work researching the frog species in the area. So he was gonna sort of finish this transect of the river basin that this wall formed the top of. And he was basically researching different species of frog along the way.

• 36:55Alex Honnold?

  And so it was kind of a combined trip where we were going to get him up the wall so that he could find some of the frogs on the summit and possibly on the cliff itself.

• 37:03Rich Roll?

  So it's like adventure meets science experiment.

• 37:06Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, adventure meets science, yeah. Which is sort of the perfect Nat Geo thing, you know, where it's like adventurous, but there's a strong educational, scientific component to it.

• 37:12Rich Roll?

  And why had that, why had those peaks not been climbed before?

• 37:17Alex Honnold?

  So that particular peak hadn't been climbed, I think largely because it's next to this mountain called Raima, which is a, I forget what the name means, but it's like source of waters or something. Raima is a, it marks the boundary between Venezuela, Guyana and Brazil. So like this one point in the middle of this big mountain, it's the highest mountain in the region. And then from that summit, the water that comes off the various sides, like one aspect drains into the Amazon River, one drains into the Orinoco in Venezuela, I think, and the other into Guyana. But, um, so basically it's like, you know, imagine a big mountain that splits three countries and splits the headwaters of three distinct basins. So it's like this really famous sort of important peak. And

• 37:59Alex Honnold?

  we were climbing the little peak next to it. So you can kind of see why the little peak next to it hadn't really had much action over the years.

• 38:05Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 38:06Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, because like people love Raima. And Raima has this huge history to it. And like people were doing expeditions there in the 1800s. Like people are all about Raima. Nobody cares about Wayasapu, which is the little peak next to it that we were doing.

• 38:17Rich Roll?

  And one of the things, I mean, based on what you were sharing on social media was just like how wet it was and just the condensation and the...

• 38:24Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, I mean technically we were there in the dry season, but it rained something like eight hours a day. It was like totally insane. Every day we would joke, we're like, what the heck kind of dry season is this? It's like so crazy. But...

• 38:35Rich Roll?

  Technically, was it a difficult climb?

• 38:37Alex Honnold?

  Not...

• 38:38Rich Roll?

  Or just hadn't been done?

• 38:39Alex Honnold?

  It hadn't been done. I mean, we didn't know, obviously, because it's never been done. So we climbed this sort of large overhanging wall. You kind of have to only climb the overhangs there because otherwise they're covered in vegetation and water. Which is cool. It makes the style of the climbing really fun. The rock is incredible. It's some of the best rock on earth. It's like this amazing quartzite, really hard, really solid. And then what we did for climbers is a six pitch 12B. So it's like, you know, hard enough that it's, like, it's not easy by any means, but it's not like cutting edge elite climbing either.

• 39:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 39:11Alex Honnold?

  But for an expedition like that, it's pretty, you know, it's solid. You're like, oh, we did something that we're proud of.

• 39:16Rich Roll?

  Well, you were there a month. Did he find his frogs?

• 39:18Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, he did.

• 39:19Rich Roll?

  Did you get the frogs sorted out?

• 39:20Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, so, um, yeah. So Bruce, uh... So actually, he probably doesn't want too much said about it because I think he's gonna publish it all in scientific journals and things. But basically, he left the jungle with many, many specimens. Like, he had glass jars full of specimens. And then he'll take them back to his university and do a DNA sequencing on all of them to see whether or not they're a new species, whether or not they're related to existing things, just basically to break it all down. But he was personally focused on the frogs, but he also took many other creepy crawlies of interest because, basically, anything... The thing with where we were is that no one's ever been there before. So there's been, like, no science done. Because there's the rainforest approach to get into the mountains, but then between

• 40:05Alex Honnold?

  the rainforest and the actual mountain, which is, say, 3,000 or 4,000 feet higher, there's a big, steep, long hillside, which is sort of the cloud forest. Which is like, if you imagine, like, stunted, kind of gnarly trees growing over the talus field, like, the rocks that would have been below the cliff. It's like a whole different ecosystem. And so no one had ever been through the cloud forest at all in this area. So potentially, anything that he found there alive, you know, could be new to science.

• 40:32Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 40:33Alex Honnold?

  So, you know, I think he cast a pretty wide net in terms of collecting specimens because, like, anything could be new and it could all contribute to scientists' understanding of that biome.

• 40:42Rich Roll?

  Wow. So did you have to, like, bushwhack in and were you camping out in there the whole time? Like, how difficult was it to actually just even get in there?

• 40:50Alex Honnold?

  Dude, bushwhacking does not begin to describe the whole... Like, yeah, the cloud forest, we called it the slime forest because it's like, it was really interesting. I read a couple of books about sort of natural history of Guyana while we were there because, you know, it's the tropics, so it's dark from 6:00 PM to 6:00 AM every day. And we were staying in hammocks the whole time. There's nothing like, there's no flat ground. Basically, the whole trip, there's no flat ground. So you're always just rigging your hammock between trees. And so I was in my hammock for like 12 hours a day, basically, reading books and like, you know, learning and stuff. It was kind of fun.

• 41:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 41:24Alex Honnold?

  But it was, it's just wild. I mean, the cloud forest... There's no, there's no soil. It's like it rains so much that it washes away soil. And this is particularly true on the summits of the Tipuis, like on top of the wall that we were climbing. It rains so much that any kind of earth gets washed away. So you wind up with plants just stuck to the rock itself. And then that means, because there's no soil, it means that the plants all have to get their nutrients in other ways. So the summits of Tipuis have some of the highest rates of carnivory in plants. Like, you know, the plants all eat insects and things. Or they're like big, like teacup type things where like things will fall into the, the water collecting the bottom and drown and then rot. And then the plant will like absorb the, the, you know, the, uh, the material, basically.

• 42:09Alex Honnold?

  It's, it's just like this crazy landscape.

• 42:10Rich Roll?

  So like crazy plant kingdom out of like, you know.

• 42:12Alex Honnold?

  I'll show you some pictures. Totally insane. Totally insane. Yeah. And, and also the highest rates of endemism on earth, like endemic species, like species that are unique to that specific place. Because these Tipuis are so isolated from the jungle below, like because they're like a 2,000 foot wall, let's say, sticking up out of the jungle. The summits are a totally different climate, basically, than the area down below. Because it's higher, it gets higher UV exposure, more rain, harsher conditions. And then the summits have been separated from the jungle below for like 40 million years or something because of the erosion and, and the way it winds up being an island. So it means that all the species have been diverging for 40 million years.

• 42:51Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 42:51Alex Honnold?

  I don't know.

• 42:52Rich Roll?

  So it's like, it's sort of like a last vestige Galapagos type situation where it's a, it's like a Petri dish for studying.

• 42:59Alex Honnold?

  No, exactly. It's exactly like the Galapagos. I was about to say, welcome to the Ritual Science Podcast. I was like, super, I got super into it on the trip.

• 43:07Rich Roll?

  We were gonna talk about mindset.

• 43:08Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, exactly, exactly. I'm like, let's talk about biomes. No, it was, um, it was a crazy trip.

• 43:14Rich Roll?

  I mean, a month is a lot. I like, if you, I mean, you did that one climb, but like, what were you doing for the rest of the month?

• 43:20Alex Honnold?

  Dude, I read a lot of bugs. And like, it's so grim being in the hammock, uh, for, I mean, you know, it's one of the things you're like, oh, you're in a hammock. But like, my hammock had a puddle in the bottom for like the, the whole time we were at the wall, basically. Because, because we're in the cloud forest.

• 43:33Rich Roll?

  You're just waiting, you're just, you're waiting for an opening?

• 43:35Alex Honnold?

  No, uh, we were just toiling away. You know, takes a long time to get to the wall and because we are filming, you know, because it's a TV project, everything's a little bit slower because obviously you have to wait for cameras and there's just more equipment to move around and it's an incredibly difficult environment to move equipment around in because you're like literally crawling through roots and vines and things, you know, that's what we call the slime forest because you're basically like climbing up this lattice of roots and like shriveled little tree trunks, but like I was saying, because it's kind of a difficult environment, it's not like the plants are like rooted in soil. Most of the plants are growing on other plants. So it's like there'll be a tree trunk, but the tree trunk is like covered in moss. And then their little parasitic flower is growing out of the tree trunk as well. And then,

• 44:18Alex Honnold?

  you know, it's like, there's all kinds of like epiphytes, like it's like plants growing on other plants. And so it's just like this crazy dense like wall of life, you know, and you're just like crawling through it. It's like not an easy place to get around. You know, it's not like, oh, I'm walking on a flat trail. It's like so grim.

• 44:35Rich Roll?

  Are there predators or?

• 44:36Alex Honnold?

  No, there aren't that many living things actually, or aren't that many animals because the whole place is like pretty tough, actually. You know, we saw birds, we saw, apparently we saw sloth droppings at the wall. So there were sloths there, I guess. But we didn't see that much, you know, most things come out after dark, like the frogs come out after dark. You know, we heard lots of things, I mean, tons of spiders and snakes and all kinds of things like that, but but nothing, you know, nothing like exciting. When you think of the jungle and you're like, oh, monkeys all over. It's like just not that kind of scene because we were kind of in like Alpine jungle, you know, like up high towards the base of the walls. It's all like a little bit more inhospitable than than like a tropical rainforest.

• 45:21Rich Roll?

  Well, as somebody who's so environmentally conscious and environmentally minded, like to visit a place like that where it's just bursting with life in a way that you just don't see. You know, that's almost impossible to see, right? Like what a unique, cool experience. When you come back from that, I mean, I know you just got back, but that's got a, you know, kind of land is a meaningful experience in terms of like how you think about all the advocacy work that you're doing with the foundation, like this is what's It's at stake, right? Like they've they this this protected place is what is, you know, at risk.

• 45:52Alex Honnold?

  Yeah. So you mentioned the my foundation, the Holland Foundation. Actually, this year we funded like the last year. We funded this project called Car Solar, which does solar powered boats in the Amazon.

• 46:04Rich Roll?

  I saw that.

• 46:04Alex Honnold?

  In Ecuador. Oh, yeah, you saw that.

• 46:06Rich Roll?

  I read your I read the annual report.

• 46:08Alex Honnold?

  Oh, cool.

• 46:08Rich Roll?

  It's very professional.

• 46:09Alex Honnold?

  I love I love how, speaking of professional, I was like, man, you sure do your your homework. No, but so part of the reason I was excited about this trip to Guyana and like climbing this wall was because, you know, we had just funded this project in in the Amazon. And I was kind of like, oh, that's interesting. And a big part of that that project, Car Solar, was that by keeping transportation costs on on rivers low, like basically by enabling boats to navigate these rivers easily without, you know, with low fuel costs, basically solar powered boats with an electric motor. It prevents the the need to cut roads through the jungle. And and it was interesting because, you know, we did exactly that. We basically flew to the most remote airstrip

• 46:49Alex Honnold?

  and then took a whole day in a dugout canoe up this river, which was totally insane. It felt like an amusement park ride because there's so many big logs that fall over the river that you're constantly ducking and like, you know, avoiding vines. And and each time you go, your boat barely makes it under some log, you know, all kinds of things like fall into your boat. And then there are like spiders all over the boat and like, you know, there's just so much life and it's so crazy. But, um, you know, I was like, this is exactly the type of project that we were supporting through the Holland Foundation is like making sure that this type of transit is economical and and and functional, so that you don't have to cut roads through places like this. Because, you know, rivers really are the primary means of transit through that whole, like, you know, basically all of the upper half of South America.

• 47:33Alex Honnold?

  You know, it's like they're just there's so much water. I've never been somewhere where it rained so much. There's just water everywhere.

• 47:38Rich Roll?

  Dry season, though.

• 47:39Alex Honnold?

  Dude, it's crazy, crazy.

• 47:41Rich Roll?

  Well, those boats are really cool. Like, they're like these low slung, super-long canoes, and they're just tiled with solar panels.

• 47:49Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, solar on top.

• 47:50Rich Roll?

  And you're kind of like, what, like the ghost boat or something like that?

• 47:53Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, yeah. I forget.

• 47:54Rich Roll?

  Because they're silent, you know? There's no, there's no, you know, like, motor that you would, you know, or the smell of the gasoline that you typically hear.

• 48:01Alex Honnold?

  And more importantly, you don't have to import the gasoline or the diesel or whatever, because in these super-remote villages, to get gasoline in there to power your boat, you know, first it has to fly in one or more small flights and then take other boats, you know, before you even get to the villages at the very end of the rivers, basically.

• 48:18Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 48:19Alex Honnold?

  You know, so it means that the cost of gas in those communities is incredibly high, because it's really hard to get gasoline there. So when you can do something like a solar-powered boat, it's just a lot more economical option.

• 48:30Rich Roll?

  So how many boats now are outfitted with solar?

• 48:32Alex Honnold?

  I actually don't know. The Carcelar Project, I think they built a couple. It was not quite a demonstration project, but I think it was like, you know, they were creating this new idea, basically. And I think, you know, moving forward, they'll just keep building boats as, you know, demand dictates.

• 48:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, it's cool, the work that you're doing with the foundation. I mean, the last time we talked was at that event in Denver, that Rivian thing, where it was, it was kind of an announcement about the project that you're doing in Puerto Rico, creating this community organized and operated, micro-solar grid, using like batteries from the Rivian trucks, right? As like solar cells, which is pretty cool. So let's talk about that a little bit. Like, what an amazing project, this town, you know, overridden by the hurricane, has no power. I mean, how did you even find like Arturo and like the people to like make that happen?

• 49:29Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, it was, it was, that's one of the projects I'm most proud of through the Hana Foundation, because it's just such an interesting and potentially transformative project. But so, just for context, it's in Edhuntas in Puerto Rico, which is kind of the center of Puerto Rico, which is pretty hard-hit by the hurricane. And basically because it's sort of in the center of the island, it was cut off. You know, transmission distribution lines for power were sort of severed for a long time. So you wind up with the whole city, you know, off the grid for like months after the hurricane. And so sort of just as luck would have it, that that community has this community organization called Casa Pueblo, which has already done sort of environmentally focused community organizing for many years,

• 50:09Alex Honnold?

  like opposing a big mine in the middle of the country and a couple of other sort of like environmental advocacy type projects. And they've always embraced solar, like Casa Pueblo's always had solar on their own facility. And so after the hurricane, they became sort of this energy oasis in the middle of, you know, an otherwise blacked out town. And so I think that's a big part of why there's such community buy-in in Edhuntes, you know, because they had months where there's basically one structure in the whole city that has power, and it's Casa Pueblo, and it's because they embrace solar. And so, so there's tremendous community buy-in and combined with the fact that utility rates are really high. People are basically paying way too much for their power anyway, so they're really open to other solutions.

• 50:53Alex Honnold?

  And so Casa Pueblo is looking to institute a microgrid in the whole city center. So basically, all the main businesses downtown could go onto a microgrid and sort of separate from from the utility. And the executive director of the Hono Foundation reached out to him because she heard about his work.

• 51:10Rich Roll?

  Dory.

• 51:11Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, Dory, Dory Trimble. She's incredible. But, um, so she reached out to Casa Pueblo and was like, oh, we'd love to help support this project. And then we wound up wrangling Rivian, which is a personal sponsor of mine, the electric truck manufacturer. They offered to supply the the batteries for storage for the project, because half the microgrid is being able to store the energy that you. And then that's basically how it all came together.

• 51:34Rich Roll?

  Right. It's pretty cool. Like what was really cool was hearing. RJ, the founder of Rivian, talk about how they've created this battery technology such that when the car has run its course and people are done with it, or whatever, they can pull the battery out and then they can repurpose it for this very thing, right? To like, power these grids.

• 51:54Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, that's exactly, and that's an important part of the Rivian design, because some electric cars haven't really designed their batteries with the second life applications in mind. They just make the cheapest battery they can, and then when it's done, it just kind of gets shredded. So I think that when you go into the design process with the intention of using the batteries for something else useful after their life in the car, that's an important... And really, that should be a design principle for all products, thinking about what happens to it when it no longer...

• 52:23Rich Roll?

  Especially when the mining, the minerals and every... I mean, it's so intensive now, and the environmental impact of that is so traumatic for the planet.

• 52:32Alex Honnold?

  But the thing that, I think, the thing that, the biggest like, personal thing from the Atjuntas project, I don't even know what you call it, but like, the thing that struck me the most from the microgrid in Atjuntas is that when you're in Atjuntas and you're in the city center, it's like a classic sort of plaza, like what you think of, you know, small-town America or something with the city square. You know, it's like this bustling town center. There are tons of cars, tons of people. It's like, you know, it's the center of this whole community. And to power the whole thing, it's something like eight Rivian truck batteries. And so if you think of it as eight trucks, are we going to power that whole downtown? When you're standing in the downtown and you look at how many cars are around you, there are like hundreds of cars, you know, like parked on both sides of the street, you know, bumper to bumper going around the square. It's like crazy. It's

• 53:17Alex Honnold?

  super dense, you know? And you're like, man, eight of those can power the whole thing. It's like, pretty striking, actually, because, you know, Rivian, like, I think Amazon has already pre-ordered 100,000 electric delivery vans from Rivian, maybe even more now.

• 53:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that was a big deal, right? Like, that's like a huge part of Rivian's business, is going to be powering the Amazon fleet.

• 53:38Alex Honnold?

  Totally. But so, 100,000 electric delivery vans, and you think that, you know, all of those will be, you know, sort of phasing out in 10, 15 years. And it only takes eight of them to power this whole city center in a way that's like transformative for the community. You're like, when you multiply that out, you're like, man, that's a lot of communities that could be positively impacted in that way. So that's kind of the exciting opportunity for the Hono Foundation, I think, is to help establish sort of a pipeline for Second Life batteries and potentially implement more microgrids like this around, say, the Caribbean or something.

• 54:11Rich Roll?

  Right. I mean, I suppose we should say, you know, you created this foundation, what, like, three years ago or something like that?

• 54:17Alex Honnold?

  No, no, I made it like in 2012 or something, but it's just been, it's been a slow...

• 54:21Rich Roll?

  It's kind of hit this stride in the last couple of years.

• 54:23Alex Honnold?

  And a big part of that is hiring the executive director, Dory, who's actually very smart and is, because for many years, it was just a way of me personally donating money. And so I would just, you know, donate some money, it'd be split into, let's say, two grants to two different organizations and like, that's it. And then in the last three or four years, sort of since Free Solo and the whole crazy movie tour, it's really become like much more of its own organization.

• 54:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it started as your own personal effective altruism experiment.

• 54:49Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, no, exactly.

• 54:50Rich Roll?

  And then it's become institutionalized. I think you guys, you donate like 1.3 mil, you had like 1.3 million in revenue?

• 54:58Alex Honnold?

  Almost a million this year.

• 54:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you donated, like, 87%, like, a really high percentage of what came in, like, went directly to projects.

• 55:05Alex Honnold?

  Yeah.

• 55:06Rich Roll?

  And you've picked solar as the primary focus, at least for now.

• 55:10Alex Honnold?

  Yep.

• 55:11Rich Roll?

  So I have lots of things I want to say about that, but maybe explain, as somebody who's very, you know, environmentally literate and has spent a lot of time studying environmentalism, thinking about it, why have you, like, why is solar the primary focus right now?

• 55:29Alex Honnold?

  So when I started the foundation, you know, like you said, it was just my way of sort of trying to affect, you know, effective altruism. So I was basically just looking for any kind of, well, I guess, you know, starting in the beginning, I think that the most important issue facing humanity is climate change, or sort of environmental degradation more broadly, let's say. And at the same time, I think there's no point in... Trying to solve environmental problems that don't also improve quality of life, that like help the human populations that in in the area. Because, you know, I've been on enough expeditions to various parts of the world where you see communities that, you know, like they'll cut down the last tree, you know, on earth if it means boiling water for their family to like keep their kids safe and things like that.

• 56:10Rich Roll?

  And the solution can't be premised on us all being martyrs.

• 56:14Alex Honnold?

  No, exactly. That's the thing is like, and anywhere you go in the world, and it's funny because, you know, we're talking about Guyana, like we were just hanging with these, all the Amerindian folks, like deep in the interior, like basically, you know, Native Americans for South America. And, uh, you know, a bunch of the villages, they're living super traditional lifestyles. It's like, you know, basically just still practicing slash and burn agriculture, cultivating cassava. It's all, you know, as it has been for for thousands of years to some extent. And they're all like, we want direct TV, you know, and you're like, you don't even have power, like there's no grid, there's no, there's no cell service, there's no connectivity, there's no transportation, you know, they have to take a boat for a day to get to the closest town, you know, there's, it's like so disconnected and they're like, when's the direct TV getting here? And you're like, I think it might be a minute, you know, like, you're like, first you gotta,

• 56:58Alex Honnold?

  like, there are a lot of things, like first you need a metal roof, you know, like you need to be able to keep stuff dry, you know?

• 57:03Rich Roll?

  Plumbing.

• 57:04Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, totally.

• 57:04Rich Roll?

  General electricity.

• 57:05Alex Honnold?

  And so, so, you know, I've been on enough trips like that where, where you realize that they're really humans all over earth, you know, even if they're actively trying to preserve their, their traditional lifestyle, like they still want, you know, refrigeration, they want access to medicine, they want communication, like pretty much all humans want some degree of material comfort in their life. And, and that's only fair, you know? It's like, you know, I want to be relatively comfortable, I want, you know, climate controlled, at least to some extent, you know, I want like flooring, you know, it's like, I want to not get parasites, things like that, like I want access to clean food and water. And so, you know, I think that when you focus on environmental issues, it's important to also sort of focus on equity issues of like, well, humans, like all humans should be entitled

• 57:49Alex Honnold?

  to, to certain standards of living. And so I think that if you're trying to solve environmental issues without also focusing on the equity side, like making sure that all humans, you know, are, are equally able to take care of themselves, uh, you know, basically it's just not fair to, to not do those both at the same time. And so that sort of informed the initial projects from the HONOC Foundation is like looking for environmental projects that also improve standard of living, that like helped helped folks. And over the years, we basically always wound up choosing solar projects because they just often are the most elegant solutions to those kinds of problems. Where it's like, good for the environment, good for people, you know, clear win-win. And then after several years of supporting a bunch of different solar projects, we were

• 58:34Alex Honnold?

  like, we should just make this explicit. Because at a certain point, you know, you may as well focus on what you already know and what you're kind of good at. And I just, I just think solar is such an obvious solution to many human problems.

• 58:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, the sun is shining down and beating us with, you know, all kinds of power that we can utilize if we can figure it out. And, you know, what's problematic about that, I mean, it seems like it's easier to implement a solar solution in a developing country than it is in the United States. Like, solar has been so problematic and tricky to get implemented in houses across America. This is like, Bill Maher talks about it all the time. Like, every, every show, he has like a countdown. He's been trying to get solar at his house for like, you know, years. And he's like, it's day 1,000. And there's all these like regulatory hurdles. Like, we've had a couple of companies come out to our house and do like an evaluation.

• 59:30Rich Roll?

  And there's always some reason why it was just ridiculously expensive or way too complicated.

• 59:35Alex Honnold?

  I mean, because-

• 59:36Rich Roll?

  I just feel like it should be easy. You know, it should, my point, my, my larger point is like, why isn't it just like super easy to get this done?

• 59:43Alex Honnold?

  It is, I mean, I don't know, I think a lot of that is personal experience and depending on your home. Because, you know, I've put solar on a couple of, well, a bunch of homes now through the foundation and then, but my own as well, and it's like, super easy.

• 59:52Rich Roll?

  Is it?

• 59:53Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, I mean-

• 59:54Rich Roll?

  I need to talk to you about who I should be calling.

• 59:56Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, totally. I mean, I've done most of that stuff remotely, too. Where like, my home in suburban Las Vegas, I was actually on a climbing trip in Wyoming at the time, living in the van. I basically made some calls, people went to the house, they installed solar, turned it on, all worked fine. I was like, never even involved, you know, I just wired money online, I was like, totally chill.

• 1:00:14Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 1:00:15Alex Honnold?

  I think a lot of that just has to do with- You know, where you live and how difficult the system is and things like that. But, but either way, I mean, in general, it's not that hard in the US. And I mean, and you see that because rates of solar adoption are steadily increasing. You know, it's all sort of exponential growth. It's like, seems to be doing pretty well.

• 1:00:33Rich Roll?

  Right, all right. Well, I need to revisit this then.

• 1:00:36Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, you should, because also the cost of panels has been exponentially dropping to the point that nowadays, you know, the panels themselves aren't even the most expensive part of the install anymore. It's like the actual labor and like the racking, you know, the like the other things, like everything else that goes into installation.

• 1:00:52Rich Roll?

  Right. So what are the, what are the projects that you want to be, you know, working on? Like, what's the next, you know, level of what you're trying to accomplish?

• 1:01:01Alex Honnold?

  Well, so we actually just closed our latest open call for what we call the Core Fund Grants, which are sort of like the interesting, like we were talking about Carcelar, the Ecuadorian Amazon solar boat project. Things like that come through the Core Fund, which are basically like grants around the world for interesting solar projects. So the latest round, you know, we'll probably fund, you know, 10-ish projects like that. But we got, well, we got hundreds of applications and of those, we probably had about 50 or 60 that are legitimately good applications, but we can only fund the top 10 or so. So really, there's tons of incredible ideas and good projects out there. It's just a matter of having enough money to actually, you know, implement them all, which, which, you know, we've, as you said, I mean, you know, we gave away a million

• 1:01:46Alex Honnold?

  dollars this, this year, which for me personally counts as tremendous success, you know, because when I started the foundation, it was me donating 50K a year of just my own money. So to see, you know, 20 times the impact as when I started, I'm like, oh, that's awesome to do 20 times more work. That's great.

• 1:02:02Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:02:02Alex Honnold?

  But then also knowing that we could have a $10 million budget and still, I think 10 probably actually would pretty much fill all the things that we're seeing right now. But, but you know, there are like hundreds of millions of dollars worth of good projects out there that could be done.

• 1:02:17Rich Roll?

  Right. There are. Individual changes that we can all make to live more sustainably. And then there are kind of institutional, social changes that we need to see move forward in order to really kind of affect the problem, the existential crisis that we're facing. And, you know, those personal changes can be, you know, everything from composting to your diet and where you buy your clothes and all that kind of thing. One of the things that you said in some article or something, someplace you wrote this, I believe, that I hadn't really thought a lot about, but is so obvious, which is like, where are you banking?

• 1:02:55Alex Honnold?

  Hmm.

• 1:02:55Rich Roll?

  Right?

• 1:02:56Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, I wrote not bad about that.

• 1:02:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah, like, talk, talk a little bit about that.

• 1:02:58Alex Honnold?

  Yes, and actually, I'll talk about that, but then I also have some things to say about personal choice like that also, because, so, so banking is pretty much the, the number one thing that you can do for personal impact, which is funny because it's so much less satisfying than like changing your diet, let's say, because it's less obvious. But the thing is, wherever you bank, you know, they're using your money the whole time that it sits in whatever account, you know, like you put it into an account and then they're investing it in things, they're spending it, they're like using it, basically. And so, you know, a famous example is like Wells Fargo with the Dakota Access Pipeline or something. But in general, every bank, you know, every major bank in America is supporting both sides of the political aisle, they're making political donations, they're, you know, investing in

• 1:03:39Alex Honnold?

  fossil fuels, like basically, if you're using a mainstream big bank, it for sure is doing stuff that you personally wouldn't do. You know, whether you're on the left or the right, it's like your bank is for sure doing stuff that you wouldn't want it to do. And so, you know, the solution there is to, to bank with, you know, nonprofit credit unions, things like that, like local banks, smaller scale banks, like just bank with a, with a, with a bank that's not going to be, you know, investing in like fossil fuel infrastructure and things like that, that you might not personally support.

• 1:04:09Rich Roll?

  Right. Is there a resource where you can go online and get like somebody who's done like a consumer reports on this where there's like a

• 1:04:16Alex Honnold?

  I'm not sure.

• 1:04:17Rich Roll?

  house of like seeing what all the banks are doing?

• 1:04:20Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, I'm sure there is.

• 1:04:21Rich Roll?

  There must be.

• 1:04:21Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, there must be. So my sister, actually, many years ago, before I started my foundation, before I started any of this stuff, she gave me this book called The Better World Shopping Guide, which I think is out of print now, but at the time was this incredible resource where for any consumer product, including banking and things like that, you could flip through and basically see all brands listed from A to F. And it was, and it was eye-opening for me at the time because I realized I could go to the grocery store, look at breads, and see two different breads on the shelf, same price point, same basic quality, except one, you know, is basically actively supporting the type of world that I want to live in, you know, like paying its employees good living wages and like, you know, providing maternity leave and things like that. And the other is like ruthlessly exploiting its workers

• 1:05:05Alex Honnold?

  and, you know, degrading the earth. And it's the exact same product. And you're kind of like, well, obviously I should support the one that, you know, makes for a better world. And so, yeah, The Better World Shopping Guide, my sister, she signed it for me and said, "For Alex, in case you ever start giving a shit, love, Stacia." Like, it's a pretty classic, you know, because especially when I was younger, I was just all a little more like hardline, you know, I was just so focused on climate.

• 1:05:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah, look at you now. You're all about it. Yeah.

• 1:05:32Alex Honnold?

  Well, but that's, that's the interesting thing about like the long gradual, you know, awakening. Like, you just learn more and you start to care more about it and then, you know, yeah, and it's sort of virtuous cycle.

• 1:05:50Rich Roll?

  Well, that keys into something I think you wanted to talk about, which is like this personal choice thing.

• 1:05:55Alex Honnold?

  Yeah. No, so it's funny because I've sort of come full circle on this a little bit because obviously I care a lot about personal choices. I went vegetarian because, you know, or like sort of aspirationally vegan, basically, partially because I'm lactose intolerant, partially because, you know, basically just it's a much lower impact for, for diet. You know, I changed my banking, I've, you know, changed all kinds of lifestyle things in an effort to minimize my, my personal impact on Earth. And even starting the Hana Foundation was to some extent to know that I personally was doing as much good as harm, you know, because just by living and traveling to climate and all that, like, obviously, I'm having a negative impact on the world. And so I'd like to think that I'm doing as much good as, as harm. But now I'm sort of coming back around to where I feel like the whole,

• 1:06:40Alex Honnold?

  you know, onus on personal choice has been, been sort of foisted upon us by outside forces. You know, it's like basically industry telling us like, you should think about your choices, rather than have the industry regulated in a way that's appropriate. You know, because even if, and actually COVID has been an interesting measure of this, because even with travel lockdowns for the whole world for the last year, you know, global emissions have only dropped, you know, seven or 10% or something like 7%. I mean, that's still barely in line with Paris Accord type things. And so if you think that all of human society has fundamentally changed for the last year, and we're still barely hitting the numbers that we pledged to meet for the latest round of climate accord, you know,

• 1:07:23Alex Honnold?

  negotiations, you're kind of like, that's crazy. You know, I mean, it just shows the scale of, yeah, it shows the scale of real change that has to happen. And that kind of thing only happens with policy, because it's one thing for individuals to like, choose the right product all the time. But it's another thing to just make sure that all the products have to be made well to begin with. You know, I mean, like, limiting pollution in different ways.

• 1:07:42Rich Roll?

  But policy is also a reflection of popular sentiment, right? Like, if, if people are thinking harder about their personal choices, and that becomes more important, then culture reflects that, and society become, or, or policy becomes a downstream kind of reflection of that. Like, you need both.

• 1:08:01Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, yeah, you do need both, but it's basically like, that's like a chicken or the egg sort of thing. And I'm sort of arguing that I think that it's probably easier to lead with policy changes. You know, like, in the US, you know, the adoption of electric cars and things like that, and like, basically, public transit and changing transportation models, you know, transit accounts for like, a third of our, our carbon emissions. And so, you know, it's like an area ripe for change. An easy way would just be to basically put a tax on gasoline, or something like that, basically, on, on carbon emissions. And that would drive all kinds of changes in consumer behavior, you know, rather than just hoping that individuals will go out and like, buy a Prius, or like, buy a Rivian, or whatever, you know, it's like,

• 1:08:42Rich Roll?

  It's tricky, though, man, when you have legislators who are beholden to their constituents and the lobbyists that are well-funded to push a certain agenda on behalf of a sector of the economy. And that's why these things move at a glacial pace. And I feel like voter pressure on our legislators is so important. And that's why you do need to kind of take these personal choices to heart and make them known, so that there is that pressure.

• 1:09:14Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, I agree with that.

• 1:09:16Rich Roll?

  But I know what you're saying. I mean, it's like, you can't move the needle on like, I'm gonna go vegan and this is gonna solve the problem.

• 1:09:21Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, exactly, exactly.

• 1:09:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:23Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, I mean, you going vegan is a good step, for sure. But it's like,

• 1:09:28Rich Roll?

  It's good, the impact is tiny.

• 1:09:30Alex Honnold?

  Farmers in Brazil will still be cream cutting the Amazon.

• 1:09:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:09:33Alex Honnold?

  You know, it's like...

• 1:09:33Rich Roll?

  But there's a symbolic power. Like, you as somebody who so many people look up to, and you have a lot of people that follow your lead and all of that, like, there's meaning in these choices that you're making, because there's a downstream impact on how everyone else is gonna think about those choices.

• 1:09:47Alex Honnold?

  A little bit, but I still think that...

• 1:09:49Rich Roll?

  I know you get a lot of shit, though.

• 1:09:51Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, well, that's whatever. I mean, the thing is, you get a lot of shit no matter what, you know, so it doesn't totally matter. And while we're talking about getting a lot of shit, like, it's not like I'm just advocating for gas tax, because I know that kind of thing is super nuanced, because in a lot of ways, that's regressive, because it affects lower-income folks way more than hiring. And that's not totally fair, so it has to be very finely executed. You know, it's like, yeah, I get all that. I'm just saying that I think that starting from the policy side can potentially have bigger impacts in the world. You know, individual choice is great for individuals that have the bandwidth to think about it. You know what I mean? And like, I have plenty of free time, I can read books about the environment, think about it. But like, the vast majority of Americans, you know, like, if you're working

• 1:10:35Alex Honnold?

  a minimum wage job, like, you are not going home and reading books about the environment to like, think about minimizing your footprint.

• 1:10:40Rich Roll?

  Sure.

• 1:10:40Alex Honnold?

  You're like, you're struggling, you know, like, it's hard. Basically, so I think that putting the responsibility on the individual is sort of...

• 1:10:50Alex Honnold?

  You know, most individuals are never gonna have the time to think about like they don't have the luxury to reflect on that.

• 1:10:55Rich Roll?

  Of course, of course. And it's not, it's not, it shouldn't be their responsibility when they're just trying to survive, of course.

• 1:11:00Alex Honnold?

  Yeah. Like in an ideal world, when you go to a store or something, every product would be justly made, you know, like fairly manufactured with no pollution and like no externalized costs and all that. And that's kind of the world that I think most of us would like to live in, you know, like you would like to think that anything you buy will not be, you know, exploiting child labor in other parts of the world or something like that.

• 1:11:20Rich Roll?

  It is like an arms race though, because I do feel like we're, we're moving into an economic culture in which people really do care about those kinds of things. And it's incumbent upon these corporations to be transparent about their supply chain and how they treat their workers and the like. And, you know, the, the average consumer, if given the opportunity to think about it for a minute, is gonna make the better choice. Like, we're good people and we all want a better world. But, but these changes are glacial, you know, they're so, right? And we're running out of time.

• 1:11:51Alex Honnold?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:52Rich Roll?

  So, short of massive sweeping policy change, like do you, and as somebody who has spent, you know, I know this past year you've gone down the rabbit hole on a lot of this stuff. Like, like, do you, are you optimistic? Like, where's your head at in terms of like, how are we doing?

• 1:12:08Alex Honnold?

  I mean, I'm, I'm personally always pretty optimistic. Like, I'm, and, you know, even I think, you know, optimism and pessimism aside, I think that a realistic assessment of, of global climate, or basically a realistic assessment is that my personal lifestyle will probably be fine regardless. You know what I mean? Like, I'm lucky enough that, that I go climbing all the time and, you know, if like impact, like climate impacts affect me, I can move to other places. And, you know, and so, I don't know, I mean, that's kind of the, and that's the real thing about climate change is that for most of us, like, it's not gonna, it's not gonna affect us personally.

• 1:12:46Alex Honnold?

  You know what I mean? Like, anyone listening to this podcast basically is comfortable enough that they're not gonna be the ones that suffer from, from the effects of climate change. It's like, you know, subsistence farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa, you know, that have crushing drought and then have crop failures and can't feed their families, you know what I mean? But like, that's so far removed from our reality that it seems to be like, oh, you know, we don't even know what that is, so we're not stressed about it. I don't know. So, I mean, yeah, I'm optimistic that, that humanity can sort of confront and, and solve some of these problems. But even if we do move too slowly and it doesn't really work out, you know, I'm also sort of recognize the fact that, you know, like realistically, my life will probably play out along a certain path regardless.

• 1:13:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:30Alex Honnold?

  You know, which, which is incredibly unfair, which is a big part of why I started the Haunted Foundation and things like that, because it's like.

• 1:13:37Rich Roll?

  Are you, are you, do you think you guys are gonna have kids?

• 1:13:39Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:13:40Rich Roll?

  Yeah. That changes like how you see all this stuff.

• 1:13:43Alex Honnold?

  Oh, yeah. You mean, because you worry about the world.

• 1:13:45Rich Roll?

  Right, when you just, you start thinking, yeah, you just, your perspective is tweaked.

• 1:13:49Alex Honnold?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:50Rich Roll?

  But the thing is, like, you know, your lane is solar right now, but that's an example of technology that currently exists to solve these problems. Like, most of these problems, we have the ability to solve now.

• 1:14:02Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, no.

• 1:14:03Rich Roll?

  It's really about, it's about political will.

• 1:14:04Alex Honnold?

  Exactly.

• 1:14:05Rich Roll?

  Like, you read Drawdown, and it's like, here's all the things.

• 1:14:07Alex Honnold?

  Exactly, exactly.

• 1:14:08Rich Roll?

  You know, if we just do all these things, we're good. And it's like, why can't we just do them?

• 1:14:11Alex Honnold?

  No, that's exactly.

• 1:14:12Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 1:14:13Alex Honnold?

  I know. And that's like probably the most frustrating thing about reading environmental books is that you're like, oh, all the solutions are here. It's like a buffet of solutions. Like, Drawdown is a literal buffet of solutions.

• 1:14:22Rich Roll?

  There's so many, yeah.

• 1:14:23Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, there's so many.

• 1:14:24Rich Roll?

  Let's just do five of these.

• 1:14:25Alex Honnold?

  Totally, totally. And so many of them are just such obvious, and, and that's my thing with solar, is it's like an obvious win-win. You're like, this is such a clear solution to certain problems. And like in Drawdown, one of the biggest, you know, climate impacts we can have is women's education around the world.

• 1:14:38Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:14:39Alex Honnold?

  And you're like, well, that seems like an obvious thing regardless. You know, like, climate aside, even if you don't believe in climate change, you should definitely believe in educating women, you know? It's like, that's like basic fairness.

• 1:14:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:49Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, we're both like, oh, sigh.

• 1:14:52Rich Roll?

  I know, well, you know, it, it is frustrating because, because there is a ticking clock here. And you say, like, yeah, your lifestyle probably won't be that changed, but, you know, if you live in Miami, or you live in, you know, like, the low-lying areas of, of, you know, Southeast Asia, like, this is, this is a very real threat to you.

• 1:15:13Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, though, even, uh, last year in California, you know, the wildfire season was so crazy because of drought that, you know, and, and I think this kind of... I don't know, like I had an experience, um, my family has a place in, in Tahoe that I like grew up going to this like cabin in, in Tahoe. And last summer, the wildfire smoke was so thick across the lake that you couldn't see the other side of, of Lake Tahoe. And, uh, at one point I saw this like party boat coming into shore. That like a big like tug almost like tons of people on it, like partying on the boat. Like, I don't really know what was going on. But I sort of joking, it was like, oh, look, it's climate refugees like escaping because it's like, it looks like the ocean and it looks like a barge.

• 1:15:52Alex Honnold?

  You know, and it's like the kind of scene that you expect to see in, in, uh, Southern Europe, you know, with like folks like fleeing North Africa or something. Yeah, exactly. Like fleeing to Italy. And, you know, I was kind of like, it's kind of tongue in cheek. But then I was like, this is kind of true, you know? It's like, cause all these folks in California.

• 1:16:07Rich Roll?

  The sky's on fire.

• 1:16:07Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, the sky's on fire and people were bailing out of the Bay Area to try to come to the mountains, but then the mountains are on fire. You know, cause the Bay Area was like crazy fire this year too. And, uh, you know, I don't know if this will wind up mattering in the world, but it is interesting when effects of, of climate change start to be felt closer to home. You know, it's like when you can't spend a summer in California, people are like, what the heck? Like, that's crazy. You know, especially, you know, I spent my whole life, uh, spending summers in California and kind of like, that's a first, you know, that's kind of unprecedented.

• 1:16:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I lived, I've lived here for, I don't know, 25 years. And the fire season, when we had the big fires down here and had to get evacuated, it was bananas.

• 1:16:51Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, it's crazy.

• 1:16:51Rich Roll?

  You know, I've gone through fires, plenty of fire seasons. That was completely another animal altogether.

• 1:16:57Alex Honnold?

  Especially when you, when you consider that, I mean, fires are a natural part of the, the life cycle, the forest. You know, it's like when you're in the Sierra Nevada, you're like, yeah, this is natural and it should be fine. And yet, you know, the sky has blacked out for, for almost a month in Tahoe this summer. It was totally insane. And you're like, that's not natural. Like, that's totally, that's craziness.

• 1:17:17Rich Roll?

  A different thing.

• 1:17:20Rich Roll?

  Switching gears a little bit.

• 1:17:22Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, totally.

• 1:17:23Rich Roll?

  How much more can we dig into this?

• 1:17:26Alex Honnold?

  Dude, I could talk about it all day.

• 1:17:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah, no, I, I, yeah, like, I could too.

• 1:17:30Alex Honnold?

  It's like, super depressing, but also, you know, super important. You're like, this is probably the most important issue.

• 1:17:35Rich Roll?

  We need to be talking about it, you know? And if that just moves the needle with one person, that's a win, you know? What else are we doing here? What's the point of doing this stuff? We talk about climbing. You are in a unique situation, though, because you did this crazy climb, like, you know, how do you? And, and your life is kind of devoted to iterative, you know, difficulty, like continuing to put yourself in difficult situations and master those. But, you know, it's hard to trump freestyle and LCAP. So like, you know, what are you gonna do? Like, how do you find? Like, how do you shift gears and find meaning in a different way in this thing that you do? I mean, you've kind of already answered it. You're doing all these other things.

• 1:18:19Rich Roll?

  You've devoted your life to these environmental causes. Like, you live a very big life that is providing meaning, not just for yourself, but for a lot of people. But it is, you know, just from the pure, like, athlete mindset, like, how do you get jacked up about, like, another adventure? When you've climbed a mountain, you know, you've literally climbed the mountain.

• 1:18:37Alex Honnold?

  Yeah. No, that's, that's a totally fair question, and I think it's taken, I mean, you know, I freestyled LCAP, I think, in 2017, and the tour was in 2018. And so it's kind of taken me a year and a half. But, um, but really, this season is sort of the beginning of, like, a real fire, or like, real hunger for, for challenging things again. And so, I mean, you're right that nothing will ever trump LCAP, like, nothing, nothing will be better than, than LCAP. But, um, you know, but there's still some other things that are pretty cool that I'm excited about.

• 1:19:06Rich Roll?

  The world's a big place.

• 1:19:08Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, exactly. And, and actually, a couple of things I'm excited about right now are just at home, like, projects in Red Rock, which is a climbing area outside of Las Vegas. And, uh, you know, I mean, sometimes you just get inspired by certain things, and you're like, this seems crazy and really hard, but then you're like, I think I could do it. And then you're like, can I do it? And then you have to find out if you can do it. And then, and, and really, that's like, the, the whole joy of the process is the finding out, like, well, can I do it? Like, is it crazy? Let's, let's find out.

• 1:19:33Rich Roll?

  Right. Am I right in thinking that before COVID hit, you were thinking of doing the Seven Summits?

• 1:19:39Alex Honnold?

  Yeah. Though that, I mean, I still would like to in my life. That's not like a, um, that's not really like a big climbing goal.

• 1:19:46Rich Roll?

  Right. I mean, that's a whole different kind of thing.

• 1:19:48Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, I mean... For me, that stems largely, like, I don't know if you ever read the book, The Seven Summits by Dick Bass? He was the first person. He was a, he's kind of a non-climber. He owned Snowbird back in the day. He's like a businessman. I think he may have been in oil or something, but, um, but I think he was like a Texas businessman or something. But he just got this like wild idea that he wanted to climb the highest points on earth. And, uh, so he was guided on him. And this is like before it was a thing and people did it. Anyway, it's a great book. It's kind of like classic adventure writing. And, you know, I read that many, many years ago and was like, that's awesome. Like, you know, I'd like to do that in my life. And now it's a little bit weird because Seven Summits is so commercialized that, uh, real climbers kind of thumb their nose at it. Like, that's not cool. I'm like, I still kind of want to, you know?

• 1:20:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:30Alex Honnold?

  But, um, but that's not, that's not a, like a rad climbing project. That's just like a personal, I'd love to do that in my life, but we'll see how it plays out, you know?

• 1:20:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, for what you do to not like climb the seven tallest mountains, like, why wouldn't you do that?

• 1:20:44Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, I've climbed, uh, climbed a lot of other mountains. But just, this is not a...

• 1:20:48Rich Roll?

  What do you think when you see, you know, remember when those images, uh, were coming through from Everest? And it was like the, you know, like there were just so many people up there and it's like a traffic jam and...

• 1:20:58Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, yeah, it's crazy. No, I, I find that somewhat distasteful, you know? I'm just like, oh, basically that's just not the experience that I'm seeking in the mountains. And especially on, on Everest in particular, there, there are ropes going the whole way up. So everyone's just like clipped into a rope the whole way. And somebody else has put those ropes up for them. And so, you know, I personally have sort of mixed feelings about like outsourcing the risk and the challenge of climbing. Like, I don't want to pay somebody else to put the rope up for me. You know, it's like, if I can't put the rope up myself, I probably shouldn't be climbing it. You know, and not to say that that's a standard that, that all people should, should hold, you know? Cause, uh, you know, I'm sure, and, and I think climbing Everest is really, really hard regardless. You know, I think that even if you are just following the rope that somebody put, it's still quite difficult.

• 1:21:43Alex Honnold?

  You know, it's a challenging physical experience. But, um, but I don't know. I just feel like if I want to go up there, I want to like actually climb something.

• 1:21:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:52Alex Honnold?

  Are you gonna climb mountains?

• 1:21:54Rich Roll?

  I don't think so.

• 1:21:55Alex Honnold?

  Why not?

• 1:21:55Rich Roll?

  I don't think that's my thing, man.

• 1:21:56Alex Honnold?

  But you could.

• 1:21:57Rich Roll?

  It doesn't, I don't, it doesn't, I mean, I could, but I

• 1:22:00Alex Honnold?

  You've got the engine for it.

• 1:22:01Rich Roll?

  I don't feel the pull, I don't feel like the allure.

• 1:22:03Alex Honnold?

  You don't care about getting on top of things?

• 1:22:05Rich Roll?

  It doesn't like, that's not my thing. Like, I wanna go like in the ocean and swim down.

• 1:22:09Alex Honnold?

  Oh.

• 1:22:10Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 1:22:10Alex Honnold?

  That's not my thing.

• 1:22:11Rich Roll?

  Or swim across. But I don't think about going up that much.

• 1:22:15Alex Honnold?

  Hmm.

• 1:22:16Rich Roll?

  It's different, you know? I went climbing a couple of times with some friends and I was like, I don't think this is for me.

• 1:22:21Alex Honnold?

  That's fair.

• 1:22:22Rich Roll?

  It was weird, you know?

• 1:22:23Alex Honnold?

  But mountaineering though might be a

• 1:22:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:25Alex Honnold?

  Like, cause that's basically like ultra running.

• 1:22:27Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:22:27Alex Honnold?

  Like trudging up hills as long as you can.

• 1:22:29Rich Roll?

  I like the idea of, of all these like FTKs that these guys, you know, like Killian's running up these mountains and seeing how fast he can do it. Like, I, I just like the idea of like creating your own adventure like you're doing in Red Rock. Like, here's this thing, we have all of this here, like, we don't need some, you know, like, race or event. Like, let's just figure it out.

• 1:22:49Alex Honnold?

  One of the things I'm playing with this season is a traverse of the entire range in Red Rock, which is like this, actually, as the crow flies, it's probably only like 10 or 15 miles like linearly, but you're going up and over all these different peaks. And so, I haven't quite pieced it all together yet, cause it's incredibly complicated, route finding and climbing and, and I'm, I'm climbing classic climbing routes and then downsoiling other climbing routes and like going up and down to tag the different summits, but also do a bunch of good climbs. But, um, it's coming in at like 25,000 feet of vertical or something.

• 1:23:17Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 1:23:17Alex Honnold?

  Um, it's like a really, really big traverse. And, uh, you know, we'll see if I manage to do it and how exactly it shapes up. And I'm like, what an adventure, you know, to like leave your house and then just climb this entire skyline that you can see from, from anywhere in town.

• 1:23:31Rich Roll?

  It's similar to the thing you did with Tommy Caldwell though, right?

• 1:23:35Alex Honnold?

  Exactly, yeah, it's really similar.

• 1:23:35Rich Roll?

  Like 17 peaks or something like that and like 20K of

• 1:23:39Alex Honnold?

  Something like that. Yeah, actually, it was funny because with these really long and technical rock climbing traverses, it's actually hard to quantify the, the vert and like the numbers, because GPS doesn't really work when you're climbing vertical routes. You know, like when you're doing sheer vertical walls, your GPS will like ping you, ping you all over the place, so it like messes up all the numbers. So I don't know, have you had that experience? Like if you go up really steep hills with GPS.

• 1:24:03Rich Roll?

  I don't go, I don't go up hills that steep, steep enough to do that.

• 1:24:06Alex Honnold?

  It like, because basically GPS doesn't really work on a vertical plan.

• 1:24:10Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:24:10Alex Honnold?

  You know, it's like more for like horizontal. But, um, and then the thing I did with Tommy last summer in Rock Mountain National Park, wound up taking us like 36 hours. So all of our devices died anyway, because your batteries don't last that long if they're tracking.

• 1:24:23Rich Roll?

  Wasn't there like a, you missed a drop off or somebody, something happened and you had like no lights at night and stuff?

• 1:24:29Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, we had, well, more importantly, we had no pants. So we were like at 13,000 feet in running shorts all night. And it was, uh, it was pretty character building.

• 1:24:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah. What has Tommy been up to? He's like your main, he's like your main guy, right? Like he's like your go to adventure.

• 1:24:43Alex Honnold?

  He's one of my best adventure partners for sure. Um, actually, I just climbed with them last week, like the day I got home from, from the sex position in Guyana. Uh, Tommy just happened to be in, in Las Vegas, uh, climbing something. So we managed to sneak out for a day. But, um, he, he's been doing some home repair. He's like, doing some, he's doing a plumbing project on his house. Hasn't been climbing that much this winter. But, uh, but he's always, he's just such an incredible climber that, you know, even relatively off the couch, he's just like, you know, he's done it his whole life.

• 1:25:12Rich Roll?

  And are you, um, doing back to the environmental stuff? Are you doing another podcast like with the Washington Post?

• 1:25:19Alex Honnold?

  With that, uh, I'm not sure. There's nothing official that I might be, and I might be, uh, yeah, basically interviewing, uh, environmental leaders or sort of scientists about climate change, I think. Which if it happens, uh, I'd be pretty excited about, but honestly, sort of intimidated because, you know, as you know, most podcasting is just chit chatting with people. You, you rarely have to know a subject super well.

• 1:25:41Rich Roll?

  But the thing is, you don't have to hold yourself out. You like, they'll be so excited to talk to you and they know that you're not, you know, a PhD in whatever it is that they are. And so they'll explain it to you.

• 1:25:52Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, but don't you.

• 1:25:53Rich Roll?

  And you're trying to be a cipher for the audience anyway.

• 1:25:55Alex Honnold?

  That's true. But you still feel like you should have enough of an understanding to at least ask interesting questions.

• 1:25:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but you read books. You'd be fine.

• 1:26:01Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, we'll see if that, uh, I don't know.

• 1:26:05Rich Roll?

  Speaking of that, like on this, this deep dive that you did this past year, like what have you, what have you learned that you didn't know, like before COVID, when it comes to the environmental stuff?

• 1:26:14Alex Honnold?

  I don't know. Um, that's an interesting question. I mean, so on this trip in Guyana, I just finished this book, Energy and Civilization. There's like, Bakalov smells like this super dense tome about sort of the progression of different energy systems in, in human civilization.

• 1:26:28Alex Honnold?

  And it was interesting. I mean, I think that book gave me an appreciation of how long and slowly the transitions between energy systems are, you know, basically like going from, you know, human power to like the introduction of the steam engine to, you know, coal fired to eventually, you know, oil, like full on fossil fuels. It's just like each transition takes quite a long time. And it's given me an interesting perspective, I guess, on like our current transition to renewables and what, you know, what that will take. And one of the interesting things I got from the book was that, um, you know, every transition has been powered by the, the previous fuel, let's say, you know, so

• 1:27:11Alex Honnold?

  like the transition to coal use is like, you know, powered by, by steam engines.

• 1:27:17Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:27:17Alex Honnold?

  And whatever else.

• 1:27:18Rich Roll?

  You're reliant on the, the.

• 1:27:20Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, the previous energy model. And which is funny because that's a common criticism of renewables. It's like, oh, well, it's, you know, all based on fossil fuels. And you're kind of like, well, yeah, because any transition is going to be based on the, the previous system, which I found slightly heartening in a way, because I've always found it like, you know, it's a little bit of a bummer that like to build, you know, uh, wind turbines, let's say, you have to, uh, mill a bunch of steel and like that steel is all being powered by, you know, those plants are all being powered by fossil fuels. And so you're kind of like, is it even worth building wind turbines if it's all, if all the raw materials behind it are being mined and, and milled through fossil fuel extraction? And you're like, is that worth it? You're kind of like, yeah, I mean,

• 1:28:02Rich Roll?

  It's like a necessary evil of iterating to the next thing.

• 1:28:05Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:28:05Rich Roll?

  I mean, that's a big thing with, with the electric cars, right? Like who's powering the Tesla grid? Like what's the carbon footprint of that? Like it's massive.

• 1:28:14Alex Honnold?

  Though that though, I mean, when you do the math on it, even if it's all powered by coal, it's still better than, than a internal combustion engine car. So, you know, it's like. Yeah, it's still a step in the right direction. But I think the takeaway with all those, you know, sort of the messy technical questions of energy transitions, like you still have to take these small steps in a different direction if you're ever going to get anywhere.

• 1:28:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:37Alex Honnold?

  You know, it's like if you're hoping to decarbonize the grid or like to change energy systems, it's like you have to start taking some steps.

• 1:28:44Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 1:28:44Alex Honnold?

  You know, even if they're not perfect, even if it's not 100% uh you know, correct, like you have to at least move in a direction.

• 1:28:50Rich Roll?

  And appreciation that these things take time.

• 1:28:53Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, no, totally. I mean, it's not that removed from like athletic performance, you know, it's like if you want to get better at something like you have to just

• 1:28:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:00Alex Honnold?

  put in the days like grinding away, you know, training, it's like

• 1:29:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:03Alex Honnold?

  you know, some days you suck and you just keep grinding away at it and eventually, you know, hopefully eventually you do something that's actually meaningful.

• 1:29:09Rich Roll?

  Have you gotten your Rivian truck yet?

• 1:29:12Alex Honnold?

  No, no.

• 1:29:12Rich Roll?

  What are those, when is he gonna start shipping those things?

• 1:29:14Alex Honnold?

  In June, I think.

• 1:29:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:16Alex Honnold?

  I just got an email that was like configure your preorder, blah, blah, blah.

• 1:29:20Rich Roll?

  I figured it's gotta be getting close because RJ started posting a lot, like taking the trucks out and like, yeah, and I was like, oh, they must be getting ready because like it's been underground for a long time.

• 1:29:30Alex Honnold?

  No, it's happening there.

• 1:29:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:31Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, I just configured my preorder.

• 1:29:33Rich Roll?

  Oh, you did?

• 1:29:34Alex Honnold?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:34Rich Roll?

  It's pretty cool what they've done. So they took over like they took over like an old, I don't know, Nissan factory or something like that, like outside of Chicago and like, like just retrofitted the whole thing and made it like sustainable and brought in like amazing chefs and like used materials from the area to like, you know, like recyclable materials and like wood that was like in the vicinity to build the whole place out.

• 1:29:59Alex Honnold?

  Totally.

• 1:29:59Rich Roll?

  And turn, did you, have you been to the factory?

• 1:30:01Alex Honnold?

  I haven't been in the manufacturing plant. I've been to the headquarters, which is outside of Detroit, sort of classic auto manufacturer, you know, but no, no, it's, it's super. I mean, when I went to the headquarters for the company outside Detroit, it was like full on vision of futurists. It's like kind of what you would expect from like a new, you know, technological startup started happening. I was like blown away.

• 1:30:24Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:30:24Alex Honnold?

  I had this VR experience there where I was like in a room and I put on like a VR headset and then basically like sampled. An assortment of their like futuristic ideas, you know, like, like concept vehicles. But you could like walk around the space with a VR headset and like interact with their concept vehicles. And I was like, totally blew my mind. I was like, I was like, is this Star Trek? And I was like, it's like, where am I? And you know, and classic, like, nice new facility with, with a, you know, it's like just clean and well lit and like classy with like electric trucks all over. And I was like, this is so.

• 1:30:56Rich Roll?

  Right. Like not what you think of Detroit being in the, in the auto industry.

• 1:31:00Alex Honnold?

  No, I was like, this is the future for sure.

• 1:31:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's cool. Have you done, have you done any VR stuff around climbing?

• 1:31:07Alex Honnold?

  Um, actually I'm supposed to be doing a VR project this year. Um, like filming in the next month and then something in Europe.

• 1:31:12Rich Roll?

  That's cool.

• 1:31:13Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, I think it actually has the potential to be really cool, but we'll see.

• 1:31:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I had, um, I had this guy, Michael Muller in here, who's a big photographer.

• 1:31:22Alex Honnold?

  With the shark stuff?

• 1:31:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah, the shit, yeah, so.

• 1:31:24Alex Honnold?

  His VR shark thing.

• 1:31:25Rich Roll?

  Yes, it's insane.

• 1:31:27Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, it totally blows your mind.

• 1:31:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:28Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, he actually, he showed me the same thing and you put on, you're like, oh, oh, it's like pretty mega.

• 1:31:33Rich Roll?

  Right. And they're using it for like PTSD in people, like not just like an experience, but like also, no, to like help with people's fear responses.

• 1:31:41Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:31:42Rich Roll?

  It's pretty interesting. And so I was just imagining like that in the climbing context, like somebody who's afraid of heights or like that's their big thing.

• 1:31:50Alex Honnold?

  I think if someone's afraid of heights, they probably should not watch my VR experience. I think it might be a bit much.

• 1:31:55Rich Roll?

  I know.

• 1:31:55Alex Honnold?

  The, yeah.

• 1:31:56Rich Roll?

  But, um, but you know, listen, to have that, like somebody who's not able to ever have that kind of, somebody who's in a wheelchair where there's never going to be able to have that experience to be able to like.

• 1:32:06Alex Honnold?

  Totally.

• 1:32:06Rich Roll?

  Feel what that feels like.

• 1:32:08Alex Honnold?

  Or even, or even just a gym climber who's just realistically never going to go to some of these places. Like the, the guy that I'm, I'm working with on the VR experience, um, shot an Everest VR piece, I guess three episode, uh, you know, basically he goes to the summit of Everest in VR. And I found it incredibly immersive and rich in a way that I did not expect because, you know, I've read tons of books about Everest over the years. And then to actually be in it in VR and to be able to look around and like interact with the landscape, I was like, this is so much better than all the books I've read. I was like, this is crazy.

• 1:32:41Rich Roll?

  That's the future. I mean, those experiences are going to be ubiquitous in the next five or 10 years.

• 1:32:46Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, I mean, like wearing noise scans and headphones with a good headset with like high res, really good, uh. You know, not too like jerky and I mean, like, obviously, the technical side of it will only improve.

• 1:32:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:57Alex Honnold?

  And you're just like, it's just so.

• 1:32:58Rich Roll?

  It's getting there. It's like, it's still not quite there, but I feel like they're right on the precipice of it just being.

• 1:33:04Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, I've always felt like it wasn't quite there. And then I watched the VR experience and I was like, this is pretty there.

• 1:33:09Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:09Alex Honnold?

  And that's kind of what inspired me to feel like it was worth.

• 1:33:12Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:33:12Alex Honnold?

  Shooting a VR piece.

• 1:33:14Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:33:14Alex Honnold?

  So I was like, even if the current headsets aren't perfect, you know, someone will be able to use that footage on on better models soon.

• 1:33:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:22Alex Honnold?

  It's all, it's it's pretty incredible.

• 1:33:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's cool. It's cool. So when you do that, then, like, if you, so if you're gonna produce that, you gotta get up on some wall. And then you have, like, some kind of headset with cameras all around it. Like, how do they do that?

• 1:33:35Alex Honnold?

  It's the, um, it's the opposite. So the idea is that the subject like climbs through the frame. So the camera is fixed in a certain place and it's like full 360 camera, you know, crazy VR setup. And then the climber climbs through the the frame.

• 1:33:48Rich Roll?

  I got it.

• 1:33:48Alex Honnold?

  Um, and that's to apparently to minimize motion sickness, because if the subject itself is the VR focus, like, like, basically, if you're wearing a VR headset and everything's moving around you, you get incredibly motion sick. But if, when you're wearing the headset, you feel like you're in a stable place and you're able to control the vision and like, look around. And then you can just see someone doing an action in your frame, then it makes you way less sick.

• 1:34:10Rich Roll?

  I see.

• 1:34:11Alex Honnold?

  But.

• 1:34:12Rich Roll?

  But how would they do that on a big wall? Like, I guess.

• 1:34:14Alex Honnold?

  A lot. It's it's it's hard work.

• 1:34:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I would imagine.

• 1:34:16Alex Honnold?

  You have to, like, rig a separate rappel line, you know, near the route, fix the camera to the wall, like, near the climbing route. And then sort of center the camera so that you're looking at the climber as the climber goes up the wall.

• 1:34:27Rich Roll?

  The camera remains static?

• 1:34:29Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, but the camera remains static.

• 1:34:30Rich Roll?

  It seems like they could do some stuff with drones, too.

• 1:34:33Alex Honnold?

  No, no, it's too shaky.

• 1:34:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:35Alex Honnold?

  And, uh, and the point is for the camera to stay totally static. Because ideally, I think for the viewer, you, they wanna be in like a swivel chair or something. Or like, standing in a room where they can fully move around at their own pace and the way they want. And there'll be something happening in the frame that's like the movie.

• 1:34:50Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:34:51Alex Honnold?

  But they can also just not watch the movie and just look behind them and like, look at the view the whole time.

• 1:34:54Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right. But I think with the Mueller stuff, it was him, you're, it's his point of view. Like, someone outside of the cages and all that.

• 1:35:01Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, yeah, different deal.

• 1:35:02Rich Roll?

  So.

• 1:35:03Alex Honnold?

  But maybe that's also why his felt so traumatic to me is because it's like, makes you vaguely motion sick and like, it's all kind of crazy.

• 1:35:08Rich Roll?

  I think the trauma might have something to do with the fact that he swims outside of a, of a, of a cage and he's with great whites.

• 1:35:15Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, yeah, I do.

• 1:35:16Rich Roll?

  It's unbelievable.

• 1:35:18Alex Honnold?

  No, I think the climbing stuff that we'll be shooting is sort of the other end of the spectrum where it's like more expansive, broader views. You know, a lot of it is about putting somebody in a position that they could never see. Like the Mueller shark stuff feels very like intimate and tight. You know, you're like, oh my God, the shark's about to eat me. It's like super close and seems scary. I think the climbing footage is more about being in a spectacular place and having a super broad vistas.

• 1:35:42Rich Roll?

  I got it.

• 1:35:42Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, where you can like see the world around you and then also witness somebody climbing something totally spectacular.

• 1:35:49Alex Honnold?

  Unless we get a great white to make a cameo.

• 1:35:53Rich Roll?

  Combine these two worlds.

• 1:35:55Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:35:55Rich Roll?

  Two in a day.

• 1:35:56Alex Honnold?

  Shark climbers.

• 1:35:58Rich Roll?

  You're in a, speaking of production, you're in LA, you're doing like Leno's Garage.

• 1:36:03Alex Honnold?

  I get, yeah.

• 1:36:03Rich Roll?

  What is that about?

• 1:36:05Alex Honnold?

  I honestly don't know. I just do what I'm told, you know, I do.

• 1:36:07Rich Roll?

  They're like, we want you to be on the, so you're gonna go to like his warehouse and like see all his cars?

• 1:36:12Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, I think, I think Jay Leno's Garage is where he like chats with people about their cars. And I think he's a car collector, right? So he has all kinds of interesting.

• 1:36:18Rich Roll?

  He's kind of a car collector. He's got like multiple warehouses, like hundreds of cars.

• 1:36:23Alex Honnold?

  Whoa.

• 1:36:24Rich Roll?

  Like cra- he has one of the craziest car collections in the world. Yeah.

• 1:36:27Alex Honnold?

  Well, so I know nothing about cars and I have my scrappy van.

• 1:36:31Rich Roll?

  That's why I find this so interesting and hilarious.

• 1:36:35Alex Honnold?

  But I think there's something to be said for talking about, you know, the utility of cars. Like, because basically I don't care at all about my car, but I care about what it allows me to do and the life that it allows me to lead. You know, like being on the road and being able to climb full time. And I'm sure that, or let's hope that that's a useful perspective for his show. You know, where I'm like, oh, it's not so much about the car, it's about what I get to do with the car.

• 1:36:54Rich Roll?

  Right. He's got all these crazy antique cars, like steam powered engines and all this wild stuff. And he, like every weekend, there's this spot that's not far from where I live, where a lot of like motorcyclists and car enthusiasts like go. It's called the Rock Store. It's like a little bar cafe or whatever. And it's like right where all these windy, cool, like canyon roads are. So he like drives past my house like every weekend. And if you're just at the right place at the right time, you'll see him, but it's always like some completely crazy car. Yeah, you know, that like shouldn't, I'm like, is it even legal to drive that thing on the road? You know, like stuff like that. So I'm sure it'll blow your mind.

• 1:37:33Alex Honnold?

  No, no.

• 1:37:33Rich Roll?

  But I'm just like curious, like what that conversation is gonna be like.

• 1:37:36Alex Honnold?

  We'll see, we'll see. I think, I think I might be taking him climbing too or something.

• 1:37:40Rich Roll?

  Oh, okay. There you go.

• 1:37:41Alex Honnold?

  See how it all plays out.

• 1:37:42Rich Roll?

  Right on.

• 1:37:43Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, I'm psyched.

• 1:37:44Rich Roll?

  Out in Burbank somewhere.

• 1:37:45Alex Honnold?

  I know, well.

• 1:37:46Rich Roll?

  Or like a climbing gym?

• 1:37:47Alex Honnold?

  I think Stony Point. It's like a kind of historic climbing area, like north here.

• 1:37:51Rich Roll?

  Oh, that's cool.

• 1:37:52Alex Honnold?

  But we'll see. I don't know. Like all things in my life, I'm like, I don't really know. I'll just show up and see how it goes. I'll just have a good time.

• 1:37:59Rich Roll?

  Alex, you have a say in these things.

• 1:38:02Alex Honnold?

  Maybe. It's easier not to, you know?

• 1:38:04Rich Roll?

  Just, just.

• 1:38:05Alex Honnold?

  Like honestly, my whole life, it's like easier to just go with, go with the flow with it. And you're like, cool, it's all a crazy adventure. I'm just on the ride and see how it plays out.

• 1:38:13Rich Roll?

  During the whole Free Solo craziness, did you ever max out and just be like, I can't, I need like a break, like I gotta get out of here?

• 1:38:21Alex Honnold?

  I think I skipped one event. Like in the whole Free Solo film tour, which was like six or eight months of like nonstop scheduling, sometimes two events in two different cities in the same day, like something in Chicago and something in SF on the same day, which is like pretty rugged when you got the flights in between everything. I think in the whole tour, there was one event that I was supposed to go to that I was just like, I just can't. And I think I went to the climbing gym instead.

• 1:38:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:46Alex Honnold?

  And, uh, and it was only because either Jimmy or Chai, um, the co-directors like took it over for me, like they did the event for me that night or something. But, you know, I felt like it was pretty solid. But then funny enough.

• 1:38:58Rich Roll?

  You showed up with a smile on your face. I felt, I mean, just from what I saw, you just, you've completely were a hundred percent present for it.

• 1:39:06Alex Honnold?

  Well, that's the thing is I knew it's like a once in a lifetime adventure. You know, if, if you, instead of looking at it as like this heinous work experience, if you look at it as like, this is a crazy adventure that, you know, I'll tell my grandkids about, like the one time I got to sample the movie star life.

• 1:39:19Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:20Alex Honnold?

  You know, then, then it makes it not that bad because it's, um, I kept calling it my deployment to Hollywood, you know, because I think of people being like deployed overseas for six months. And it, it did kind of feel like that because it was a totally different world, totally different scene. You know, I'm being taken places by car service and I'm like, I don't use a car service. You know, like, I'm not used to having like a fancy SUV sitting out front waiting for me to like whisk me to a hotel. But I'm just like, I'm just going with it, you know? I'm, I'm doing what Brad does, Brad Pitt or whatever. I'm like, whatever.

• 1:39:48Rich Roll?

  I loved, uh, I loved how North Face made a tuxedo for you, which was pretty cool. Is that where you got married? Did you get married in the same tux?

• 1:39:57Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, same tux. Yeah, classy. And funny enough, the formal wear stuff like that actually does get more comfortable if you wear it more. You know, because I've only ever worn formal wear like once and you're like, oh, it's so starchy and painful and like not that nice. And then if you wear them a couple of times, you're actually like, yeah, it starts to break down.

• 1:40:13Rich Roll?

  I'm breaking out the tux once a week.

• 1:40:14Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, totally.

• 1:40:16Rich Roll?

  For the deployment.

• 1:40:17Alex Honnold?

  Dude, at the Oscars, the tux was like so tight and crisp that I felt like my nipples chafed. Like in the way that you read about that, like with marathon runners, you know, like if you're running 20 miles in the rain or whatever, that like you start chafing weird ways.

• 1:40:30Rich Roll?

  You got a, you had an injury at the Oscars.

• 1:40:33Alex Honnold?

  Totally. I was like, oh, like I feel like I sandpapered my nipples with this like starched shirt. I was like, this is heinous.

• 1:40:39Rich Roll?

  I'm sure you had some surreal conversations with people.

• 1:40:42Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, I know. Yeah, Sony too, like my now wife had a, who was it? Who won Best Supporting Actor, I think for like Green Book or, I forget his name.

• 1:40:56Rich Roll?

  Viggo Mortensen?

• 1:40:57Alex Honnold?

  No, his co-star. Yeah, Mahershala Ali. Yeah, Mahershala Ali. He was like walking by and basically like said hi to me and then was like turning to introduce himself to Sony or something. And she was like holding little like appetizer pizzas in both hands and fully just threw it on the floor and was like, so great to meet you. So, you know, like had this really like nice moment with him, like where she was like so charmed. And then, you know, he wandered on, he had this whole entourage with like a crew. And then as soon as he walked away, Sony's like cleaning up her pizza off the floor fully like, you know, but it was like, this is my chance to meet Mahershala. So it's like, just like food on the floor and hello, so great to meet you.

• 1:41:32Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:41:33Alex Honnold?

  You know, just things like that. Like it's just fun.

• 1:41:34Rich Roll?

  I love, I love that, well, the story that I heard, and maybe it's apocryphal, was that Jason Momoa was, was going to be giving out the award, but it was like he wanted to be, if Free Solo was going to win, then he wanted to be the one to like say it, because he's like, he's your climbing buddy and all that.

• 1:41:52Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, he's a serious climber.

• 1:41:53Rich Roll?

  So it was pretty cool that he was the one who did it.

• 1:41:55Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, he was psyched. He was genuinely like gave her really big hugs and super psyched.

• 1:41:59Rich Roll?

  He seems like a good dude.

• 1:42:00Alex Honnold?

  Dude, yeah. I mean, you know, I only met him briefly through the tour, but super nice guy. And he has like, Really legit climbing.

• 1:42:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, he has climbing walls at his house. And so we went to his house and like climbed with

• 1:42:11Alex Honnold?

  he and his family. And I was like, you're really strong for a very big man.

• 1:42:15Rich Roll?

  He's huge.

• 1:42:16Alex Honnold?

  He's so big.

• 1:42:17Rich Roll?

  Like, how do you climb when you're that big?

• 1:42:19Alex Honnold?

  Well, you just have to be really strong, apparently. I belayed him in the climbing gym. And it was fully like, it's like scary to catch him on the other end of the rope because he's so much bigger than me that I was like, I don't know what's gonna happen.

• 1:42:30Rich Roll?

  Like, I can't hold this guy up?

• 1:42:32Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, no, I mean, I, you know, obviously I caught him, but I like shot like a, you know, a cork out of a bottle, just like shooting up when I caught him. I was like, whoa.

• 1:42:38Rich Roll?

  So exciting. I heard this interview that you did with Anderson Cooper not that long ago. And he was, he was super into like, hearing about, like, your mindfulness practice and how like, climbing is sort of like meditation in that it forces you to be so present with your environment. And it wasn't until you were extracted out of that environment and deployed to Hollywood that you were, that you actually had to like reckon with that, like, and realize, like, that's part of what I miss about it. And you had to like, create a practice around mindfulness and meditation to kind of ground yourself through the whole thing.

• 1:43:13Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, I got into the, the waking up app, if you know that, like Sam Harris, like meditation thing. But, um, but I can't remember if I talked about it with Anderson Cooper or not. But, um, recently, I kind of abandoned the app and abandoned meditation. So I was like, I just don't know if I actually need that. Like, now that I'm climbing full time again, outdoors all the time.

• 1:43:29Rich Roll?

  You're doing the thing. You get that in a different way. But most people, you know, are like, they're not living that lifestyle.

• 1:43:35Alex Honnold?

  Totally. Well, I think for me personally, I was like, I don't know if I need to practice less attachment, you know, or like, or like be less, because like, I already give.

• 1:43:44Rich Roll?

  That's not your malfunction.

• 1:43:45Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, exactly. Like, that is not my problem.

• 1:43:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:47Alex Honnold?

  You know, and I was like, if anything, I need more reasons to like care more to like, get amped up more, you know? And I was like, I think the time that I spend meditating could almost be better spent listening to like, heavy rock and like, thinking about climbing projects and like, getting psyched. So I was like, if anything, I need to be more amped, you know, like.

• 1:44:04Rich Roll?

  You could create a counter programming app.

• 1:44:06Alex Honnold?

  Well, yeah, yeah, totally.

• 1:44:07Rich Roll?

  For the too mindful people out there.

• 1:44:09Alex Honnold?

  Well, I'm not saying I'm too mindful. Yeah, because, because definitely in the. Yeah, I mean, I'm far from like any actual mindful practice like. I mean, a lot of it, you know, I found just as challenging as anybody else to like stay.

• 1:44:25Rich Roll?

  The activity is what gets you into that headspace.

• 1:44:28Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I just find that, you know, hiking like being, I spend a lot of time by myself in nature and beautiful places, just kind of like wandering and in my own thoughts. And I'm like, you know, I think, I think that works enough for me. Like, I just don't know if I need to consciously spend time during my day during that, doing that same thing.

• 1:44:47Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:44:47Alex Honnold?

  And like, I could just do it, you know, through outdoor exercise, basically.

• 1:44:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah, fair enough, man.

• 1:44:53Alex Honnold?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:54Rich Roll?

  I think that's a good place to end it.

• 1:44:56Alex Honnold?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:57Rich Roll?

  Lay down. Yeah, cool. You can climb up the wall that on the roof of the building if you want.

• 1:45:03Alex Honnold?

  I might be able to. I'll have to go look outside.

• 1:45:06Rich Roll?

  Yeah, nice. Well, have fun with Jay.

• 1:45:08Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, we'll see. Just, just another adventure, you know, every day you're like, what in the usual.

• 1:45:13Rich Roll?

  It's cool. You live a cool life, man.

• 1:45:16Alex Honnold?

  Which is nice to have variety, you know, variety is the spice of life.

• 1:45:19Rich Roll?

  Yeah, man. Well, good. Come back and talk to me anytime, dude.

• 1:45:23Alex Honnold?

  No, thank you. Thanks for, thanks for me. Always a pleasure to chat.

• 1:45:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah, nice. In the meantime, check out Climbing Gold, coming into your podcast.

• 1:45:32Alex Honnold?

  If you want to listen to a less professional podcast.

• 1:45:35Rich Roll?

  I don't know. The thing I heard was super polished. Like, this is the thing, like, the new thing with, like, these, like, really highly polished documentary style podcasts, like, that's not what I do, man. I'm old school with this, so. That's what, that's, that's like, you're on the cutting edge of like, what is working and what people really like to do.

• 1:45:52Alex Honnold?

  The team that I'm working with is on the cutting edge. I am, I am far from it.

• 1:45:56Rich Roll?

  Fair enough.

• 1:45:57Alex Honnold?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:58Rich Roll?

  Um, cool. Check that out. And Alex is easy to find on the internet.

• 1:46:01Alex Honnold?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:01Rich Roll?

  Just Google him.

• 1:46:02Alex Honnold?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:03Rich Roll?

  That's it, man, right?

• 1:46:04Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, that's it.

• 1:46:05Rich Roll?

  Anything else? How do you feel?

• 1:46:06Alex Honnold?

  Just, you know, just another beautiful day.

• 1:46:11Rich Roll?

  Very good. All right, man. Peace.

• 1:46:13Alex Honnold?

  Yeah, thank you.

• 1:46:17Rich Roll?

  Thanks for listening, everybody. For links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit the show notes on the episode page at richroll.com. If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on YouTube. Sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends or on social media is, of course, always appreciated. And finally, for podcast updates, special offers on books, the meal planner, and other subjects, subscribe to our newsletter, which you can find on the footer of any page on richroll.com. Today's show was produced and engineered by Jason Camiolo. The video edition of the podcast was created by Blake Curtis, portraits by Ally Rogers and Davy

• 1:47:02Rich Roll?

  Greenberg, graphic elements courtesy of Jessica Miranda, copywriting by Georgia Whaley, and our theme music was created by Tyler Pyatt, Trapper Pyatt, and Harry Mathis. You can find me at richroll.com or on Instagram and Twitter @richroll. I appreciate the love. I love the support. I don't take your attention for granted. Thank you for listening. See you back here soon. Peace. Plants. Namaste.