Joe Rogan Experience #1626 - Alex Honnold

1. 0:00 – 2:35

   Alex launches a climbing podcast ahead of the Olympic debut

   1. NANarrator0:00

      (drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:06

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

   4. AHAlex Honnold0:16

      Hello.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:16

      Good to see you again, man.

   6. AHAlex Honnold0:17

      Yeah, good to see you.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:18

      What's happening? How you doing?

   8. AHAlex Honnold0:19

      I'm, I'm just living. I'm doing the same stuff as always.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:22

      Just living? Crawling giant shit that freaks people out?

   10. AHAlex Honnold0:24

       Yep. Yep.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:25

       (laughs)

   12. AHAlex Honnold0:25

       That's, that's what I'm trying to do.

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:27

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

   14. AHAlex Honnold0:30

       Yeah. No, no. I know... Do you feel a certain, uh, satisfaction about that?

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:33

       I do.

   16. AHAlex Honnold0:34

       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.

   17. JRJoe Rogan0:40

       (laughs) Well, I mean, you have an interesting perspective and you have a fascinating life, you know.

   18. AHAlex Honnold0:44

       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?

   19. JRJoe Rogan0:55

       No, I did not.

   20. AHAlex Honnold0:56

       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.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:11

       Mm-hmm.

   22. AHAlex Honnold1:11

       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.

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:18

       So you... Did you record them all in advance?

   24. AHAlex Honnold1:21

       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.

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:29

       So you've got kind of a structure planned out though?

   26. AHAlex Honnold1:31

       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?

   27. JRJoe Rogan2:02

       Mm-hmm.

   28. AHAlex Honnold2:02

       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.

   29. JRJoe Rogan2:34

       Oh, that's great.

   30. AHAlex Honnold2:35

       But...

2. 2:35 – 5:23

   How Olympic sport climbing works: lead, bouldering, speed, and route setting

   1. JRJoe Rogan2:35

      What is, what are the events in the Olympics? Like how, how is it measured?

   2. AHAlex Honnold2:40

      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.

   3. JRJoe Rogan3:05

      So the first one is how high you can climb before you fall off?

   4. AHAlex Honnold3:08

      (laughs) Yeah, yeah, basically.

   5. JRJoe Rogan3:10

      Really?

   6. AHAlex Honnold3:10

      So you're climbing with a rope and you're climbing-

   7. JRJoe Rogan3:12

      Okay.

   8. AHAlex Honnold3:12

      ... say a 15 meter, well, say up to like a 50 foot wall.

   9. JRJoe Rogan3:15

      Mm-hmm.

   10. AHAlex Honnold3:15

       And the... They set a very, very difficult course and then everybody basically falls as they get higher.

   11. JRJoe Rogan3:20

       Really?

   12. AHAlex Honnold3:21

       Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan3:21

       Because it just gets to a point where no one can complete it?

   14. AHAlex Honnold3:23

       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.

   15. JRJoe Rogan3:34

       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-

   16. AHAlex Honnold3:43

       Yeah, so...

   17. JRJoe Rogan3:43

       ... and so they're gonna make it more difficult?

   18. AHAlex Honnold3:44

       Exactly. They set different, they set different routes for every competition.

   19. JRJoe Rogan3:48

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

   20. AHAlex Honnold3:57

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan3:57

       Like, how does it...

   22. AHAlex Honnold3:58

       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.

   23. JRJoe Rogan4:30

       Oh, they do?

   24. AHAlex Honnold4:32

       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.

   25. JRJoe Rogan4:53

       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?

   26. AHAlex Honnold5:01

       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.

3. 5:23 – 7:55

   Drug testing, weed bans, and what actually enhances climbing performance

   1. JRJoe Rogan5:23

      Right. Um, there's no drug testing in regular climbing.

   2. AHAlex Honnold5:27

      No, no there is. There is. Oh, not in reg-

   3. JRJoe Rogan5:29

      In the Olympics I'm sure, right?

   4. AHAlex Honnold5:30

      Yeah, in the Olympics of course.

   5. JRJoe Rogan5:31

      Yeah.

   6. AHAlex Honnold5:31

      And in the World Cup circuit there is-

   7. JRJoe Rogan5:33

      There is?

   8. AHAlex Honnold5:33

      ... 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)

   9. JRJoe Rogan5:42

      Oh really? Weed?

   10. AHAlex Honnold5:42

       Yeah, really.

   11. JRJoe Rogan5:43

       Oh, no.

   12. AHAlex Honnold5:43

       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)

   13. JRJoe Rogan5:49

       Everybody knows they still won. Of course.

   14. AHAlex Honnold5:52

       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)

   15. JRJoe Rogan6:09

       (laughs) It's so dumb.

   16. AHAlex Honnold6:10

       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-

   17. JRJoe Rogan6:14

       He still won.

   18. AHAlex Honnold6:15

       Yeah, exactly.

   19. JRJoe Rogan6:16

       Yeah, once you-

   20. AHAlex Honnold6:16

       It's like-

   21. JRJoe Rogan6:17

       ... win, you win, you know?

   22. AHAlex Honnold6:18

       Yeah, I mean, that's-

   23. JRJoe Rogan6:19

       This is... I mean, it's not like he's taking steroids.

   24. AHAlex Honnold6:21

       When, uh, a couple Spanish competitors had, had like a medal taken away for, uh, testing positive for cocaine, I think.

   25. JRJoe Rogan6:27

       Really?

   26. AHAlex Honnold6:28

       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?

   27. JRJoe Rogan6:35

       Mm-hmm.

   28. AHAlex Honnold6:35

       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.

   29. JRJoe Rogan6:42

       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...

   30. AHAlex Honnold6:55

       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.
4. 7:55 – 9:23

   Beginner climbing injuries and the slow adaptation of fingers and tendons

   1. AHAlex Honnold7:55

      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-

   2. JRJoe Rogan8:11

      Mm-hmm.

   3. AHAlex Honnold8:12

      ... takes a very long time for, for those tendons to get stronger.

   4. JRJoe Rogan8:15

      Oh.

   5. AHAlex Honnold8:15

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

   6. JRJoe Rogan8:19

      Oh.

   7. AHAlex Honnold8:20

      So-

   8. JRJoe Rogan8:20

      Okay.

   9. AHAlex Honnold8:20

      ... 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.

   10. JRJoe Rogan8:27

       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?

   11. AHAlex Honnold8:34

       Y-

   12. JRJoe Rogan8:34

       Would you put them on... Is there, like, a, a established training protocol for beginners?

   13. AHAlex Honnold8:38

       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.

   14. JRJoe Rogan8:52

       Like fingerboards?

   15. AHAlex Honnold8:53

       Yeah, exactly.

   16. JRJoe Rogan8:54

       Yeah, is that-

   17. AHAlex Honnold8:54

       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.

   18. JRJoe Rogan9:01

       Is... Are there programs like that where-

   19. AHAlex Honnold9:02

       Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan9:02

       ... a young climber can find online?

   21. AHAlex Honnold9:05

       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.

5. 9:23 – 13:55

   Why watching climbing is compelling (and a squirrel cliff-fall story)

   1. JRJoe Rogan9:23

      Yeah, people watch videos. My, my friend-

   2. AHAlex Honnold9:25

      Yeah, totally.

   3. JRJoe Rogan9:26

      ... 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-

   4. AHAlex Honnold9:44

      Hmm.

   5. JRJoe Rogan9:45

      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.

   6. AHAlex Honnold9:53

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

   7. JRJoe Rogan9:57

      Right.

   8. AHAlex Honnold9:57

      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-

   9. JRJoe Rogan10:05

      Yeah.

   10. AHAlex Honnold10:05

       ... the best climber in the world.

   11. JRJoe Rogan10:06

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

   12. AHAlex Honnold10:11

       Yeah, you wanna see greatness.

   13. JRJoe Rogan10:12

       Yeah.

   14. AHAlex Honnold10:12

       Totally.

   15. JRJoe Rogan10:13

       Sure, sure.

   16. AHAlex Honnold10:13

       And just like... Yes, uh, see mastery.

   17. JRJoe Rogan10:14

       Like anything else, like, people wa-... like watching people play chess, like, people-

   18. AHAlex Honnold10:18

       Well, that might be a little more boring (laughs) 'cause that's pretty slow.

   19. JRJoe Rogan10:21

       But the people who love chess like watching people play chess.

   20. AHAlex Honnold10:24

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

   21. JRJoe Rogan10:27

       Mm-hmm.

   22. AHAlex Honnold10:27

       ... watching ballet or something where you're like, "Oh, this is incredible movement."

   23. JRJoe Rogan10:30

       Right.

   24. AHAlex Honnold10:31

       You know? It's like-

   25. JRJoe Rogan10:32

       Well, I like watching play... I, I like watching people play pool.

   26. AHAlex Honnold10:35

       Mm-hmm.

   27. JRJoe Rogan10:35

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

   28. AHAlex Honnold10:39

       Mm-hmm.

   29. JRJoe Rogan10:39

       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.

   30. AHAlex Honnold10:45

       Totally.
6. 13:55 – 17:05

   Mountain lions, bighorns, and the brutality of wild terrain

   1. JRJoe Rogan13:55

      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-

   2. AHAlex Honnold14:07

      They fell off a cliff or something?

   3. JRJoe Rogan14:08

      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-

   4. AHAlex Honnold14:20

      Dude.

   5. JRJoe Rogan14:20

      ... 'cause it's so intense.

   6. AHAlex Honnold14:22

      That like kinda makes you sad though.

   7. JRJoe Rogan14:23

      It is sad.

   8. AHAlex Honnold14:24

      You feel like sad for the bighorn, sad for the mountain lion.

   9. JRJoe Rogan14:25

      Yeah. It's sad.

   10. AHAlex Honnold14:26

       Sad for the driver who's like, "Holy shit."

   11. JRJoe Rogan14:28

       Yeah.

   12. AHAlex Honnold14:28

       As like two large animals fall out of the sky.

   13. JRJoe Rogan14:30

       Yeah, that's it. That's it.

   14. AHAlex Honnold14:31

       Oh, jeez.

   15. JRJoe Rogan14:32

       So they're both like leveled on the side of the highway-

   16. AHAlex Honnold14:35

       Oh, wow.

   17. JRJoe Rogan14:35

       ... and there's quite a few photos. Like that, the blood-

   18. AHAlex Honnold14:38

       What is that?

   19. JRJoe Rogan14:38

       ... coming out of the horn is where his horn came off.

   20. AHAlex Honnold14:41

       Geez.

   21. JRJoe Rogan14:42

       So his horn came off in the impact and you see it there?

   22. AHAlex Honnold14:45

       Yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan14:45

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

   24. AHAlex Honnold14:52

       It's kind of a small mountain lion.

   25. JRJoe Rogan14:53

       He's got in his mouth the fur from the bighorn.

   26. AHAlex Honnold14:56

       Yeah, yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan14:57

       Isn't that wild?

   28. AHAlex Honnold14:58

       That is-

   29. JRJoe Rogan15:00

       Oh, that's so gnarly. Bones poking out. I mean, that is a fucking giant fall. Oh.

   30. AHAlex Honnold15:06

       Does it say where?
7. 17:05 – 29:24

   Guyana tepui expedition: new wall, free-solo decision, and ‘overhanging jungle rock’

   1. JRJoe Rogan17:05

      How often are you, uh, doing these free solo climbs?

   2. AHAlex Honnold17:09

      Uh, you know, I'm, I'm working on things.

   3. JRJoe Rogan17:11

      Yeah.

   4. AHAlex Honnold17:11

      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.

   5. JRJoe Rogan17:33

      Now when you see-

   6. AHAlex Honnold17:34

      But-

   7. JRJoe Rogan17:34

      ... something like that, do you m- make a route first with ropes always?

   8. AHAlex Honnold17:38

      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.

   9. JRJoe Rogan18:08

      Oh, wow.

   10. AHAlex Honnold18:08

       So, yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan18:08

       That's pretty cool.

   12. AHAlex Honnold18:09

       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.

   13. JRJoe Rogan18:47

       Oh.

   14. AHAlex Honnold18:48

       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-

   15. JRJoe Rogan18:54

       So, it's difficult just by nature?

   16. AHAlex Honnold18:56

       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."

   17. JRJoe Rogan19:04

       Oh.

   18. AHAlex Honnold19:04

       It's re- it's really cool.

   19. JRJoe Rogan19:06

       But then when you get to the, the very edge, you have to somehow-

   20. AHAlex Honnold19:09

       Yeah. Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan19:09

       ... or the other, make your way-

   22. AHAlex Honnold19:10

       And that's a bummer. Yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan19:11

       (laughs)

   24. AHAlex Honnold19:12

       Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan19:12

       That seems like the most gnarly part of it, isn't it?

   26. AHAlex Honnold19:14

       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.

   27. JRJoe Rogan19:21

       Oh.

   28. AHAlex Honnold19:21

       And like, you know. Yeah, it wasn't ideal. But...

   29. JRJoe Rogan19:24

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

   30. AHAlex Honnold19:31

       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...
8. 29:24 – 33:01

   Life on the expedition: darkness, hammocks, soaked gear, and ramen rations

   1. JRJoe Rogan29:24

      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?

   2. AHAlex Honnold29:29

      Yeah, just a little hammock and then a little rain fly, just like a tarp above it.

   3. JRJoe Rogan29:33

      Oh, wow.

   4. AHAlex Honnold29:34

      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.

   5. JRJoe Rogan29:41

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

   6. AHAlex Honnold29:43

      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-

   7. JRJoe Rogan29:47

      Oh, okay.

   8. AHAlex Honnold29:47

      ... keep it all organized.

   9. JRJoe Rogan29:49

      Yeah.

   10. AHAlex Honnold29:49

       But it is true that, like, your clothing, once it got wet, is just wet.

   11. JRJoe Rogan29:52

       Just wet, yeah. Sleeping bag just wet.

   12. AHAlex Honnold29:53

       Yeah, just, I mean, it dries on your body but-

   13. JRJoe Rogan29:54

       Yeah.

   14. AHAlex Honnold29:55

       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-

   15. JRJoe Rogan30:04

       Right.

   16. AHAlex Honnold30:04

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

   17. JRJoe Rogan30:08

       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?

   18. AHAlex Honnold30:15

       It's still warm.

   19. JRJoe Rogan30:15

       Yeah.

   20. AHAlex Honnold30:16

       Yeah, yeah, exactly.

   21. JRJoe Rogan30:16

       Yeah.

   22. AHAlex Honnold30:17

       Yeah, it maintains all the insulation without, um, even when it's wet.

   23. JRJoe Rogan30:20

       What company do you use for that stuff?

   24. AHAlex Honnold30:21

       Uh, The North Face.

   25. JRJoe Rogan30:22

       Okay.

   26. AHAlex Honnold30:22

       I'm, I'm s- I've been sponsored by The North Face for a long time.

   27. JRJoe Rogan30:24

       Well, they're-

   28. AHAlex Honnold30:25

       But-

   29. JRJoe Rogan30:25

       ... they're really dialed in with that shit, right?

   30. AHAlex Honnold30:27

       Yeah. Yeah, but all, all synthetic clothing, like, I mean, it's all... Yeah.... it's all good.
9. 33:01 – 37:28

   Portaledges, ‘Instagram glamping,’ and what real wall camping is like

   1. JRJoe Rogan33:01

      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-

   2. AHAlex Honnold33:10

      Mm-hmm.

   3. JRJoe Rogan33:10

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

   4. AHAlex Honnold33:15

      It's pretty cozy. You should, you should try.

   5. JRJoe Rogan33:16

      Oh, how dare you? (laughs)

   6. AHAlex Honnold33:17

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

   7. JRJoe Rogan33:22

      Mm-hmm.

   8. AHAlex Honnold33:22

      It's like so ... I mean, it's nice.

   9. JRJoe Rogan33:24

      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?"

   10. AHAlex Honnold33:31

       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."

   11. JRJoe Rogan33:43

       Right.

   12. AHAlex Honnold33:44

       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.

   13. JRJoe Rogan33:49

       You, well, sometimes you don't?

   14. AHAlex Honnold33:52

       Well, so like, where we were at the base of the wall-

   15. JRJoe Rogan33:53

       Yeah.

   16. AHAlex Honnold33:53

       ... 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.

   17. JRJoe Rogan34:03

       Mm-hmm.

   18. AHAlex Honnold34:03

       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.

   19. JRJoe Rogan34:36

       Oh, boy.

   20. AHAlex Honnold34:36

       No, that is, that is not what we had going on. That is-

   21. JRJoe Rogan34:39

       Oh, boy.

   22. NANarrator34:40

       It's gnarly.

   23. AHAlex Honnold34:41

       No, no, no.

   24. JRJoe Rogan34:41

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

   25. NANarrator34:44

       (laughs)

   26. JRJoe Rogan34:44

       ... like a greenhouse that's fucking just hanging-

   27. AHAlex Honnold34:47

       No, that is-

   28. JRJoe Rogan34:47

       ... off the side of a cliff.

   29. NANarrator34:48

       It's like it's a hotel.

   30. JRJoe Rogan34:49

       (gasps)
10. 37:28 – 48:30

    David Blaine, pain tolerance, and the mechanics of ‘real’ magic

    1. AHAlex Honnold37:28

       I know David.

    2. JRJoe Rogan37:29

       Yeah, he's great.

    3. AHAlex Honnold37:30

       Yeah, dude.

    4. JRJoe Rogan37:31

       He, he swallows-

    5. AHAlex Honnold37:32

       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-

    6. JRJoe Rogan37:36

       Yeah.

    7. AHAlex Honnold37:37

       ... just to see if he could.

    8. JRJoe Rogan37:37

       For days, just to see if he could.

    9. AHAlex Honnold37:38

       Yeah. (laughs)

    10. JRJoe Rogan37:38

        He's a strange person, right?

    11. AHAlex Honnold37:40

        (laughs) Totally.

    12. JRJoe Rogan37:41

        Strange and powerful at the same time, like a very unusual human being.

    13. AHAlex Honnold37:44

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

    14. JRJoe Rogan37:50

        No.

    15. AHAlex Honnold37:51

        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?

    16. JRJoe Rogan37:59

        Yeah.

    17. AHAlex Honnold38:00

        Yeah. (laughs)

    18. JRJoe Rogan38:00

        That's hilarious.

    19. AHAlex Honnold38:00

        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.

    20. JRJoe Rogan38:06

        I put an icepick through his arm.

    21. AHAlex Honnold38:08

        Oh, whether, yeah, that's like the same kind of like-

    22. JRJoe Rogan38:10

        And then he made me.

    23. AHAlex Honnold38:11

        (laughs) Yeah, exactly.

    24. JRJoe Rogan38:11

        I'm like, "Come on, man. What are we doing here?"

    25. AHAlex Honnold38:13

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

    26. JRJoe Rogan38:17

        There you guys are. Look at you.

    27. AHAlex Honnold38:18

        Dude, exactly. (laughs)

    28. JRJoe Rogan38:19

        Ta da.

    29. AHAlex Honnold38:20

        Dude, he bought me an iPhone ra- randomly.

    30. JRJoe Rogan38:22

        Did he really?
11. 48:30 – 1:02:21

    Survival TV vs real subsistence: Amerindian porters and ‘Tuesday in the jungle’

    1. JRJoe Rogan48:30

       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.

    2. AHAlex Honnold48:40

       That, that's the sequel to Sole Survivor?

    3. JRJoe Rogan48:42

       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.

    4. AHAlex Honnold48:52

       Mm-hmm.

    5. JRJoe Rogan48:52

       Like, he never wore shoes. So, the bottoms of his feet were thick-

    6. AHAlex Honnold48:57

       Mm-hmm.

    7. JRJoe Rogan48:57

       ... like a giant thick, fat piece of leather.... um, see if you can-

    8. AHAlex Honnold49:03

       That kinda thing, though-

    9. JRJoe Rogan49:03

       ... show the bo- Yeah, there's a-

    10. AHAlex Honnold49:04

        I mean, they're-

    11. JRJoe Rogan49:04

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

    12. AHAlex Honnold49:10

        That, I'm, I'm kinda not into that 'cause I mean-

    13. JRJoe Rogan49:12

        (laughs)

    14. AHAlex Honnold49:12

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

    15. JRJoe Rogan49:17

        Mm-hmm.

    16. AHAlex Honnold49:17

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

    17. JRJoe Rogan49:20

        Right.

    18. AHAlex Honnold49:21

        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.

    19. JRJoe Rogan49:44

        Yeah.

    20. AHAlex Honnold49:44

        It's not a survival thing. They're, like, that's, that's a freaking Tuesday, you know?

    21. JRJoe Rogan49:47

        Just a-

    22. AHAlex Honnold49:47

        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.

    23. JRJoe Rogan49:54

        Yeah.

    24. AHAlex Honnold49:54

        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-"

    25. JRJoe Rogan50:24

        (laughs)

    26. AHAlex Honnold50:24

        ... "you know, with just a machete." And like, it's totally insane.

    27. JRJoe Rogan50:27

        Yeah.

    28. AHAlex Honnold50:27

        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?

    29. JRJoe Rogan50:38

        Right. Well, at least, like, Survivorman used to actually do it.

    30. AHAlex Honnold50:43

        (laughs)

Episode duration: 3:04:56