Birthday Adventure

Since I started climbing, my birthdays have always been an adventure, usually involving a vertical granite wall somewhere in the Sierra Nevada. My son, Alex Honnold (of Free Solo fame), has led me up walls, mountains and peaks that I never would have attempted without him. Something about embarking on an adventure with the best in the world just makes it all seem so much more possible.

Here are a few of the features we’ve climbed to celebrate my special day:

Cathedral Peak:

Matthes Crest:

And of course, the big one — El Capitan:

Next week, I break with our tradition. My son now has a young family and many obligations that he never used to have, so I’ll be celebrating the day with a friend, who just happens to be an AMGA (Amer. Mtn. Guides Assoc.) guide — and the videographer of the documentary about my life, Climbing Into Life.

This is what we’ll be going up — Eichorn Pinnacle (thank you, SuperTopo, for the outstanding photo):

I’ve tried year after year to do it, and each year, nature disagreed with my plans. Snow one year. Rain, another. Electric storms. My lead climber got sick. Year after year, my dream was postponed. This year… we’ll see. This will post right before our climb. I’ll be off-grid while there — no WiFi & very little cell service — so I won’t be able to let you know whether we were successful until several days after the fact.

Fingers crossed that the ‘fact’ turns out to be the one I’ve been dreaming about!