LIVE RECORDING with Alex Honnold at Outside Festival

Wild Ideas Worth Living

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4.7 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 22 July 2025

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Earlier this summer, host Shelby Stanger recorded a live episode of Wild Ideas Worth Living with Alex Honnold at the Outside Festival in Denver, Colorado. Alex is one of the most well-known climbers in the world, best known for his free solo climb of El Capitan— the 3,000-foot vertical wall of granite in Yosemite National Park. In this conversation, Shelby talks to Alex about the projects he’s chasing now, how parenthood has shifted his relationship with adventure, and what his approach to free soloing looks like today.

Transcript

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0:00.0	One of the things I've really gained from climbing is that climbing is scary, and you're scared
0:03.1	climbing all the time. Like, I'm scared climbing all the time. And so I think that having that
0:08.4	exposure to fear all the time helps you to parse out when it really matters or not. And I think
0:12.8	that's an important life skill, basically.
0:17.0	Alex Honnold is one of the most well-known climbers in the world, best known for his free solo
0:22.3	climb of El Capitan, the 3,000 foot vertical wall of granite in Yosemite National Park.
0:29.2	In June of 2017, Alex completed the climb in just under four hours with no ropes, no harness,
0:36.6	and no safety net. It was just him, the rock, and an incredible
0:41.8	amount of focus. Before he made that ascend in 2017, most people thought free soloing El Cap
0:48.8	just wasn't possible. But Alex changed that. He redefined what humans are capable of, and in the process became one of the most recognized athletes in the world.
0:59.9	Earlier this summer, we recorded a live episode of Wild Ideas Worth Living with Alex at the Outside Festival in Denver, Colorado.
1:07.9	This wasn't my first time interviewing Alex. We actually spoke in 2018. His film,
1:13.5	Free Solo, wasn't out yet, so it was before all the attention and awards. The movie,
1:18.6	directed by Jimmy Chin and Chai Vassarelli, went on to win an Oscar, and Alex's life changed
1:24.0	in a big way. Since then, he's gone after many more climbing projects,
1:28.8	grown the Honnold Foundation to support solar energy projects, gotten married, and become a father.
1:35.7	I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living, an REI Co-op Studios production,
1:42.6	presented by Capital One and the REI Coop MasterCard.
1:46.5	Here's our live conversation, recorded in front of a packed crowd at the Outside Festival.
1:56.0	All right, Denver. We are so excited to be here. A climber named Emily Harrington told me that climbing with Alex is like playing basketball with Michael Jordan. In interviewing him is even better because he makes you feel so comfortable. He just pointed out some guy changing behind us in the middle of the
2:18.6	street. And now I feel very relaxed. He was very handsome man. He was very handsome. So we're excited to be
2:25.1	here. On the podcast, we talk about wild ideas. Those are ideas that scare you, will keep you up in night
	...

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