It's just kind of weird helping your friend do something that you know could potentially lead to his death."
So says videographer and climber Cedar Wright, as the camera pans over a graveyard in the Mexican town of El Portrero Chico. It's January 2014, and Wright is in Mexico to watch his friend, the famous climber Alex Honnold, attempt a free-solo ascent—i.e., climbing without a rope—of a terrifying 2,500-foot limestone wall known as El Sendero Luminoso.
If all goes well, Honnold will have started the year by completing one of his most ambitious free-solo climbs to date. With Camp4 Collective on hand to document the ascent, it will also turn out to be a nice short film for The North Face.
If it doesn't go well, you'll see it on the evening news.
Free soloing is insane, and Alex Honnold, a 28-year-old from Sacramento, is one of its premiere daredevils. Frankly, the stuff is hard to watch, even if you don't have a fear of heights. (If you do, this spot certainly won't be for you.) Yet it is, of course, undeniably compelling. And it's a perfect fit for The North Face. The brand's very name evokes rock climbing, and its high-performance gear is used by top climbers. And while the risks for Honnold are obvious and very real, sponsoring him—one of the world's most daring humans—really doesn't have much of a downside.
"It felt pretty straight forward," Honnold told Outside magazine after the El Sendero Luminoso climb. "Once I started up, I was like, This is awesome. I didn't blow a single foot—like a ballerina."
The guy has no fear. While he's still with us, that's worth celebrating.
CREDITS
Client: The North Face
Production Company: Camp4 Collective
Director: Renan Ozturk
Camera: Cedar Wright
See the full credits at the end of the video
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