Climber Alex Honnold Leads First Ascent Of One Of Earth’s Tallest Arctic Sea Cliffs At 4,000 Feet

Alex Honnold, the climber known for summiting El Capitan with no ropes in the documentary Free Solo, added another massive climbing achievement to his resume.

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Honnold shared an impressive size comparison showing how much higher Ingmikortilaq in Greenland was than his previous titanic climbs.

The rock face was almost 4,000 feet tall, and Honnold said on Twitter that he did the climb along with the British climber Hazel Findlay.

 

Honnold and the rest of the team had to travel far via air and water vehicles to the remote Greenland location and spent about five days hanging and securing ropes for the climb.

He said on GMA, “The view from the summit is incredible. It’s this 360 panorama of these fjords and icebergs, and is an incredible place to be.”

“There was a fair amount of relief at having finished,” Honnold also later added, chuckling. “Because the climbing was incredibly stressful and sort of dangerous, and so it felt good to finally be off the face.”

“Sort of dangerous” is one way to describe this terrifying climb, but it’s all in a day’s work for Honnold.

The goal of the climb wasn’t just another stunt for Honnold, but to help glaciologists gain safer access to remote ice forms to study, which is becoming more urgent day by day as increasing temperatures are increasing glacial melt over the world.

French scientist Heidi Sevestre, who was also part of the expedition, told National Geographic, “We desperately need scientific data from this region. Studying the fjords, the glaciers, the ice sheets, will bring so much data to the scientific community that the contribution will be extremely positive.”