Joe Rogan Experience #1626 - Alex Honnold

Narrator 0:00 (drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

0:04 The Joe Rogan Experience.

Joe Rogan 0:06 Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music plays) All right. Hello, Alex.

Alex Honnold 0:16 Hello.

Joe Rogan 0:16 Good to see you again, man.

Alex Honnold 0:17 Yeah, good to see you.

Joe Rogan 0:18 What's happening? How you doing?

Alex Honnold 0:19 I'm, I'm just living. I'm doing the same stuff as always.

Joe Rogan 0:22 Just living? Crawling giant shit that freaks people out?

Alex Honnold 0:24 Yep. Yep.

Joe Rogan 0:25 (laughs)

Alex Honnold 0:25 That's, that's what I'm trying to do.

Joe Rogan 0:27 What is the, the latest? What have you been up to? I know you're doing a podcast now, right?

Alex Honnold 0:30 Yeah. No, no. I know... Do you feel a certain, uh, satisfaction about that?

Joe Rogan 0:33 I do.

Alex Honnold 0:34 Yeah, I don't know if you remember but you went off for like quite a long time and you were like, "You should do a podcast. You should do a podcast." And sure enough, so yeah, I did a podcast.

Joe Rogan 0:40 (laughs) Well, I mean, you have an interesting perspective and you have a fascinating life, you know.

Alex Honnold 0:44 Yeah. Th- they're actually, um... We don't really get into it that much. It, I, I don't actually talk about myself very much. It's, um... It was sort of leading up to the Olympics. Uh, I don't... You know climbing's in the Olympics this year?

Joe Rogan 0:55 No, I did not.

Alex Honnold 0:56 Yeah, so climbing's in the Olympics for the first time this summer, and so the podcast was supposed to be sort of a primer leading up to the Olympics. More as like a, like here is the state of the sport leading up to this singular moment in climbing. But, um, but then the Olympics got canceled last summer, well pushed.

Joe Rogan 1:11 Mm-hmm.

Alex Honnold 1:11 And so then we decided to sort of go a little deeper in backstory stuff, and so that's the first season. This basically premiered right now.

Joe Rogan 1:18 So you... Did you record them all in advance?

Alex Honnold 1:21 Uh, no, it's, it's ongoing. We've done, uh, we've done 10 of them and, uh, and now we're gonna do the ones leading up to the Olympics, like over the next, you know, four months or whatever.

Joe Rogan 1:29 So you've got kind of a structure planned out though?

Alex Honnold 1:31 Yeah. Yeah, the idea is that we wanted to... Well, I mean, you know, as you can imagine, climbing is a very broad sport, you know, starting from sort of classical alpinism in, in the Alps and, and like mountain climbing, now to Olympic climbing, where the people who win the Olympics this summer, most of them are super young and they're, they're basically like gym kids, sort of like gymnasts who just train indoors nonstop. And so the podcast is sort of an exploration of this spectrum of full adventure to full athleticism and like where climbing has moved in between. You see what I'm saying?

Joe Rogan 2:02 Mm-hmm.

Alex Honnold 2:02 Like it's, um... I don't know, because, you know, when I grew up as a... Like I, I was one of the first climbers in America to sort of grow up climbing in a climbing gym. And so that's part of the reason I wound up as a professional climber is I sort of had access to better training facilities than like the generation before me. And now we're looking at the next generation who's going to the Olympics and it's like even more of that athletic background and it's like, you know, it changes the sport. And so a big part of the, the podcast that we started was basically to, to see how it changes the sport and, and to try to, you know, save some of the best stories of climbing, you know what I mean? Like preserve some of that adventure.

Joe Rogan 2:34 Oh, that's great.

Alex Honnold 2:35 But...

Joe Rogan 2:35 What is, what are the events in the Olympics? Like how, how is it measured?

Alex Honnold 2:40 It's a, it's a combined format, so in the World Cup circuit for climbing, like there, there are already established climbing competitions in the world and normally they do three different, uh, styles, you know, speed climbing, difficulty and bouldering. So difficulty and bouldering are basically just like how high you can climb up a wall before you fall off, uh, difficulty is with a rope and bouldering is without a rope, you know, but smaller walls. And then speed climbing is naturally just how fast you can climb, climb a set course.

Joe Rogan 3:05 So the first one is how high you can climb before you fall off?

Alex Honnold 3:08 (laughs) Yeah, yeah, basically.

Joe Rogan 3:10 Really?

Alex Honnold 3:10 So you're climbing with a rope and you're climbing-

Joe Rogan 3:12 Okay.

Alex Honnold 3:12 ... say a 15 meter, well, say up to like a 50 foot wall.

Joe Rogan 3:15 Mm-hmm.

Alex Honnold 3:15 And the... They set a very, very difficult course and then everybody basically falls as they get higher.

Joe Rogan 3:20 Really?

Alex Honnold 3:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 3:21 Because it just gets to a point where no one can complete it?

Alex Honnold 3:23 You just get pumped out of your gourd, yeah. Yeah. Ideally if, if setters have done their job, then it means that the world champion or whoever wins will wind up making it to the top and everybody else will fall progressively lower.

Joe Rogan 3:34 And the world champion, if he does make it to the top, clearly someone else is gonna come along that's maybe a little bit better than him in the future-

Alex Honnold 3:43 Yeah, so...

Joe Rogan 3:43 ... and so they're gonna make it more difficult?

Alex Honnold 3:44 Exactly. They set different, they set different routes for every competition.

Joe Rogan 3:48 Oh, okay. And who... How does a route get established? Does it get established by someone like yourself who, uh, understands the difficulty levels?

Alex Honnold 3:57 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 3:57 Like, how does it...

Alex Honnold 3:58 Yeah, so there are professional route setters that do that, and so they're sort of internationally certified for competitions and, and there's a whole, there's a whole art to the route setting and that's a big part of what we explore in this podcast leading up to the Olympics is like, you know, who are the international organizing committees that choose these people and like who makes the route and like are the routes fair? You know, it's things like that. I mean, the routes are. They try to be fair. But it's interesting because in a given competition, the route setters are aware of who the competitors are gonna be, so like if one of the women is much taller than the rest, they kind of have to bear that in mind a little bit to keep the routes like kind of fair.

Joe Rogan 4:30 Oh, they do?

Alex Honnold 4:32 You know? I mean, kind of... Or at least try, you know. Or if they know that most of the... You can kind of always guess who's gonna make into finals, let's say. Say like the top six climbers, top eight climbers in the world. You have like a rough sense of who's gonna make finals and then I think you... The setters try to differentiate the finalists in some way, you know, like basically find things that, that, uh, separate their strengths and weaknesses.

Joe Rogan 4:53 Is it possible that if everyone made it to the top that they would just go on based on how much time it takes you to get to the top? Like, what would they do then?

Alex Honnold 5:01 Yeah, yeah. Um, sometimes they do like a super final. I'm actually not sure what the format is for the Olympics but they normally do some kind of super final thing where they make a harder route or they change it in some way and then eventually they, they count back on time. Or they, they also count back to semis and qualifiers, um, like whoever got higher on the previous rounds of the competition. You know, they look back at your cumulative points basically.

Joe Rogan 5:23 Right. Um, there's no drug testing in regular climbing.

Alex Honnold 5:27 No, no there is. There is. Oh, not in reg-

Joe Rogan 5:29 In the Olympics I'm sure, right?

Alex Honnold 5:30 Yeah, in the Olympics of course.

Joe Rogan 5:31 Yeah.

Alex Honnold 5:31 And in the World Cup circuit there is-

Joe Rogan 5:33 There is?

Alex Honnold 5:33 ... because actually there are a few very, uh, sort of famous stories of, of some of the best climbers in the world having World Cups taken away for testing positive for weed and stuff. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 5:42 Oh really? Weed?

Alex Honnold 5:42 Yeah, really.

Joe Rogan 5:43 Oh, no.

Alex Honnold 5:43 Well, but, uh, but just... But climbers who like don't even care, you know, they just enter the competition like... I don't know. Am I allowed to tell stories about this, Audrey? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 5:49 Everybody knows they still won. Of course.

Alex Honnold 5:52 I don't know. Am I like a classic Chris Sharma story. He was like the most famous and, and best climber in the world for a whole generation basically and, uh, he sort of won a World Cup by, by fluke, you know. He just entered and he won. It's like, yeah, because he's the best climber in the world. But then, uh, but then I think they took it away for weed. And he's like, "Well yeah, of course," you know. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 6:09 (laughs) It's so dumb.

Alex Honnold 6:10 Yeah, but I mean, not like he cares 'cause he's like, you know, he's the best in the world. It's like they take the medals-

Joe Rogan 6:14 He still won.

Alex Honnold 6:15 Yeah, exactly.

Joe Rogan 6:16 Yeah, once you-

Alex Honnold 6:16 It's like-

Joe Rogan 6:17 ... win, you win, you know?

Alex Honnold 6:18 Yeah, I mean, that's-

Joe Rogan 6:19 This is... I mean, it's not like he's taking steroids.

Alex Honnold 6:21 When, uh, a couple Spanish competitors had, had like a medal taken away for, uh, testing positive for cocaine, I think.

Joe Rogan 6:27 Really?

Alex Honnold 6:28 And, and I mean, he, he had some kind of statement about the, uh, using it to relieve the stress of the heavy training volume, all that kind of stuff, you know?

Joe Rogan 6:35 Mm-hmm.

Alex Honnold 6:35 Basically, he's like, "Oh, it was just partying on the side." And you're, well, yeah, obviously, it's not performance-enhancing. (laughs) You know? It's like, that's recreational, like, on the side of his training.

Joe Rogan 6:42 I wonder what would be performance-enhancing, other than, like, anabolic steroids. Like, what would be performance-enhancing for climbing? Would it be something that makes you hyperfocused, like, uh, Ritalin or something like that? Or...

Alex Honnold 6:55 I, I honestly am not sure. Um, I mean, if there were drugs that vastly improved your recovery, that probably would be performance-enhancing 'cause it would allow you to train at a higher volume.

Joe Rogan 7:06 Right.

Alex Honnold 7:06 But, but even anabolic steroids, I'm not sure if they actually help for climbing 'cause it's so much about strength-to-weight ratio.

Joe Rogan 7:10 Right.

Alex Honnold 7:10 And then, and I've heard that, um... And I don't know if this is true, but, um, that some steroid use affects tendons and ligaments. Like, you wind up with, like, damage to connective tissue.

Joe Rogan 7:19 Well, it does generally, uh, at least is... I'm not really an expert, but what, uh, it's been explained to me is the muscle tissue gets too strong for the tendons and the ligaments.

Alex Honnold 7:29 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 7:29 And so, the idea is that you, um, you're growing muscle at a ridiculous rate because you're taking steroids. But generally, it's guys who are, like, powerlifters and bodybuilders.

Alex Honnold 7:41 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 7:42 I don't think that would apply to climbers 'cause you're not putting on massive amounts of muscle. So, the idea is that you're pushing heavier and heavier weights-

Alex Honnold 7:49 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 7:49 ... because your muscles is growing at this extraordinary rate, but they, your tendons-

Alex Honnold 7:54 Totally.

Joe Rogan 7:54 ... don't, can't keep up.

Alex Honnold 7:55 The... So, th- that same principle, though, is actually a very common problem for beginner climbers 'cause, like, if you're an 18-year-old man who gets into climbing in the gym, it's really easy to get stronger biceps, but the connective tissue, like, the tendons in your, in your forearms, like, basically, the tendons that control your fingers that go down your forearm and touching your elbow-

Joe Rogan 8:11 Mm-hmm.

Alex Honnold 8:12 ... takes a very long time for, for those tendons to get stronger.

Joe Rogan 8:15 Oh.

Alex Honnold 8:15 So, it's really easy for your muscle to get stronger and then basically pull your tendons off.

Joe Rogan 8:19 Oh.

Alex Honnold 8:20 So-

Joe Rogan 8:20 Okay.

Alex Honnold 8:20 ... it's, um, it's actually pretty common for, for sort of beginner climbers to sort of outpace their development, you know, and then injure themself in different ways.

Joe Rogan 8:27 How do you hold someone back? Like, uh, I know you're not, like, really training climbers, but if you were, how would you hold, uh, a young person back?

Alex Honnold 8:34 Y-

Joe Rogan 8:34 Would you put them on... Is there, like, a, a established training protocol for beginners?

Alex Honnold 8:38 Th- there... Um, yeah, d- it depends. But yeah, there are some now. I mean, if you were really serious about, like, "I'm young, but I wanna be elite," like, you would probably do sort of a regimented finger, uh, training cycle as you go.

Joe Rogan 8:52 Like fingerboards?

Alex Honnold 8:53 Yeah, exactly.

Joe Rogan 8:54 Yeah, is that-

Alex Honnold 8:54 You'd be, uh, progressively loading your fingers in sort of a systematic way and trying to make sure that you don't exceed, uh, you know, a certain rate.

Joe Rogan 9:01 Is... Are there programs like that where-

Alex Honnold 9:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 9:02 ... a young climber can find online?

Alex Honnold 9:05 Yeah, there are. There, there's several. I mean, th- that's an interesting thing about climbing going to the Olympics is, like, the sport is, is, is changing, you know? There's more knowledge. There's more coaching available. There's more information about it. There are a lot of different training protocols. There are different... Y- yeah, I mean, there's way more information out than there was, say, when I started 25 years ago.

Joe Rogan 9:23 Yeah, people watch videos. My, my friend-

Alex Honnold 9:25 Yeah, totally.

Joe Rogan 9:26 ... Whitney Cummings is dating a, um, a guy who's into climbing and he's a climber and he was... She had it on her Instagram today. Uh, she was making fun of him that she... that he's watching videos of girls climbing. She's like, "Should I be concerned about this?" Like, "What's going on here?" Like, in these, you know, climbing sort of competitions, and she's-

Alex Honnold 9:44 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 9:45 It's... So, people are watching technique. They're watching, like, what's, what did this person do wrong and trying to gather information and learn from it, I guess.

Alex Honnold 9:53 Yeah, well, and I think, uh, more and more, they're just watching the competitions just to see who wins, you know?

Joe Rogan 9:57 Right.

Alex Honnold 9:57 In the same way that people watch other sports. They're just like, "Oh, who's the best climber in the world?" I mean, that's gonna be the, the appeal of the Olympics is it's gonna show, you know-

Joe Rogan 10:05 Yeah.

Alex Honnold 10:05 ... the best climber in the world.

Joe Rogan 10:06 And I, I guess, also, you're really into climbing, you just wanna watch people do it, too, right? It's like-

Alex Honnold 10:11 Yeah, you wanna see greatness.

Joe Rogan 10:12 Yeah.

Alex Honnold 10:12 Totally.

Joe Rogan 10:13 Sure, sure.

Alex Honnold 10:13 And just like... Yes, uh, see mastery.

Joe Rogan 10:14 Like anything else, like, people wa-... like watching people play chess, like, people-

Alex Honnold 10:18 Well, that might be a little more boring (laughs) 'cause that's pretty slow.

Joe Rogan 10:21 But the people who love chess like watching people play chess.

Alex Honnold 10:24 Maybe, but I think that there's a dynamicism, like, a movement to it. It'd be like-

Joe Rogan 10:27 Mm-hmm.

Alex Honnold 10:27 ... watching ballet or something where you're like, "Oh, this is incredible movement."

Joe Rogan 10:30 Right.

Alex Honnold 10:31 You know? It's like-

Joe Rogan 10:32 Well, I like watching play... I, I like watching people play pool.

Alex Honnold 10:35 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 10:35 And people have often said, like, "Why are you doing that?" Like, "What are you..." But to me, I just like-

Alex Honnold 10:39 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 10:39 I like watching it. It's like I play pool, so when I watch pool I kinda... Like, I think the same thing would hold with climbing.

Alex Honnold 10:45 Totally.

Joe Rogan 10:46 It's like you like climbing, so you're watching people climb and someone who's really good specifically, too. It'd probably be inspiring, right?

Alex Honnold 10:52 Yeah, though I think that, that climbing might have a more elemental appeal than something like pool, let's say.

Joe Rogan 10:57 Right.

Alex Honnold 10:57 Because anybody can appreciate the athleticism and the movement and the grace and, and sort of the, the way in which people climb.

Joe Rogan 11:04 That's a good point.

Alex Honnold 11:04 But with pool, if you don't know the rules, you'd be like, "Why is that guy... Like, why doesn't he just put the ball in the hole?"

Joe Rogan 11:08 (laughs)

Alex Honnold 11:08 "It's so much easier." You know? I mean, it's like, "Why is he using that pointy stick? That's stupid."

Joe Rogan 11:11 Right, right, right.

Alex Honnold 11:12 You know what I mean? Like-

Joe Rogan 11:13 And with chess, like, if you don't understand the rules-

Alex Honnold 11:15 Yeah, if you don't know (laughs) the rules of chess-

Joe Rogan 11:16 Yeah.

Alex Honnold 11:16 ... you're just like, "Knock them all off the board and walk away." You know? You're like, "Dude."

Joe Rogan 11:19 Yeah, that's true. Climbing is very universal. Like, it's, it's, it's like it's got a primal appeal.

Alex Honnold 11:23 Totally.

Joe Rogan 11:24 Yeah.

Alex Honnold 11:24 I mean, y- you know, I mean, we were once arboreal, you know?

Joe Rogan 11:27 Mm-hmm.

Alex Honnold 11:27 It's like that is exactly... That's where we came from.

Joe Rogan 11:30 Yeah, I ha-... A friend of mine, um, had a squirrel expert on his podcast, my friend Steve Rinella, and this, uh, squirrel expert was talking about these squirrels climbing, and they, um... Apparently, squirrels only... The females only come into estrus for, like, six hours a year. It's like a very-

Alex Honnold 11:49 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 11:50 Well, s- maybe m- maybe multiple times a year, maybe once or twice a year, but the period, the window-

Alex Honnold 11:54 Okay.

Joe Rogan 11:54 ... is very small where you can breed with them. So, there's... The competition is very fierce, and a lot of times, males will throw other males out of trees. So, squirrels can fall, like, 70, 80 feet and just bounce off the ground with no damage.

Alex Honnold 12:11 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 12:12 ... yeah.

Alex Honnold 12:12 So, so funny you mention that. So I actually once-

Joe Rogan 12:15 (laughs)

Alex Honnold 12:15 ... walked up to a cliff, like a huge overhanging wall, like this giant... Like imagine like a overhanging, like leaning... It's, it's almost like a amphitheater, like a huge thing.

Joe Rogan 12:24 Mm-hmm.

Alex Honnold 12:24 It's a local sport here at Hackensack. And I walked up, we were the only people at the wall. And we looked up and there was a squirrel attempting to surmount the cliff, which, you know, you see squirrels run up and down trees and, and, you know, vertical cliffs sometimes, but not like massively overhanging ones. And these were like big, uh, uh, basalt blocks, like big overhanging things. Basically there was no way that squirrel was gonna make it. It had like more than 100 feet to go. And we just stood there transfixed being like, "That squirrel's gonna die for sure." Like there's no chance it's gonna make it up this cliff. And it was like skittering, you know, it's like holding onto these blocks and like its feet are all... It's like trying its best. It made it about 20 feet further and then it fell. And we were like, "Oh, the squirrel fell off the cliff." And then, uh, sure enough, it stuck this like ... There's one tree growing at the base of the cliff and with like this one little limb sticking out and the squirrel fell probably 25, 30 feet and then hit like one little twig and basically landed on it and ran into the tree. And it was like total ... I mean, basically like kinda hit it, you know, as the tree bends, the squirrel just like skitters away and like made it into the tree and stuck the landing.

Joe Rogan 13:18 Wow.

Alex Honnold 13:18 We were like, "That was incredible." You know?

Joe Rogan 13:20 (laughs)

Alex Honnold 13:20 We're like, we're just standing there like, "Did anybody see that?" It's like any time you have nature experiences where you see animals basically fall... You know, basically when you see animals struggle in their natural habitat, you're like, "That's cool."

Joe Rogan 13:31 Right, especially something completely rare like watching-

Alex Honnold 13:33 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:33 ... a squirrel fall-

Alex Honnold 13:34 Totally.

Joe Rogan 13:35 ... from a cliff.

Alex Honnold 13:35 Totally. Like I watched a bighorn fall down a talus field once.

Joe Rogan 13:38 Whoa.

Alex Honnold 13:39 Like, uh, you know, 'cause we... And we were actually admiring the bighorns like, "Oh, they're moving so great." 'Cause we were having a really hard time getting up this, this big mountainside. It's like really big challenging boulders and we're like, "This is so difficult." And then we're like, "Look at those bighorns, they're so graceful." And then one of them fell down and just tumbled down the rocks and we're like, "Oh, like even the bighorns have a hard time."

Joe Rogan 13:55 There's a gnarly series of photographs that this guy took of a mountain lion encounter with a bighorn and they both wound up dead on the highway, but they both ... The mountain lion-

Alex Honnold 14:07 They fell off a cliff or something?

Joe Rogan 14:08 Yeah, the mountain lion attacked the bighorn and they both went off the side of the cliff and landed on the highway. See if you can, you can find that, 'cause it's a fairly famous, uh, series of photographs-

Alex Honnold 14:20 Dude.

Joe Rogan 14:20 ... 'cause it's so intense.

Alex Honnold 14:22 That like kinda makes you sad though.

Joe Rogan 14:23 It is sad.

Alex Honnold 14:24 You feel like sad for the bighorn, sad for the mountain lion.

Joe Rogan 14:25 Yeah. It's sad.

Alex Honnold 14:26 Sad for the driver who's like, "Holy shit."

Joe Rogan 14:28 Yeah.

Alex Honnold 14:28 As like two large animals fall out of the sky.

Joe Rogan 14:30 Yeah, that's it. That's it.

Alex Honnold 14:31 Oh, jeez.

Joe Rogan 14:32 So they're both like leveled on the side of the highway-

Alex Honnold 14:35 Oh, wow.

Joe Rogan 14:35 ... and there's quite a few photos. Like that, the blood-

Alex Honnold 14:38 What is that?

Joe Rogan 14:38 ... coming out of the horn is where his horn came off.

Alex Honnold 14:41 Geez.

Joe Rogan 14:42 So his horn came off in the impact and you see it there?

Alex Honnold 14:45 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:45 Bighorns don't lose their horns like, like a deer does and then the mountain lion dead too. Yeah.

Alex Honnold 14:52 It's kind of a small mountain lion.

Joe Rogan 14:53 He's got in his mouth the fur from the bighorn.

Alex Honnold 14:56 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:57 Isn't that wild?

Alex Honnold 14:58 That is-

Joe Rogan 15:00 Oh, that's so gnarly. Bones poking out. I mean, that is a fucking giant fall. Oh.

Alex Honnold 15:06 Does it say where?

Joe Rogan 15:07 I think it's in California. No, no Utah?

Alex Honnold 15:12 Montana.

Joe Rogan 15:13 Montana? Okay.

Narrator 15:14 Glacier National Park.

Alex Honnold 15:14 Geez.

Joe Rogan 15:15 Poosh. Wow.

Alex Honnold 15:18 Fighting on a mountain and fell to their immediate death. Geez.

Joe Rogan 15:21 Man, that's wild.

Alex Honnold 15:24 That is... Also, well, well done Googling that so quickly.

Joe Rogan 15:28 Yeah. It- it's a fairly-

Alex Honnold 15:30 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 15:30 ... famous series of photographs 'cause it just shows you how difficult life is for those animals.

Alex Honnold 15:35 I'm like, now do you take a moment of silence for that poor mountain lion?

Joe Rogan 15:38 We probably-

Alex Honnold 15:38 I'm doing it for-

Joe Rogan 15:38 ... for both of them, yeah.

Alex Honnold 15:39 ... for the bighorn I'm like, "Oh, that's..." It's like that's kind of dark.

Joe Rogan 15:42 (exhales)

Alex Honnold 15:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 15:43 A friend of mine had an en... My friend Josh had an encounter with a mountain lion just two days ago.

Alex Honnold 15:47 Really?

Joe Rogan 15:47 He was on a ranch in Northern California and he saw these deer just squirt, like take off. They just hauled ass out of there and he was 100 yards away from what he described as a 200-pound mountain lion.

Alex Honnold 16:00 Wow.

Joe Rogan 16:00 He said it was the biggest mountain lion he's ever seen in his life.

Alex Honnold 16:02 Has he seen many? 'Cause I-

Joe Rogan 16:03 Yeah.

Alex Honnold 16:03 ... I've never seen one.

Joe Rogan 16:04 I've seen two.

Alex Honnold 16:05 I've seen tracks everywhere, I've seen like, I've... You know, I've been around mountain lions a ton and never seen one.

Joe Rogan 16:10 Yeah. I've seen two, but the ones I saw were small.

Alex Honnold 16:13 Huh.

Joe Rogan 16:13 I saw one that looked like, like it was in the... It was pretty far away. It was like small dog size. Not small dog size, like, you know, 50, 60 pounds. And the second one was basically the same size. The second one, though-

Alex Honnold 16:25 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 16:25 ... one of them I saw in the mountains of Colorado and the second one I saw was in Santa Barbara and it was on the street.

Alex Honnold 16:31 Like full suburbia, yeah.

Joe Rogan 16:32 Yeah, full suburbia.

Alex Honnold 16:33 I know, that's, that's the funny thing about mountain lions.

Joe Rogan 16:35 Yeah.

Alex Honnold 16:36 It's like-

Joe Rogan 16:36 Yeah, they, they eat dogs.

Alex Honnold 16:38 That's funny, just the other day I was like hiking up a, a mountain and we passed some bighorns and then we were like strolling uphill and there were... We followed cat tracks for probably half a mile up, uh-

Joe Rogan 16:47 Oh, wow.

Alex Honnold 16:47 ... and like big, fresh in the snow, you know, cat tracks, we were like-

Joe Rogan 16:50 Mm-hmm.

Alex Honnold 16:50 ... obviously there are mountain lions around, but I've never seen one. I'm like, probably 'cause they're always right behind me. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 16:55 They're always looking at you.

Alex Honnold 16:56 Yeah. (laughs) Yeah, exactly.

Joe Rogan 16:57 Like, "This guy's crazy."

Alex Honnold 16:59 No, they love it.

Joe Rogan 16:59 "I was gonna, I was gonna eat that dude, but I was want- I wanted to watch him climb." (laughs)

Alex Honnold 17:04 Yeah. Yeah, I wish. I wish.

Joe Rogan 17:05 How often are you, uh, doing these free solo climbs?

Alex Honnold 17:09 Uh, you know, I'm, I'm working on things.

Joe Rogan 17:11 Yeah.

Alex Honnold 17:11 Yeah, like fairly frequently. I don't know. I was just on this expedition, uh, in the jungle in Guyana. It was like a National Geographic TV show thing. And, uh, and I free soloed the wall we put up just, just because the type of rock we were on, no one's ever soloed a wall like that before, so I felt like since we were there it was... It felt almost an obligation to do it just for like this climbing history, you know. You're like, oh, if you're there and you have the opportunity, you kind of have to.

Joe Rogan 17:33 Now when you see-

Alex Honnold 17:34 But-

Joe Rogan 17:34 ... something like that, do you m- make a route first with ropes always?

Alex Honnold 17:38 Yeah. Yeah, so our... I mean, because we were there... I mean, it's a whole like complicated National Geographic TV thing. So we were there with a biologist, we were like studying these endemic species of the tepuis, there's like this whole interesting natural history component to it, um, or sort of biology component. But, um, but we were just trying to climb this mountain that had never been climbed before. So the priority is obviously just to get up it to like find these species of frogs, to like do all the things that are important for the TV show. But then, but then because I was there, I was like, oh, you know, on the side I can at least do something that I'm proud of in climbing that's also pretty cool.

Joe Rogan 18:08 Oh, wow.

Alex Honnold 18:08 So, yeah.

Joe Rogan 18:08 That's pretty cool.

Alex Honnold 18:09 Yeah. So it was like this like pretty w- And, and it wound up being totally insane climbing, like really cool, like this overhanging wall of six, 700 feet high, um, you know, like dangling-... it's, it was kind of the best style of, of climbing to solo because it, uh, felt secure, like, it's the type of climbing where you feel safe. Like, it's very, very good rock, so anything you hold onto, you know, is solid and it's not gonna break. And it also lends itself to these sort of striations in the rock where you can, like, wedge your hand in and, like, feel really secure. But also, it's incredible exposure because it's really steep. Like, because you're in the jungle, you can only climb stuff that's overhanging 'cause anything that's, like, less... Anything else accumulates, like, water and dirt and winds up with plants all over it.

Joe Rogan 18:47 Oh.

Alex Honnold 18:48 So, like, the only stuff that's really climbable is the stuff that is sheltered from the rain, so it doesn't have plants on it. So-

Joe Rogan 18:54 So, it's difficult just by nature?

Alex Honnold 18:56 Yeah. So it's difficult because you're hanging, and so you're, like, in these crazy positions where you're dangling from your arms but you feel safe doing it because the rock's so good and the holds are so good and you're just like, "What a crazy place."

Joe Rogan 19:04 Oh.

Alex Honnold 19:04 It's re- it's really cool.

Joe Rogan 19:06 But then when you get to the, the very edge, you have to somehow-

Alex Honnold 19:09 Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 19:09 ... or the other, make your way-

Alex Honnold 19:10 And that's a bummer. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 19:11 (laughs)

Alex Honnold 19:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 19:12 That seems like the most gnarly part of it, isn't it?

Alex Honnold 19:14 It w- uh, actually, probably, i- in terms of risk, it probably was. The final 20 or 30 feet of, like, getting onto the top, it's all, like, rotten soil and loose rocks.

Joe Rogan 19:21 Oh.

Alex Honnold 19:21 And like, you know. Yeah, it wasn't ideal. But...

Joe Rogan 19:24 How do you decide which way to go when you get to something like that? Just what's the most likely path to success?

Alex Honnold 19:31 Yeah. Well, so in that particular case, um, we had already established the route. You know, like, because it was this TV thing, we'd already climbed it. We'd put ropes up it, we'd, like, worked on it, and the camera guys had gone up and down. We'd, like, camped up on this ledge to look for these frogs. Uh, we'd, like, done this whole experience. So for the free solo, I already had a pretty good sense of, like, how I should tackle that part because, you know, we'd already been sort of living up there a bit. But...

Joe Rogan 19:52 Wow.

Alex Honnold 19:53 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 19:53 (exhales)

Alex Honnold 19:55 Yeah. But I'm like, "What do you do in February?" You know that?

Joe Rogan 19:58 (laughs)

Alex Honnold 19:58 Like, that's, that's, that was my February.

Joe Rogan 20:01 So these frogs, like, the, the idea is to... Is it really an excuse to climb or is it, like, do you really... Are you really there for the frogs to check out these weird species? It's a little bit of both?

Alex Honnold 20:14 Yeah. Well, I'm like... I know this is a long form show. Do you wanna, like-

Joe Rogan 20:17 Yeah.

Alex Honnold 20:17 ... go deep into it? 'Cause I-

Joe Rogan 20:18 For sure.

Alex Honnold 20:19 'Cause it's actually really interesting.

Joe Rogan 20:20 Yeah.

Alex Honnold 20:20 So, um, all right. Long form.

Joe Rogan 20:23 Okay.

Alex Honnold 20:23 So, so, okay, the trip was, the trip was crazy. I mean, we can just talk about the whole time. Uh, I read freaking eight books while we were there 'cause it's the jungle and, you know, it's the tropics, so it's dark from 6:00 to 6:00 every day. It's, like, 12 hours of dark. And, uh, we're in our own little hammock, so I was just in my cocoon, like, reading books every day. And so I-

Joe Rogan 20:40 With, like, a headlamp?

Alex Honnold 20:41 Yeah. Yeah. I had my headlamp. Um, 'cause you have nothing else to do. It's, like, raining and you're just in your own little, like, personal cocoon, just, like, reading. But, um, so I read, like, Natural History of Guyana, Natural History of, like, you know, sort of the, the, the geology. So, um, like, have you seen the m- the movie Up?

Joe Rogan 20:58 Yes.

Alex Honnold 20:58 Like, the Pixar or Disney movie?

Joe Rogan 20:59 Yes.

Alex Honnold 20:59 The cute thing with the flying house and the balloons?

Joe Rogan 21:01 Yeah.

Alex Honnold 21:01 Yeah. So you know that's all modeled on, like, where they fly to the big rock things with the waterfalls? Those are tepuis, which are, like, real things in South America.

Joe Rogan 21:09 Oh.

Alex Honnold 21:09 Um, that's in Venezuela, Guyana, and the northern part of Brazil. Or if you've seen the new Point Break, they film down there on the same rock features.

Joe Rogan 21:16 I didn't see that one.

Alex Honnold 21:17 But so... (laughs) You're not, you're not missing anything.

Joe Rogan 21:19 No?

Alex Honnold 21:19 It's really bad.

Joe Rogan 21:20 (laughs)

Alex Honnold 21:20 But, uh, but a lot of my friends worked on it, so it's li- like, it's cool. And it is, like, an incredible climbing place, but the film-

Joe Rogan 21:26 Out of respect for Patrick Swayze, I just-

Alex Honnold 21:28 Yeah, exactly.

Joe Rogan 21:29 (laughs)

Alex Honnold 21:29 Yeah. You didn't, you didn't miss anything. I actually fell asleep watching it on a plane. It was like-

Joe Rogan 21:33 Oh, really?

Alex Honnold 21:34 When you fall asleep during an action movie, you're kinda like, "Come on."

Joe Rogan 21:36 Yeah.

Alex Honnold 21:36 You know. But, um, but the climbing in it is cool. And it, and it... Anyway, so it's on these things called tepuis, which are, like, these big quartzitic sandstone walls that stick out of the jungle. And so if you imagine a huge raised, uh, area of land, that because it's in the jungle, has been massively eroded by the constant rain over the last 40 million years. So now you wind up with all these, like, slender sort of towers and mesas, you know. So, like, do you know Angel Falls? Like the-

Joe Rogan 22:01 No.

Alex Honnold 22:02 It's one of the biggest waterfalls in the world. Here, like, pull up a picture. Angel Falls is, is a, it's like... Oh, yeah. Yeah. There we go.

Joe Rogan 22:07 Whoa!

Alex Honnold 22:08 Dude. That's, uh, that's Urama. That's, you know-

Joe Rogan 22:10 That is wild.

Alex Honnold 22:11 That's what, that's what we were climbing next to. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:13 God, that's so beautiful.

Alex Honnold 22:14 So if, if you could-

Joe Rogan 22:15 It looks fake.

Alex Honnold 22:16 Yeah. It does look fake. Isn't that crazy? I'm pretty sure that one is Urama. And if you look to the left of the one you were just on, that we climbed this little wall to the left of it.

Joe Rogan 22:24 Can you go back to that one, Jamie? 'Cause, uh, like, if I was a dummy-

Alex Honnold 22:26 Yes. So, so, so that picture-

Joe Rogan 22:27 ... I would think someone built that.

Alex Honnold 22:29 Totally. So if you could pan that photo to the left, though obviously you can't 'cause it's not in the frame, we climbed this little mountain to the left. And so this is a really famous peak 'cause the summit of it marks the boundary between Brazil, Venezuela, and Guyana. It's used as, like, the marker to separate those three countries. And so we were climbing this sort of little bastard stepbrother next to it. But what, you know, th- that peak though had never been climbed and it was, like, new to science for the, the different species of frogs and all that kinda stuff.

Joe Rogan 22:53 If you're an explorer and you've stumbled upon that, you would think that that was, like, a structure.

Alex Honnold 22:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:58 Like, it's so square and flat on the top.

Alex Honnold 23:00 And some, and some of them did. Like, European explorers that first came into the region had all kinds of names, like the White Cathedral and things like that, like that tower. Um, they're just a bunch of-

Joe Rogan 23:09 Wow, look at that one. Click on the one your cursor's on, Jamie. That's so wild.

Alex Honnold 23:13 Oh, actually, so again... So actually you see on the left side of that, there's, like, the hint of a little thing in the distance?

Joe Rogan 23:17 Mm-hmm.

Alex Honnold 23:17 That, that, I'm pretty sure that's the thing we were climbing, the thing to the left that's, like, just starting to appear out of the clouds.

Joe Rogan 23:22 It's right there. Oh.

Alex Honnold 23:22 Yeah. I'm pretty sure that's the peak that we climbed.

Joe Rogan 23:24 God, it's so beautiful.

Alex Honnold 23:25 Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. R- except, to be fair, the sun only comes out, like... So we were there in the dry season and it rained, like, eight hours a day and we were in the clouds nonstop. It was totally grim.

Joe Rogan 23:35 And that's the dry season?

Alex Honnold 23:35 Yeah. And so you see these pictures where you're like, "It's so beautiful." And you're like, "Yeah, for 30 minutes a day." You know? And the rest (laughs) of the time, you're just in the-

Joe Rogan 23:41 Getting dumped on.

Alex Honnold 23:41 ... in the water. Yeah. Getting to work.

Joe Rogan 23:43 That's so wild, man. Like, really, if I stumbled upon that, I would think someone built that.

Alex Honnold 23:49 Yeah. No. It's, it's totally incredible.

Joe Rogan 23:50 What is the geol-

Alex Honnold 23:51 Wait. So I didn't, I didn't even get to the cool part of it.

Joe Rogan 23:53 Okay.

Alex Honnold 23:53 Oh, yeah. Well, so yeah. You're asking about the geology?

Joe Rogan 23:55 Wh- wh- Yeah. Like, how does something like that form? It's so strange.

Alex Honnold 23:58 Yeah. So, uh, that's the stuff I was reading while we were there. So it's, like, this huge bed of sandstone, which then gets metamorphosed, like compressed into quartzite, so, like, really, really hard sandstone. And then, you know, the Andes... So you have Gondwana, like one of the mega continents that predates Pangaea, I think.

Joe Rogan 24:16 Really?

Alex Honnold 24:17 And, like, yeah. So, like, you know, if you imagine all the continents on Earth were one sort of combined. So South America and Africa, you know, fit together at the, the horn.

Joe Rogan 24:25 Mm-hmm.

Alex Honnold 24:26 And so, this rock is most similar to rock in, uh, parts of Africa, actually. And so, and part of what makes the, the biology there so interesting is that the creatures on the summit of some of the tepuis are more closely related to creatures in Africa than they are to the ones in the jungle below them.

Joe Rogan 24:44 Wow.

Alex Honnold 24:45 Because, because the summits have been separated for so long. You see what I'm saying?

Joe Rogan 24:48 Yes.

Alex Honnold 24:48 Like, because the top of that, those islands basically-

Joe Rogan 24:51 Mm-hmm.

Alex Honnold 24:51 ... they've been separated from the jungle below for so long that they more closely resemble where they came from in Africa than, than the creatures that live in the rainforest below. It's like this totally incredible, you know... I mean, it's just, it's just an interesting part of Earth.

Joe Rogan 25:05 Are you aware of the Olmecs? Do you know what the Olmec civilization was?

Alex Honnold 25:08 No.

Joe Rogan 25:09 The Olmec civi- it's really, it's, um, quite a mystery. They don't exactly know what they did or, you know, what w- what their culture was all about. But they had these heads that they left behind, these sculpted gigantic stone heads that resemble, resemble African people.

Alex Honnold 25:27 That's not the Easter Island stuff? Or is that-

Joe Rogan 25:29 No, no, that's different.

Alex Honnold 25:30 All right, okay.

Joe Rogan 25:30 That's different. This is the Olmecs.

Alex Honnold 25:32 Oh, wow. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 25:33 So they-

Alex Honnold 25:33 Where, and where were the Olmecs? Oh, oh in Mexico.

Joe Rogan 25:35 In South America.

Alex Honnold 25:36 Oh, yeah, it says Olmecs heads in Mexico. Interesting.

Joe Rogan 25:36 Yes. South America, Mexico, Central America.

Alex Honnold 25:39 Huh.

Joe Rogan 25:40 And there's, uh, a lot of them. And these images are very, um, African-looking faces and they don't really know what the history of them were.

Alex Honnold 25:51 Huh.

Joe Rogan 25:51 And they know, they, they, they think some of them existed in the neighborhood of 6,000 years ago. But, you know, when, when you're, when you're looking at stone, it's hard because they, they just, they carbon date the stuff that's around the stone-

Alex Honnold 26:04 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 26:05 ... as they unearth it. But that doesn't really necessarily give them an accurate sense of when it was constructed. It just gives an accurate sense of how the sediment that-

Alex Honnold 26:14 Yeah, of where it's around.

Joe Rogan 26:15 ... eventually covers it, yeah.

Alex Honnold 26:15 Totally.

Joe Rogan 26:16 So they get-

Alex Honnold 26:17 Because this stuff, this stuff in Guyana though is, um, on a-

Joe Rogan 26:19 Look at that face.

Alex Honnold 26:20 ... on totally different scale. Like, the, the stuff that I'm talking about, the... I think the tepuis have been, uh, eroded away, like isolated for 40 million years or something.

Joe Rogan 26:28 Wow.

Alex Honnold 26:29 Which, you know, far predates humans. And then I think the rock itself is like 1.5 billion years old.

Joe Rogan 26:35 (laughs)

Alex Honnold 26:35 It's like ancient, ancient.

Joe Rogan 26:36 Wow.

Alex Honnold 26:36 It's incredible rock. It's really cool. But-

Joe Rogan 26:38 It's just so wild, the, the way it formed, the, the, the look.

Alex Honnold 26:42 Yeah. It's funny because, I mean, you saw the pictures, it looks like islands.

Joe Rogan 26:45 Mm-hmm.

Alex Honnold 26:46 And, you know, early explorers thought that they must be islands or something. But it's actually, uh, just the eroded remnants of what was once like a giant, you know, elevated plateau. Oh, yeah (laughs) , totally. So this is what the summits look like.

Joe Rogan 26:56 Wow.

Alex Honnold 26:57 I, I have a bunch of photos like that on my phone, which is like scrappy little iPhone pics of, uh, like, here we are on this crazy... You know, because you're like in the clouds, you're in the mist.

Joe Rogan 27:05 Mm-hmm.

Alex Honnold 27:06 It's, it's like kinda grim and it's raining. But then the summit is like this totally wild... So like, all those plants are incredibly well-adapted to this harsh environment and there, they're really high rates of carnivory, like plants that eat things because there's basically no soil.

Joe Rogan 27:19 Oh.

Alex Honnold 27:19 One of the books I read said that, described it as a rain desert. Like, you think of a desert normally as having lots of soil, but no water. And there you have infinite water but no soil because it's a stone surface that's getting rained on so much that it washes all the soil away.

Joe Rogan 27:34 Oh, wow.

Alex Honnold 27:34 So for any of the vegetation to live there, they basically all have different strategies where they're rooted straight to the stone and then they, they eat, you know, they eat, uh, bugs and things. They, you know, they eat insects.

Joe Rogan 27:46 Oh, wow.

Alex Honnold 27:46 Or they eat other plants or they, you know, they... Lots of plants that grow on plants and it's just like a whole crazy web of life that's like really different than what you expect normally.

Joe Rogan 27:54 It's weird 'cause it's so abundant.

Alex Honnold 27:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 27:56 It's got, it's an unusual form of life but it's everywhere.

Alex Honnold 28:00 Yeah. Like, no, it's-

Joe Rogan 28:01 Like, that's so rich and green. Like, you'd have-

Alex Honnold 28:03 Yeah, though actually it... I bet if, in that photo, if you pan the photo a bit to the side, there'd be like big expanses of bare rock.

Joe Rogan 28:08 Hmm.

Alex Honnold 28:09 Because the summits like, yeah, there are little pastures and things. It's almost like alpine meadows if you go into the mountains in, in the Northern Hemisphere. Um, there'll be like high tundras and things where it's like, yeah, feels really lush but then there's also a lot of exposed rock. 'Cause when the sun comes out, you know, you're at 7,000 to 9,000 feet in the tropics, so it's really intense UV exposure and it dries-

Joe Rogan 28:27 Hmm.

Alex Honnold 28:27 ... things out instantly. So it's really hard, hard climatic conditions for life.

Joe Rogan 28:31 Wow.

Alex Honnold 28:31 But...

Joe Rogan 28:31 That's wild.

Alex Honnold 28:33 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 28:33 And so these, uh, organisms, these creatures that live up there-

Alex Honnold 28:36 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 28:36 ... they're, they're closely resembling creatures that live in Africa and so that was part of what you were studying?

Alex Honnold 28:42 Yeah, so we were with this biologist who was trying to do an elevational transect of, of the river basin that we were in, so basically starting from the rainforest where the frogs are pretty well-known and then going up through the cloud forest, which is kind of as you gain elevation to the actual wall. And then the species all changes as, as you gain elevation, which is kinda normal. And then the things on the summit of the tepuis, on the summit of the, the, the stone island are completely different again. And so he was basically doing research on how, how the different species... you know, basically what the deal is.

Joe Rogan 29:12 And it's really difficult to get there too, right?

Alex Honnold 29:15 (laughs) Yeah, yeah. It was, it took a very long time to walk through the jungle to get there and then no one had ever been to this wall before, so cutting a trail up to the wall was totally insane. And then just, yeah, it was, it was crazy.

Joe Rogan 29:24 And you guys are sleeping in hammocks, so do you have like some sort of canopy above the hammock? Like, how do you have it set up?

Alex Honnold 29:29 Yeah, just a little hammock and then a little rain fly, just like a tarp above it.

Joe Rogan 29:33 Oh, wow.

Alex Honnold 29:34 But it was pretty, uh... It took me a while to sort of dial in, dial into my scene. I was basically sleeping in a puddle for, you know, most of, a lot of the time.

Joe Rogan 29:41 Yeah, and I'm sure your books were soaking wet too, right? 'Cause the air is wet.

Alex Honnold 29:43 No, no, everything's in your little dry ba- Yeah, well, that's true, but you keep your stuff in your dry bags and like, you know-

Joe Rogan 29:47 Oh, okay.

Alex Honnold 29:47 ... keep it all organized.

Joe Rogan 29:49 Yeah.

Alex Honnold 29:49 But it is true that, like, your clothing, once it got wet, is just wet.

Joe Rogan 29:52 Just wet, yeah. Sleeping bag just wet.

Alex Honnold 29:53 Yeah, just, I mean, it dries on your body but-

Joe Rogan 29:54 Yeah.

Alex Honnold 29:55 Yeah, so I, I was in, you know, all synthetic clothing and synthetic sleeping bag, so I was warm enough but then you're just laying in a puddle of, like a little puddle of water 'cause, you know, the bottom of the hammock-

Joe Rogan 30:04 Right.

Alex Honnold 30:04 It all sags to the bottom, so it was all just pooling and you're sort of like, "Oh, man." It's like-

Joe Rogan 30:08 Does the synthetic stuff act like Merino wool acts? Like, did they, they, they have that dialed in where even when you're wet you could still stay warm?

Alex Honnold 30:15 It's still warm.

Joe Rogan 30:15 Yeah.

Alex Honnold 30:16 Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Joe Rogan 30:16 Yeah.

Alex Honnold 30:17 Yeah, it maintains all the insulation without, um, even when it's wet.

Joe Rogan 30:20 What company do you use for that stuff?

Alex Honnold 30:21 Uh, The North Face.

Joe Rogan 30:22 Okay.

Alex Honnold 30:22 I'm, I'm s- I've been sponsored by The North Face for a long time.

Joe Rogan 30:24 Well, they're-

Alex Honnold 30:25 But-

Joe Rogan 30:25 ... they're really dialed in with that shit, right?

Alex Honnold 30:27 Yeah. Yeah, but all, all synthetic clothing, like, I mean, it's all... Yeah.... it's all good.

Joe Rogan 30:31 When it comes to, like, mountaineering, hiking-

Alex Honnold 30:33 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 30:33 ... hiking stuff?

Alex Honnold 30:34 Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 30:34 So this trip, how long were you there for?

Alex Honnold 30:37 We were there a month.

Joe Rogan 30:38 Wow.

Alex Honnold 30:39 Um, or like four weeks and-

Joe Rogan 30:40 A month-

Alex Honnold 30:41 ... you know, took us like-

Joe Rogan 30:41 ... sleeping in a hammock in the rain. (laughs)

Alex Honnold 30:43 Yeah. (laughs) Yeah. Kind of, totally, totally.

Joe Rogan 30:45 But your guys are used to living out of a van, so you kind of rough it a little bit.

Alex Honnold 30:49 I know, but a van ... But a van is like a small little apartment.

Joe Rogan 30:51 Right.

Alex Honnold 30:51 It's actually pretty comfortable. You're dry, you're cooking for yourself. You know, it's-

Joe Rogan 30:55 Yeah.

Alex Honnold 30:55 ... pretty good scene in the van. The hammock was a little more grim.

Joe Rogan 30:58 What were you guys eating out there? Did you have to bring a month's worth of food?

Alex Honnold 31:02 No, um, so we had local sort of logistical support. Um, so like, an outfitter in Guyana had hired, um, a bunch of Amerindian porters who are the, the local indigenous folks. Like, basically all the men from this last village that we hiked out of, like, all hiked into the jungle with us and helped carry things for the, the team and the film crew and everything.

Joe Rogan 31:20 Oh, wow.

Alex Honnold 31:20 But, um, but so the logistical sort of operator in country had, you know, provided rations for the trip. Um, but it was basically just Top Ramen for the whole trip.

Joe Rogan 31:30 Oh, really?

Alex Honnold 31:31 So, we would... Dude, the hike out was so grim. They would, uh, they'd cook like a bucket of maybe 20 packs of Top Ramen and, uh, you know, we'd get ramen. And then whatever was leftover they'd save, and then in the morning they'd reheat and we'd get ramen for breakfast. (laughs) And you're just like, "Oh man, Top Ramen for breakfast," and, and then dinner.

Joe Rogan 31:48 What about protein?

Alex Honnold 31:50 Um, they had some little freeze dried s- I mean, we just didn't have, you know. We brought a bunch of snacks. Um, you know, and I'm normally a vegetarian, but on that trip I was eating, like, salmon jerky and just whatever, like, team snacks that we'd brought.

Joe Rogan 32:02 Mm-hmm.

Alex Honnold 32:04 Um, but yeah, I mean, when we were at the wall ... So, so the, that kind of logistical support was when we were trekking through the jungle both ways. But when we got to the wall, you couldn't really establish a camp 'cause we were, like, right on the side of a cliff, and so we were all just kind of dangling on the side of the cliff.

Joe Rogan 32:16 Oh, that's-

Alex Honnold 32:16 And so we were taking care of ourself more.

Joe Rogan 32:19 ... fucked.

Alex Honnold 32:19 Yeah. But so then we were eating trail mix for basically breakfast and lunch, and then a couple bars, things like that, like energy bars. And then having, uh, freeze dried dinners at night, and that was just like our whole scene. Basically, we did like a week or 10 days of, of just kinda like trail mix and bars. And, and it was, it was kind of a grim ... You know, we were like, "Oh, really, you know, really hurting for a salad or something."

Joe Rogan 32:41 What was it like to get out of there and have real food?

Alex Honnold 32:43 (laughs) Well, so funny enough, I made it back to Georgetown, the capital, and we were staying in like the nice hotel in Georgetown or whatever. And, uh, I got the worst food poisoning of my life in town.

Joe Rogan 32:51 (laughs)

Alex Honnold 32:51 I was kind of like, "Oh, man."

Joe Rogan 32:52 How ironic.

Alex Honnold 32:53 Yeah, yeah. But when I got home, I was like, "Oh, sweet," like crunchy vegetables and things, you know?

Joe Rogan 32:58 Yeah.

Alex Honnold 32:58 Like, it's so nice.

Joe Rogan 32:59 In a hot shower?

Alex Honnold 32:59 Yeah, yeah. Dude.

Joe Rogan 33:01 The, the, the camping off the cliff thing, that is the one that freaks me out the most when I watch those images or see videos of people that are climbing-

Alex Honnold 33:10 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 33:10 ... that pause in the middle of the face and set up a camp, and they have like a little hammock thing.

Alex Honnold 33:15 It's pretty cozy. You should, you should try.

Joe Rogan 33:16 Oh, how dare you? (laughs)

Alex Honnold 33:17 No, honestly. You're always so tired anyway, you're just like, "Oh, at least I get to lay down and relax."

Joe Rogan 33:22 Mm-hmm.

Alex Honnold 33:22 It's like so ... I mean, it's nice.

Joe Rogan 33:24 Yeah, uh, but you, you d- you don't freak out in the middle of the night and just think, "Oh my God, I'm dangling off the side of a fucking cliff 1,000 feet in the air?"

Alex Honnold 33:31 At a certain point you're just like, if you fall, you, you know, you just relax. It's like, I mean, you sort of commit to it at the ge- You know, it's like when you go to sleep, you're totally committing to like, "All right, this all had better work, this is a better hold."

Joe Rogan 33:43 Right.

Alex Honnold 33:44 And, and if you, and if you actually think that you're in danger, then you keep a backup line, you keep, you know, you stay tied into other things and stuff like that.

Joe Rogan 33:49 You, well, sometimes you don't?

Alex Honnold 33:52 Well, so like, where we were at the base of the wall-

Joe Rogan 33:53 Yeah.

Alex Honnold 33:53 ... was like pretty solid. Um, but the thing is, the base of the wall, it's not like flat ground comes up to a cliff. It's like a steep talus field where all the chunks of the cliff, they've fallen off over the years.

Joe Rogan 34:03 Mm-hmm.

Alex Honnold 34:03 And then that steep talus gets overgrown with like bushes and shrubs and like roots and things, and then bromeliads, like all these crazy plants that just kind of stick together. So we were camping on this like really steep hillside, but technically there were plants. So like, my hammock was strung between two trees, but they were like pretty scrappy little trees. And you are kind of like, "Huh, if the whole thing fell off the cliff," you'd be like ... But you don't, but it seems unlikely to happen 'cause you're kind of like realistically, the load that your hammock's putting on the tree is a lot less than the load that the wind does, you know, when it's storming or something. So you're kind of like, "Ah, I think it's fine," and you just sort of evaluate the risk, you know.

Joe Rogan 34:36 Oh, boy.

Alex Honnold 34:36 No, that is, that is not what we had going on. That is-

Joe Rogan 34:39 Oh, boy.

Narrator 34:40 It's gnarly.

Alex Honnold 34:41 No, no, no.

Joe Rogan 34:41 That's a ... Describe it for the people that are just listening. We're looking at what looks-

Narrator 34:44 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 34:44 ... like a greenhouse that's fucking just hanging-

Alex Honnold 34:47 No, that is-

Joe Rogan 34:47 ... off the side of a cliff.

Narrator 34:48 It's like it's a hotel.

Joe Rogan 34:49 (gasps)

Alex Honnold 34:49 This is like ... That, that's like a-

Joe Rogan 34:51 What?

Alex Honnold 34:51 ... Swiss glamping option or something.

Joe Rogan 34:52 $1,000 hotel room-

Alex Honnold 34:54 Oh, no, Peruvian.

Narrator 34:54 Oh, wow.

Joe Rogan 34:54 ... dangling from the side of a Peruvian mountain.

Alex Honnold 34:57 No, but that is like-

Joe Rogan 34:58 Oh, Christ.

Alex Honnold 34:58 ... that's like strictly for an Instagram influencer type shit.

Joe Rogan 35:01 That's, that's for assholes.

Alex Honnold 35:02 Yeah, no, I'm, I'm not into that.

Joe Rogan 35:03 Thank you. Good. You and I are on the same page. I love it.

Alex Honnold 35:07 The thing is-

Joe Rogan 35:07 That looks like death.

Alex Honnold 35:08 ... the thing for me, I find that very contrived because it's like, if you're gonna stay in a hotel, stay in a hotel. You know, like, like-

Joe Rogan 35:14 Right. Thank you.

Alex Honnold 35:14 ... have running food and wa- Like ...

Joe Rogan 35:16 Yeah, what do you want?

Alex Honnold 35:16 Like, where do you get your running water in there, you know?

Joe Rogan 35:18 Exactly.

Alex Honnold 35:18 It's like, I don't know. But the thing is, when you have to stay on the side of a cliff, then you do, then you do it in the nicest way you can, you know?

Joe Rogan 35:25 There's a hotel, I, I think it's in Iceland, that's con- constructed entirely of ice and people go there to, uh, just to say they were there. Like-

Alex Honnold 35:35 What is Iceland? So I mean, isn't the whole society made of ice? It's ... You know.

Joe Rogan 35:39 D- (laughs) Seems like it should be, but it's not. Um, Iceland's like more green and Greenland's more ice, right?

Alex Honnold 35:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:46 So there's this ... It's a, a luxury hotel and when you go inside of it, the entire hotel is const- Who do we know that went in there, Jamie? Was it a guest?

Narrator 35:58 Uh.

Joe Rogan 35:59 Or did I talk to somebody about it?

Alex Honnold 36:00 No, that says it's in Sweden.

Joe Rogan 36:02 Oh, it was in Sweden? Maybe I'm wrong.

Alex Honnold 36:03 I think-

Narrator 36:03 There might be a couple of them.

Joe Rogan 36:05 Maybe there is more than one of them. Maybe I just fucked it up.

Narrator 36:07 There's five ice hotels in Scandinavia.

Alex Honnold 36:09 Oh, wow.

Joe Rogan 36:10 Wow, really?

Narrator 36:10 So is like, there's a top five, so there's more than that.

Alex Honnold 36:12 There's no chance I've stayed in a ... Well, no, I shouldn't say that. I might stay in an ice hotel.

Joe Rogan 36:15 You dare it? (laughs)

Narrator 36:15 (laughs)

Alex Honnold 36:15 Yeah, totally.

Joe Rogan 36:16 How dare you?

Narrator 36:16 (laughs)

Alex Honnold 36:17 Totally. On the one hand, I'm like, "That's dumb." On the other hand, if I, think if I saw it, I'd be like, "That's incredible."

Joe Rogan 36:22 Yeah, I just ... The sleeping inside of it has got to suck. It's-

Alex Honnold 36:26 Well, it'd be really well insulated. I mean, just like an igloo.

Joe Rogan 36:28 I guess, but still would suck. Like what if-

Narrator 36:31 What do you ... Comfort?

Joe Rogan 36:31 ... you have to pee in the middle of the night, get up and-... yeah, you're sleeping on a block of ice.

Alex Honnold 36:34 Dude, have you never camped on snow? Camping in snow is amazing because if you have to pee, you just pee, and your pee burrows its own little tunnel straight down into the snow.

Joe Rogan 36:42 Mm.

Alex Honnold 36:42 It's like I, I, uh, did an expedition in Antarctica, and, uh, you basically like, I was peeing out the same back flap of my tent every night. And your little pee tunnel just gets, like-

Joe Rogan 36:52 Deeper and deeper.

Alex Honnold 36:52 ... I think it went to the center of the earth by the end of the trip.

Joe Rogan 36:54 (laughs)

Alex Honnold 36:54 You know, it's like going just deeper and deeper into the glacier and you're like, "It just goes forever."

Joe Rogan 36:58 Yeah, I've, I've camped in cold climates before. It's, it's not comfortable. It's not nice.

Alex Honnold 37:03 Oh, if you have a good sleeping bag and, you know, a good pad, and it's pretty cozy.

Joe Rogan 37:07 You're just used to things that are less comfortable than most, I think.

Alex Honnold 37:10 (laughs) Perhaps, perhaps.

Joe Rogan 37:11 Cozy in your perspective, you know? But I, I get it. Yeah.

Alex Honnold 37:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 37:15 But this, uh, ice hotel, my friend who stayed, I can't remember who told me they stayed in it, they did it one night just to say they did it. They were there kids too.

Narrator 37:23 Uh, sounds like David Blaine then.

Joe Rogan 37:26 I think you're right.

Alex Honnold 37:27 David Blaine Classic.

Joe Rogan 37:28 I think you're right. I think you're right.

Alex Honnold 37:28 I know David.

Joe Rogan 37:29 Yeah, he's great.

Alex Honnold 37:30 Yeah, dude.

Joe Rogan 37:31 He, he swallows-

Alex Honnold 37:32 For him, an ice hotel is like a normal thing. He's like, he probably just lay there on the ice the whole time just to-

Joe Rogan 37:36 Yeah.

Alex Honnold 37:37 ... just to see if he could.

Joe Rogan 37:37 For days, just to see if he could.

Alex Honnold 37:38 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 37:38 He's a strange person, right?

Alex Honnold 37:40 (laughs) Totally.

Joe Rogan 37:41 Strange and powerful at the same time, like a very unusual human being.

Alex Honnold 37:44 Dude, I, uh, I met with him years ago now because he was... Did you see his like Real or Magic documentary?

Joe Rogan 37:50 No.

Alex Honnold 37:51 It's really good. I would totally encourage you to watch it. But basically, it's all these like sort of magic tricks, except they aren't actually tricks, they're just like f- I'm allowed to curse, right?

Joe Rogan 37:59 Yeah.

Alex Honnold 38:00 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 38:00 That's hilarious.

Alex Honnold 38:00 So like, these fucked up things that he does that people assume must be magic, but aren't. Like he puts an icepick through his hand a bunch of times.

Joe Rogan 38:06 I put an icepick through his arm.

Alex Honnold 38:08 Oh, whether, yeah, that's like the same kind of like-

Joe Rogan 38:10 And then he made me.

Alex Honnold 38:11 (laughs) Yeah, exactly.

Joe Rogan 38:11 I'm like, "Come on, man. What are we doing here?"

Alex Honnold 38:13 Exactly (laughs) That though, exactly. And you're like, you're like, you hope it's a trick, but it's like-

Joe Rogan 38:17 There you guys are. Look at you.

Alex Honnold 38:18 Dude, exactly. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 38:19 Ta da.

Alex Honnold 38:20 Dude, he bought me an iPhone ra- randomly.

Joe Rogan 38:22 Did he really?

Alex Honnold 38:22 Yeah, it was one of those classic things. He, uh, I forget, he... Yeah, so I met him in New York for this thing, for Real Magic, because he was talking about maybe doing a climbing thing, and I was totally into teaching him how to climb the outside of a building basically, because it's one of those things that people would assume there's a trick to it, but it's, in some ways it's actually easier just to learn how to do it well enough that you can just do it rather than do a trick. You know what I mean? Like-

Joe Rogan 38:43 Mm-hmm.

Alex Honnold 38:44 Because that's kind of the whole thing with the icepick is people assume there must be a trick to it, but you actually just do this crazy thing, you just learn how to do it right.

Joe Rogan 38:51 Right.

Alex Honnold 38:51 And so, so I went climbing with him a few times, and he like, you know, gave me a tour around town and we'd chat and stuff. I don't know, I was totally into his whole scene, I was like such mind over matter, you know. I was like, wow, he, he has got a strong mind for just like making himself do things that other people would think are impossible slash-

Joe Rogan 39:08 Yeah, it's just-

Alex Honnold 39:09 ... too unpleasant.

Joe Rogan 39:09 ... mostly his mind, mostly the ability to deal with uncomfortable feelings.

Alex Honnold 39:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 39:14 Like the icepick through the arm.

Alex Honnold 39:16 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 39:16 Like, we had to stop because I hit a nerve and then we did it again. So it hit a nerve and then there was one point in time where after we did it, he was concerned that maybe blood was pooling up in a weird way. So he had our medic look at it. So he, he stopped... We stopped twice, right? We stopped once and I put it back in again, and then we go all the way through and then after it came out, we had to stop again, and then one of our guys had to look at it.

Alex Honnold 39:44 Dude.

Joe Rogan 39:44 Because it was just bleeding in a weird way, he was worried that it was creating a hematoma.

Alex Honnold 39:48 (laughs) Dude.

Joe Rogan 39:48 It could be... I'm like, "Come on, man."

Alex Honnold 39:51 Yeah. If you ever watch the, the show, you know, Real or Magic, whatever it is, it's really good. But in one of them, like he puts the icepick through his hand and, and then he pulls it out and he's like, "Look, see, it's fine." And it's like, and it looks totally fine, like it's not bleeding, you know, it's because your hand is so elastic or whatever.

Joe Rogan 40:05 Mm-hmm.

Alex Honnold 40:06 But I asked him about it, you know, I was like, "Oh, what's the deal with that?" Because you pull out, you know, it's like, is it a trick? And he's like, "No, you pull it out and as long as you're holding your hand above your heart, it doesn't bleed for a little bit." He's like, "Then when you put your hand down, obviously it bleeds because you have fucking a hole through your hand." I was like, "Oh, Jesus."

Joe Rogan 40:18 (laughs)

Alex Honnold 40:18 I was like, I was like, "That's not a bunch of a trick. That's, that's messed up."

Joe Rogan 40:21 But one of the things that he showed us was there's a guy that was famous back in the day for putting swords through his body, because the guy would run-

Alex Honnold 40:30 Like the whole way?

Joe Rogan 40:30 Mm-hmm, the whole way through his organs.

Alex Honnold 40:32 Like a really, really narrow sword?

Joe Rogan 40:33 Yeah, a small, but they got progressively larger as he got more-

Alex Honnold 40:38 So he got progressively deader? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 40:40 (laughs) Is that how, is that how he died? Do you remember, Jamie?

Narrator 40:43 I feel like that's how it ended up going.

Alex Honnold 40:45 (laughs)

Narrator 40:46 He got cocky.

Joe Rogan 40:47 Yes, he got cocky.

Alex Honnold 40:48 Dude.

Narrator 40:48 I think.

Alex Honnold 40:48 Or he sneezed halfway through it and just like lacerated him.

Joe Rogan 40:51 Eventually made his way to like a broadsword size.

Alex Honnold 40:53 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 40:54 It was really weird to see though, because there's video of this guy and there's photos. Video? Is there video?

Narrator 41:01 I got video of it right here.

Joe Rogan 41:02 There's video? Yeah, this guy slid like right through his organs.

Alex Honnold 41:06 Oh, jeez.

Joe Rogan 41:07 Yeah. So look at this.

Alex Honnold 41:08 Oh, jeez.

Joe Rogan 41:10 I mean, they just puncture his lung with a fucking sword. I mean, this is not a trick.

Alex Honnold 41:18 This is when you watch action movies and people get shot or stabbed a bunch of times and you're like, "That's so unrealistic. He'd be dead."

Joe Rogan 41:23 Mm-hmm.

Alex Honnold 41:23 Like when you watch John Wick, you know, and he gets shot like 27 times.

Joe Rogan 41:26 Right.

Alex Honnold 41:26 It's like apparently people can actually take quite a beating and just keep going.

Joe Rogan 41:30 Or they can get one sm-

Alex Honnold 41:31 Oh, jeez.

Joe Rogan 41:32 Look it, they're going right through the, right through his fucking-

Narrator 41:35 I, yeah.

Alex Honnold 41:35 Oh my Jesus Christ.

Joe Rogan 41:36 Yeah, right through his organs. And look how he just sat, sits there. And I guess-

Alex Honnold 41:41 And who's the, who's this doctor who's like good enough to poke a sword straight through him?

Joe Rogan 41:44 That's not, that's not really a doctor.

Alex Honnold 41:46 Well, but he must be a, like he'd be an incredible... Uh, maybe he works in a deli.

Joe Rogan 41:49 What year is this, Jamie?

Alex Honnold 41:49 You know, like a really, really good like meat chopper.

Joe Rogan 41:51 Do they what year this is?

Narrator 41:52 1847.

Joe Rogan 41:54 Now, what are the things on his forearms, by the way? Oh, he's, so now he's going into an X-ray machine to make sure that... So this guy had scars all over his body from the times that he did this.

Alex Honnold 42:06 Dude.

Joe Rogan 42:06 Yeah. Yikes! That's a fucking fairly thick blade.

Alex Honnold 42:11 Dude. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 42:12 Like definitely bigger than a pencil.

Alex Honnold 42:15 That is-

Joe Rogan 42:15 Look at the doctor's like, "He's examined it, it looks good," and now he's going to eat.

Alex Honnold 42:19 Except it's all gonna fall out the hole.

Joe Rogan 42:21 Yeah, it's gonna squirt out. That's a hard-looking man. Imagine having a conversation with that dude. I bet he has a very weird way of looking at things.

Alex Honnold 42:29 Dude.

Joe Rogan 42:30 (laughs)

Narrator 42:30 He died at 36. That guy looked-

Joe Rogan 42:32 Oh, well, there you go.

Narrator 42:32 He didn't look 36.

Joe Rogan 42:32 He looked like he was 50 already.

Narrator 42:34 I was about to say. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 42:34 Fill the holes.

Alex Honnold 42:35 I wonder how painful that is. I mean, it's got to be pretty painful.

Joe Rogan 42:37 Painful as fuck.

Alex Honnold 42:38 Yeah, you would assume. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 42:39 How could it not be?

Alex Honnold 42:40 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:40 You know? I mean, fucking piercing your ear is painful. (laughs)

Alex Honnold 42:43 I've never pierced my ear. Too afraid. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 42:45 (laughs) That's hilarious. You're too afraid to pierce your ear.

Alex Honnold 42:47 No, well, no, I just don't want a hole in my ear.

Joe Rogan 42:49 So did he die from that, Jamie?

Narrator 42:51 I'm double checking on how he died. Yeah, uh-

Alex Honnold 42:54 You need, like, a team of researchers, and you're just, like, pulling up, uh, like, yeah, checking facts on the stuff.

Joe Rogan 42:59 I know. It's all Jamie one-handed Googling. Yeah, like a wizard.

Narrator 43:02 It said he moved to Switzerland and was granted a license to perform without the ability to speak to the public. I don't know, that sounds strange. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:09 A license to perform without the ability to sp-... Oh, maybe, like, if you performed, you had to talk to people?

Narrator 43:16 Like, they had mimes back then, though, no?

Joe Rogan 43:18 Maybe he had to break character, or they'd get mad at you?

Narrator 43:21 I don't know. It's weird. (laughs)

43:21 I- but that seems like... So maybe he couldn't say. He got... He was like, "Ow, it hurts," and they're like, "Shh." I don't know, like... They'd be like, "Pfft." This is just so silly to even have a thing like that.

Alex Honnold 43:29 Well, well, to, to, to be fair, the, the act is less inspiring if the guy screams in pain the whole time, 'cause then nobody wants to watch.

Joe Rogan 43:34 True. Right, yeah. I mean, if the same guy doing the same thing, screaming like, like he's being tortured, that would be sick.

Alex Honnold 43:41 I mean, it'd be the same for David Blaine. Like, when you watch the David stuff-

Joe Rogan 43:44 Yeah.

Alex Honnold 43:44 ... it's like, if you were putting an ice pick through his arm and he was just scr-... Like, if he was just sobbing the whole time, you'd be like, "I don't wanna watch this."

Narrator 43:49 It says in 1948-

Alex Honnold 43:49 You'd be like, "I don't wanna watch this."

Narrator 43:51 It says in 1948, he was, uh, alleged he was instructed by voices to eat a steel needle, and two days later, it was surgically removed. I don't know. That... I think he got cocky.

Alex Honnold 44:04 It's fair to say that he might have some weird things going on.

Narrator 44:06 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:06 Yeah, he was probably trying to kill himself and couldn't believe he s- kept surviving.

Narrator 44:11 Yeah, he was laying on a bed. They didn't... I guess they didn't know he was dead, and then they finally got a doctor to check him. Turns out, he'd already been dead for a day. (laughs) Yeah, it sounds a little-

44:22 Jesus Christ.

Alex Honnold 44:23 We need, we need, like, three more research interns, like, Googling this whole scene-

Narrator 44:27 Yeah. (laughs)

Alex Honnold 44:27 ... as fast as they can 'cause they're like, "Wait, none of that makes any sense."

Joe Rogan 44:29 And this was because of swallowing a needle?

Narrator 44:32 Mm-hmm. He said he had... He thought he had guardian angels. He said he was telepathic, he could heal people.

Joe Rogan 44:39 Yeah.

Narrator 44:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:39 Yeah.

Alex Honnold 44:40 Well, he didn't heal himself very well. Or maybe he did. That's how he survived so many... You know, being impaled so many times.

Joe Rogan 44:46 I sh-... I guess you can just do it, though. It can be done, you know, 'cause they, they're fairly small holes, although they do go through the length of your entire body.

Alex Honnold 44:57 It's... I mean, you just think you'd get infected.

Joe Rogan 44:58 Yeah, or the width.

Narrator 44:59 I think that's part of... part of what that video was, was him proving to doctors that it wasn't all fake, and that's... Because that's what it says. He proved to Zurich doctors that it wasn't... his act wasn't based on fakery. That's pretty... I don't know.

Joe Rogan 45:10 Why do I get so uncomfortable just talking about this? I'm so... I'm breathing heavy. I'm like, "Oof."

Alex Honnold 45:16 Maybe you need to practice a little bit. You could have somebody start putting needles through, like, little parts of your arm, you know? Like...

Joe Rogan 45:22 Just, there's just something weird about people that are willingly hurting themselves and causing themselves pain.

Alex Honnold 45:28 No, I k-... I, I kind of agree with that.

Joe Rogan 45:30 Yeah.

Alex Honnold 45:30 I do f-... I do find it slightly... But David, very well-adjusted man, it seems, you know.

Joe Rogan 45:34 Very well-adjusted.

Alex Honnold 45:35 Just very friendly, you know.

Joe Rogan 45:36 Super friendly.

Alex Honnold 45:36 Like, nice guy, right?

Joe Rogan 45:37 And his card tricks are legitimately mind-blowing.

Alex Honnold 45:40 Dude, dude, so fun fact about his card tricks. I don't know if you'd be... So he, uh, he took me to lunch once and, like, did a whole thing of card tricks, and I was totally... I, I love magic, and I think it's cool. And, you know, I was like, obviously they're all tricks, but I was like, "This is incredible." The execution's incredible. I was totally into it. I was super impressed. And then, uh, at the time, I was, I was dating this girl in New York really briefly, and, um... And a couple of days later, we all went to the climbing gym together 'cause I... like I said, I was kind of e- encouraging him to, like, do some, some climbing thing. And he... Th- then we went to lunch again, and he basically did the same set of card tricks for this girl that I was dating, but having already climbed for, like, an hour or two, and it was funny because his execution in the card tricks was noticeably worse for me. Like, you know, I could tell that he was, like, doing all his tricks worse once his arms were, like, totally wrecked from climbing for two hours. Like, basically, his fingers and his forearms-

Joe Rogan 46:28 Right, right.

Alex Honnold 46:28 ... were totally wrecked. And that actually made me appreciate how difficult the tricks are even more 'cause I was like, "Oh, wow." Like, if your fingertips hurt, and your muscles are wrecked, and it's hard for you to hold your arms steady, then it's, like, very hard to fan the deck, you know, evenly and to, like, pick cards properly, and it made me appreciate just how much skill is involved in what he was doing. I was like, "Oh, dude." It was... It's pretty cool. You know, basically to see somebody do something at their peak, and then when they're also totally wrecked, and then to see kind of the overlap, you're like, "Oh, this is actually quite hard." Like, what he's doing is, is, is a challenge, you know?

Joe Rogan 46:57 You know what it's like? He's, like, he's got the fine motor skills that we have for tying our own shoes.

Alex Honnold 47:03 Tot- totally, but for a deck of cards.

Joe Rogan 47:05 Yeah.

Alex Honnold 47:05 Yeah, when he can just cut to the 27th card or whatever, you know.

Joe Rogan 47:08 Right.

Alex Honnold 47:08 And he's like, "Let me just cut this deck," and he's like, "Oh, there's card number 24." And you're like, "What?"

Joe Rogan 47:11 And he really can do that.

Alex Honnold 47:13 Yeah, when- when you've seen him practice.

Joe Rogan 47:13 Like, he's done it so many times that he has that... You know that... 'Cause there is that feeling that you have when you tie your shoe, where your hands just communicate so fluidly. You know? Like, that's, like, what people strive for in jujitsu. In jujitsu, you strive. Like, that's actually what my, uh, my coach, Eddie Bravo, he uses that as a, as an example, that when you tie your shoe, you don't think about tying your shoe. You just tie your shoe.

Alex Honnold 47:38 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 47:38 And in a certain situation, you'll flow into a technique. Like, a technique will happen, and it'll, it'll happen, and 'cause you... Your, your repetitions, you've hit them-

Alex Honnold 47:47 Totally.

Joe Rogan 47:47 ... so many times that it'll just be so fluid. And so for David, it's gotta be like that, but with, like, the very tips of his fingers.

Alex Honnold 47:54 (laughs) I know. For somebody like me with, you know, very calloused... I can't even imagine feeling anything that well.

Joe Rogan 47:59 Right, right.

Alex Honnold 47:59 Like, honestly, decks of cards, I just, like, f- crumple them all together. I'm just shoving. I'm like, "Is it shuffled?" You know, like, I can't even manipulate them that well.

Joe Rogan 48:06 Right. Yeah, I would imagine, right? Like, your hands have to be, like, super rough, right?

Alex Honnold 48:10 Yeah. Normally, pretty rough, and then also just really calloused on the tips. I mean, often, you know, I can pick up, like, hot things and, like, not really notice it quite the same way or, you know, things like that.

Joe Rogan 48:18 Oh, of course.

Alex Honnold 48:19 I mean, if you're grabbing, like, grabbing a very coarse rock all the time, so, like, you have to wind up with really calloused fingertips.

Joe Rogan 48:25 Of course, yeah.

Alex Honnold 48:26 You just... But so then something like manipulating the edge of a card, it's like I can't even imagine feeling it.

Joe Rogan 48:30 Have you seen... There's a... There was a guy that was on this television show called Duel Survivor, and he was known for walking... Is that what it's called? Duel Survivor, I think? One of them goofy survivor shows.

Alex Honnold 48:40 That, that's the sequel to Sole Survivor?

Joe Rogan 48:42 No, no, no. It was... These two guys would go together, and they would... You know, and the idea was that they would help each other out, but his feet... He always walked barefoot everywhere.

Alex Honnold 48:52 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 48:52 Like, he never wore shoes. So, the bottoms of his feet were thick-

Alex Honnold 48:57 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 48:57 ... like a giant thick, fat piece of leather.... um, see if you can-

Alex Honnold 49:03 That kinda thing, though-

Joe Rogan 49:03 ... show the bo- Yeah, there's a-

Alex Honnold 49:04 I mean, they're-

Joe Rogan 49:04 One on the bottom is the middle image. You can see the bottom of his foot is just, like, this disgusting-

Alex Honnold 49:10 That, I'm, I'm kinda not into that 'cause I mean-

Joe Rogan 49:12 (laughs)

Alex Honnold 49:12 ... you know, there, there are probably a billion people on Earth that basically don't have access to, to footwear.

Joe Rogan 49:17 Mm-hmm.

Alex Honnold 49:17 You know? Like, there are probably a billion people on Earth who do that just because that's how they live.

Joe Rogan 49:20 Right.

Alex Honnold 49:21 And, uh, dude, it's funny 'cause I've been thinking a lot about this kinda thing because, you know, having just spent the month of February in Guyana with, with, uh, we had all these Amerindian porters helping us carry all the stuff in for the show. And, and I was thinking a lot about survival shows in the US 'cause it's so popular to be like, "Oh, we're surviving in the woods." And you're like, dude, there, there are at least tens, if not hundreds of millions of humans on Earth that basically live in survival shows like that, you know? That's just their day-to-day.

Joe Rogan 49:44 Yeah.

Alex Honnold 49:44 It's not a survival thing. They're, like, that's, that's a freaking Tuesday, you know?

Joe Rogan 49:47 Just a-

Alex Honnold 49:47 They're like, "Oh, I'm gonna wander into the woods with my machete. I'm gonna cut some stuff down. I'm gonna make myself a little shelter. I'm gonna start a fire even though it's raining." It's like, whatevs.

Joe Rogan 49:54 Yeah.

Alex Honnold 49:54 And, and being on this trip and, like, watching the Amerindians and just how, how easily and effectively they could live relatively comfortably in the jungle, it made a total mockery out of reality TV-style survival stuff. You know? Because we'd get to a, a new camp zone and you'd see, like, eight or 10 guys just kinda, like, fan out with their machetes and kinda, like, chitchat. And, like, an hour later, there's a camp erected with the fire going and water boiling, and they've all changed clothes. They're all clean, they're all happy, they're dry. They're, like, having a good time. And you're like, "They just made a village-"

Joe Rogan 50:24 (laughs)

Alex Honnold 50:24 ... "you know, with just a machete." And like, it's totally insane.

Joe Rogan 50:27 Yeah.

Alex Honnold 50:27 You know? And then you watch survival shows where it's like, "He will now do such and such." And you're like, come on. Like, somebody doing that i- for show is just so different than people doing that literally every single day for their life, you know?

Joe Rogan 50:38 Right. Well, at least, like, Survivorman used to actually do it.

Alex Honnold 50:43 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 50:43 But then there was the other guy. What was the other guy's name? The other guy who was the other, the other show. The guy who was the British handsome fellow who's in the-

Alex Honnold 50:51 Bear Grylls.

Joe Rogan 50:51 Yeah, Bear Grylls. What's his show called?

Alex Honnold 50:55 Uh, well, he's got one now called Running Wild with Bear Grylls, which I know 'cause I did it with him last year-

Joe Rogan 51:00 Oh, yeah?

Alex Honnold 51:00 ... or two years ago, which actually is cool. But that's more, like, an interview-style show where he takes-

Joe Rogan 51:03 But don't you go to a-

Alex Honnold 51:04 ... people on, like, experiences. Uh, Man Vs. Wild, or no? Oh, yeah. Man Vs. Wild.

Joe Rogan 51:07 Is that what it is?

Alex Honnold 51:07 That, that was his original.

Joe Rogan 51:08 But the, but the thing about him was, like, people got mad because they found out he would go to a hotel at night.

Alex Honnold 51:12 No. No, no, so that was a different thing. So, I, I actually talked to him a bit about it while, while we did the thing.

Joe Rogan 51:17 Mm-hmm.

Alex Honnold 51:17 So originally, he was just doing the full... And I think maybe his show predated the Survivorman thing.

Joe Rogan 51:22 No, it didn't.

Alex Honnold 51:22 I, I think it may have.

Joe Rogan 51:23 No, it definitely didn't. I'll tell you why I know.

Alex Honnold 51:25 Okay, you sure? Okay.

Joe Rogan 51:25 Because Les Stroud is a friend of mine.

Alex Honnold 51:27 Okay.

Joe Rogan 51:27 And he's been on the show, and the reason this show with Bear Grylls was created is 'cause Les wouldn't fake things.

Alex Honnold 51:34 Because-

Joe Rogan 51:34 Les refused-

Alex Honnold 51:34 Well, no, because-

Joe Rogan 51:35 ... to go. They wanted to do things to set things up for him to make it look like it was more difficult than it is.

Alex Honnold 51:41 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 51:42 And he didn't wanna do any of that. He-

Alex Honnold 51:44 Understand.

Joe Rogan 51:44 He filmed everything himself.

Alex Honnold 51:46 What, uh-

Joe Rogan 51:46 The entire Survivorman show.

Alex Honnold 51:48 What network is Survivorman?

Joe Rogan 51:49 I don't remember.

Alex Honnold 51:50 All right, okay.

Joe Rogan 51:50 It was all, but it was the same people that were producing it. They go, "Well, we'll show you." And then they went-

Alex Honnold 51:55 Huh.

Joe Rogan 51:55 ... and did this other show.

Alex Honnold 51:56 Interesting.

Joe Rogan 51:56 And then he got busted for sleeping in hotels.

Alex Honnold 51:58 Well, so, the way he, the way Bear Grylls tells it is more that the first several seasons of the show was basically, like, surviving, where it's like everybody's just out in the bush, like, doing the hard thing.

Joe Rogan 52:08 Mm-hmm.

Alex Honnold 52:08 And it's kinda grim. And then basically he said over time, you just realize that the show is as well received either way. Like, basically people enjoy the entertainment of the show regardless. And he's like, "You don't need the whole crew to suffer. You don't need to suffer. Like, nobody needs to be out there, like, getting worked and whatever for nine days when you can make a good show in two."

Joe Rogan 52:25 That sounds-

Alex Honnold 52:26 You know?

Joe Rogan 52:26 ... like what I would say if I got busted-

Alex Honnold 52:27 Well-

Joe Rogan 52:28 ... sleeping in hotels.

Alex Honnold 52:28 Well, and so anyway, but now his new show though basically has just taken a different track 'cause ultimately the, the, what's the thing? Running Wild with Bear g- The thing he does now is basically just take other people out and, like, have an experience with them.

Joe Rogan 52:39 Hmm.

Alex Honnold 52:39 And it's basically just a format for interviewing, like, interesting people.

Joe Rogan 52:42 Oh, okay.

Alex Honnold 52:42 Which-

Joe Rogan 52:43 Just a wild-

Alex Honnold 52:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:44 ... environment. Yeah.

Alex Honnold 52:45 Yeah, so it's like taking, uh, like he took Obama out into a, like a, uh, a reserve in Alaska. You know, to, like, like, wild places or something.

Joe Rogan 52:54 Imagine if he took Obama somewhere and Obama got killed by a bear.

Alex Honnold 52:57 Dude, well, I think, I, I mean, I think there were Secret Service snipers, like, ready to shoot a grizzly, you know?

Joe Rogan 53:01 Really?

Alex Honnold 53:01 Yeah, I think so.

Joe Rogan 53:02 Wow.

Alex Honnold 53:03 But, yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:03 That's a pretty cool gig. That once you-

Alex Honnold 53:05 But-

Joe Rogan 53:05 ... once you leave, you get Secret Service protection for life.

Alex Honnold 53:09 But do you want that?

Joe Rogan 53:10 No.

Alex Honnold 53:10 Do you want people following you around? Like-

Joe Rogan 53:12 With a gun everywhere?

Alex Honnold 53:13 And, like, a walkie and stuff?

Joe Rogan 53:14 Yeah.

Alex Honnold 53:14 Like, at all times you're like-

Joe Rogan 53:15 Constantly. Uh, yeah, but that's the problem is that-

Alex Honnold 53:17 You know?

Joe Rogan 53:17 ... people legitimately wanna kill you.

Alex Honnold 53:19 (laughs) Yeah, sorta. That's the-

Joe Rogan 53:20 That's why-

Alex Honnold 53:20 Yeah, that's the-

Joe Rogan 53:20 ... the Secret Service is there. (laughs)

Alex Honnold 53:21 Yeah, that's the real bummer. Yeah. Do you wanna-

Joe Rogan 53:23 Yeah.

Alex Honnold 53:23 ... have a lot of people that wanna kill you your whole life? That sucks.

Joe Rogan 53:26 Yeah, the thing, I understand what you're saying though about that guy walking around barefoot. But I think in his, he's, like, a serious survivor guy. And I think h- in his eyes, you don't wanna depend on shoes. So he's developed his feet to the point where he could walk on hot rocks and walk everywhere.

Alex Honnold 53:43 Yeah. The thing is though that people who actually don't have shoes all want shoes. You know what I mean?

Joe Rogan 53:48 Hmm.

Alex Honnold 53:48 Like, that, that's-

Joe Rogan 53:49 Not necessarily.

Alex Honnold 53:50 Mostly though. I mean, that's the thing is, like-

Joe Rogan 53:52 But-

Alex Honnold 53:52 ... all these, like, survivory stuff-

Joe Rogan 53:54 Mm-hmm.

Alex Honnold 53:54 ... you know, it's like when you go into, like, indigenous villages in the Amazon, like, they want refrigeration, they want electricity, they want DirecTV.

Joe Rogan 54:00 Yes.

Alex Honnold 54:00 Like, actually the, this (laughs) village we were in, the guy was like, "I want DirecTV." And we were kinda like, "Well, you need power first, you know?" (laughs) Like, you need connectivity in some way. Like, you know, you need any kinda infrastructure. But it's like people want solid wooden floors. They want, uh, you know, they want medicine, uh, uh, I mean communication for... There's just, I mean, there's so much. I just think it's a little weird to, like, celebrate the survivory stuff where it's like, "Oh, you know, you should toughen yourself up and get back to nature." And you're like, "Yeah, that's cool." But the vast majority of people that live that way-

Joe Rogan 54:28 Don't want to.

Alex Honnold 54:28 ... are, like, actively seeking a slightly more comfortable and slightly more secure lifestyle.

Joe Rogan 54:33 Yeah. I, I totally understand what you're saying. But my friend Steve Rinella spent some time with an indigenous tribe in South America when he filmed his show, uh, Meat Eater. And, uh, they actually, uh, they either offered them shoes or let them try on shoes, and they didn't want them.

Alex Honnold 54:48 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 54:49 And these guys...... it is the weirdest shit ever. Have you seen what happens when someone grows up living and walking in the forest barefoot? Their feet splay out like a hand.

Alex Honnold 55:00 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 55:00 Have you seen it? It's-

Alex Honnold 55:01 Yeah. I heard just like ... Yeah, yeah, I know what you're talking about.

Joe Rogan 55:03 It's, it's ... See if you can find, there's ... I forget the name of the tribe. I'm try- I'm, it's, it's, uh, it's escaping me. But they, they live, uh, deep in the jungles of South America and he's spent, uh, a bunch of time with them hunting and fishing. And they, they eat, they eat a lot of monkeys, which is really crazy. Like, they, they cooked and ate a monkey on the show-

Alex Honnold 55:23 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 55:23 ... and that's like their preferred food. They actually enjoy monkeys and they eat all these other, you know, birds and-

Alex Honnold 55:31 Yeah, totally.

Joe Rogan 55:31 ... whatever creatures they can find. They do a lot of fishing, and they do a lot of, uh, uh, bow and arrow fishing. But, uh-

Alex Honnold 55:36 Yeah, yeah. The folks we were with, uh, were doing the same thing and they had different arrows for shooting fish versus shooting game.

Joe Rogan 55:43 Right.

Alex Honnold 55:43 I was like, "Oh, that's so interesting." There's like these barbed things for fish. And I was like-

Joe Rogan 55:46 Right.

Alex Honnold 55:46 ... I'd never even thought about shooting fish before. (laughs) I was like, "Oh, this is cool."

Joe Rogan 55:49 Well, this is what their t- their feet develop-

Alex Honnold 55:51 Oh, dude.

Joe Rogan 55:51 ... and start looking like. Yeah.

Alex Honnold 55:53 I don't (laughs) like, I feel like that might be an unusual photo. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 55:56 No, there's a bunch of 'em like that.

Alex Honnold 55:58 No, no, but that's like, that's-

Joe Rogan 55:59 And this is what Ranelagh described.

Alex Honnold 56:00 Huh.

Joe Rogan 56:00 This is what he described to me and then we started finding photos of these when, uh, he was on the show talking about it. We, uh, went and looked at them. Are those from him? 'Cause I see you, you have-

Narrator 56:10 Uh, sorta.

Alex Honnold 56:12 Like, are you sure that that-

Narrator 56:13 That's not from his page. I tried to find something like that, but that's what we've looked at every time.

Alex Honnold 56:18 I was like, is that ... 'cause that, those feet look like, uh, they just have some vitamin deficiency type-

Joe Rogan 56:23 No.

Alex Honnold 56:23 ... like weird bone thing going on, you know. Like-

Joe Rogan 56:24 I don't think it's that. I think it's from actively gripping the ground like that. You know how your hands-

Alex Honnold 56:31 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 56:31 ... sort of splay out?

Alex Honnold 56:31 Yeah, yeah, totally.

Joe Rogan 56:32 They-

Alex Honnold 56:32 From grabbing.

Joe Rogan 56:33 Our, we're so used to our toes being in shoes in a-

Alex Honnold 56:36 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 56:36 ... you know, what you would call like a cast.

Alex Honnold 56:38 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 56:38 But the, the, the way these ... There's m- a lot of different f- feet of different humans-

Alex Honnold 56:44 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 56:44 ... that live like that, walking around barefoot that you can see that splay out like that.

Alex Honnold 56:48 Yeah. No, our, our porters, uh, were mostly Wellin- wearing, uh, like, Wellington-like boots.

Joe Rogan 56:52 Mm-hmm.

Alex Honnold 56:52 You know, like rubber boots. And then there were a handful that were just barefoot and you'd be like, oh, dude, we're like five days from a village in the middle of nowhere and you're just like trekking barefoot through the mud.

Joe Rogan 57:02 (sighs)

Alex Honnold 57:02 So. Though the jungle's actually a more hospitable environment for going barefoot than a lot of places.

Joe Rogan 57:05 'Cause it's soft.

Alex Honnold 57:07 Yeah, 'cause it's like kind of muddy and like-

Joe Rogan 57:09 Right.

Alex Honnold 57:09 ... you know. I mean, there are like thorny things, but not, it's not the desert, you know. It's not like sharp rocks and cactuses and things.

Joe Rogan 57:15 And so this show, has it aired, the show that you did?

Alex Honnold 57:17 No, it's a, it'll be in the fall I think.

Joe Rogan 57:20 And so you're there for a month filming this?

Alex Honnold 57:22 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 57:22 How many episodes is it gonna be?

Alex Honnold 57:23 No, it's just one episode.

Joe Rogan 57:25 (laughs) Wow.

Alex Honnold 57:26 I think. (laughs) Yeah.

Joe Rogan 57:26 That's crazy.

Alex Honnold 57:28 Yeah, it's ... I mean, you know, it's not like, it's not like it's my show or ... I was just there to climb this wall. I mean, to me it's-

Joe Rogan 57:33 What is the show called?

Alex Honnold 57:33 Um, I think it's Nat Geo Explorer. I think Explorer is like the series.

Joe Rogan 57:38 Mm-hmm.

Alex Honnold 57:38 I don't, I mean, you know, we'll see. But, um, no, I was just there as a climber to climb this new wall and, and just because, you know, on a personal level it's like an incredible life experience to have a trip like that put together where you get to go somewhere totally wild, learn-

Joe Rogan 57:50 Yeah.

Alex Honnold 57:50 ... about an incredible place. Like, you know, yeah, climb a new rock. You know, it's cool.

Joe Rogan 57:55 It sounds amazing. It sounds-

Alex Honnold 57:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 57:56 ... pretty wild to see. I, I can't wait to watch it.

Alex Honnold 57:59 Honestly, um, I mean, my last couple years, you know, I had like the whole crazy Free Solo Film Tour, which was like a year of, of crazy travel and work, and then a year of COVID, which was also, you know, really different with like no expeditions, no travel.

Joe Rogan 58:12 Mm-hmm.

Alex Honnold 58:13 And so I hadn't really done, uh, like a overseas climbing expedition in that way in, in a couple years. And it felt good to get back to, just to remember that, you know, there are hundreds of millions of humans on Earth that live in completely different ways that, that it's hard to even remember if you're n- if you're not reminded of it from time to time.

Joe Rogan 58:30 Right. Yeah. Yeah. I, well, I can ... I understand your distaste for people that are kind of posing, too. Yeah.

Alex Honnold 58:36 Yeah, it's not, it's not a distaste for posing. I just, I hate, I hate glamorizing ... I hate looking backward too much, you know what I mean? This whole like, oh, we should get back to our roots, like back to nature, all that kind-

Joe Rogan 58:46 Mm-hmm.

Alex Honnold 58:46 ... of stuff. Because it's like people who live in nature, full stop, you know, I mean, they might appreciate it. They might, they might love nature in its way, but they still want the stabi- like a lot of the stability of modernity.

Joe Rogan 58:57 Right.

Alex Honnold 58:57 You know what I mean? Like, like there's a reason that people have developed power grids and like communication infrastructure-

Joe Rogan 59:01 Mm-hmm.

Alex Honnold 59:01 ... and all those kinds of things. Like, it's because it makes life safer and more comfortable.

Joe Rogan 59:05 For sure.

Alex Honnold 59:05 And it's like ... And on the whole, humanity has embraced all those things, so I, you know, I kind of hate the backward looking like, "Oh, we should just get back to our roots," you know, like discr- like the Thoreau style, you know. Like-

Joe Rogan 59:15 Mm-hmm.

Alex Honnold 59:15 ... you know, get rid of all this stuff. You're like, no. Like, we have all this stuff for a reason. It's freaking great, you know.

Joe Rogan 59:20 Well, we have all this stuff for a reason 'cause human beings have a deep fascination with innovation. And m- and some of it, you could argue, makes our lives less happy, though. Some of it.

Alex Honnold 59:31 I don't, I don't know.

Joe Rogan 59:31 When you get to social media, when you get to like constantly staring at screens, when you get to living in cubicles off of ir- of, uh, fluorescent lights.

Alex Honnold 59:40 Totally.

Joe Rogan 59:40 There's, there's an argument about it.

Alex Honnold 59:41 Yeah, that, that kind of like nitty-gritty stuff, yeah. It's like perhaps social media-

Joe Rogan 59:45 But that nitty-gritty stuff is-

Alex Honnold 59:45 ... makes your life less rich.

Joe Rogan 59:47 The econ-

Alex Honnold 59:47 But having a, having a power grid, having communication-

Joe Rogan 59:49 Yes.

Alex Honnold 59:49 ... like having-

Joe Rogan 59:50 Right.

Alex Honnold 59:50 ... a roof, having, you know-

Joe Rogan 59:52 Food.

Alex Honnold 59:52 ... uh, like-

Joe Rogan 59:53 Refrigeration.

Alex Honnold 59:53 ... yeah, roads.

Joe Rogan 59:53 Yeah.

Alex Honnold 59:53 Like, all those things-

Joe Rogan 59:54 Yeah.

Alex Honnold 59:54 ... are incredible.

Joe Rogan 59:55 Yeah.

Alex Honnold 59:55 And if they bring, if they bring extra attacks on our attention, then, you know, so be it basically.

Joe Rogan 1:00:01 And then you just ... Requires discipline to not fall into those traps.

Alex Honnold 1:00:06 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:00:06 And also, you know, an understanding of the, the path that you choose can lead to deep disappointment if you decide to live that cubicle life. Like un- understand that this is not normal for people and-

Alex Honnold 1:00:18 Though this is, this is somewhat close to cubicle life actually. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:00:23 This thing? This is, first of all, completely voluntary. Voluntary.

Alex Honnold 1:00:26 No, no, no, of course.

Joe Rogan 1:00:27 Uh, we've created it.

Alex Honnold 1:00:27 But I mean the actual, the, the feeling of like we, we are inside this tiny little thing.

Joe Rogan 1:00:31 Yeah, we are inside a weird thing. But you've seen the new one.

Alex Honnold 1:00:34 Uh-huh. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:00:34 You're one of the rare people that's seen the new one, which is a little bit bigger. But, um-

Alex Honnold 1:00:38 Uh.

Joe Rogan 1:00:38 Have you ever seen Werner Herzog's documentary, Happy People?

Alex Honnold 1:00:42 No.

Joe Rogan 1:00:42 It's Life in the Taiga. It's about people that live in Siberia.

Alex Honnold 1:00:46 Well, they're not. Like it can't be happy people if they're living in Siberia. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:00:48 They're very happy. You'd be shocked.

Alex Honnold 1:00:50 Yeah. I mean, that's the point of the film I guess, huh?

Joe Rogan 1:00:52 Yeah. The, the