Man: Hello, boys and girls.
This is Tim ferriss, and welcome to "the Tim ferriss show".
In this episode, we have one of the most recognized climbers in the world,
Alex honnold.
- Welcome to the show. - Alex: Thanks for having me.
Tim: Alex, who impresses you right now?
Alex: This kid Marc-andré leclerc. This Canadian guy.
Hardly anyone has heard of him because he's so under the radar.
He's been doing, like, all kinds of crazy alpine soloing.
- Tim: What makes it so crazy? - Alex: He just goes out and climbs
some of the most difficult walls and alpine faces in the world.
The most challenging things that anyone's ever climbed, really.
Tim: So he's just next level?
Alex: Yeah, it's, like, so crazy. Like, [don't know.
Tim: And for those people who want to see visuals on this stuff,
we'll grab some video and links...
Alex: An interesting thing about Marc-andré
is I don't know if there is video of most of the stuff he's doing.
Tim: Oh, really?
Alex: Yeah, he's just going out and climbing for himself
in such a pure style. It's pretty full on.
(Breathing heavily)
(Wind whistles)
Narrator: At 23 years old, Marc-andré leclerc
was already one of the boldest alpinists of his generation.
But he was almost completely unknown.
Narrator: I spent two years following this elusive climber,
trying to document his ascents,
and understand his wild vision of adventure.
Narrator: Throughout my journey with Marc,
I kept coming back to these mysteries at the heart of climbing
that have gripped me since I was a kid.
Growing up as a young climber in Colorado,
I idolized the legendary free-soloist Derek hersey,
scaling the cliffs above town with no rope.
Just a chalk bag and a pair of old climbing shoes.
Narrator: But one day, Derek was out soloing
and he fell.
Man: Derek hersey was killed last week.
Some people thought he had a death wish, but he said,
"there's nothing else that makes me feel so alive."
Peter: Ever since then, I've been fascinated
by these larger-than-life figures...
Getting ready.
Who push the limits of adventure in the mountains.
(Grunts)
Narrator: I've seen some amazing things...
Woman 1: Tommy Caldwell attempting to free climb the dawn wall.
Narrator: And been left to grieve...
Woman: Dean Potter lost his life.
Narrator: When friends died pursuing their passion
woman 2: One of the world's best-known mountaineers
ueli steck has died in an accident.
Narrator: After 20 years of filming,
I'm not sure I've gotten any closer to understanding at all.
Fucking hell.
Check out the no-hands knee bar, baby.
Narrator: Alex, why take the risk?
- Why not use a rope? - Uh...
Those are just dumb questions. (Laughs)
(Cheering)
Narrator: Meanwhile, the sport of climbing has changed a lot.
Let's head to the gym! Boom!
Narrator: What was once a rogue activity
for misfits and vagabonds has hit the big time.
Man: Rock climbing makes its olympic debut.
Narrator: Climbers have become superstar athletes...
It's raised my profile a little bit, for sure.
With armies of social media followers.
And their ascents are celebrated and hyped.
Woman: Professional climbers are sharing Snapchat videos from Everest.
This is hair by Everest. It's a new hashtag, it's a thing.
- Hair by Everest. - It's a thing.
So I was surprised to come across an obscure blog post
about an unknown young Canadian climber
by the name of Marc-Andre' leclerc.
He had climbed a 4, goo-foot route of rock and ice
in one of the harshest environments on earth.
And all by himself.
This was a monumental feat,
but it was just a handful of close observers freaking out about it online.
So, who was this guy?
To find out, I headed up to squamish, British Columbia,
the heart of the Canadian climbing scene.
(Strums guitar)
Weird-looking donuts, guys
we got some fresh bites for you.
- You wanna buy a donut? - Yeah, sure.
Full donut's two bucks.
(Quiet chatter)
(Laughter)
Peter: When I first met Marc, I didn't know what to make of him.
This is called “a sky hump into a front flip...
(Laughs)
Man: Wow.
You want one?
All right.
Peter: He was clearly unaccustomed to being in front of the camera.
Whoa. That's a crazy light.
Peter: Clap in front of your face.
Cool. So tell us how old you are, where you're from, and what you do.
Cool. I'm Marc-andré leclerc
and I'm from the Fraser valley, British Columbia,
lived in bc my whole life.
I'm 23 years old
and I'm a climber, generally speaking.
Yeah, as a young climber growing up in western Canada,
squamish was, like, the place to go.
The most accessible big steep cliff with super-rad hard routes,
the center of the climbing universe, I guess.
Peter: Marc had moved to squamish, fresh out of high school,
eager to join the ranks of the hard-core local climbers.
Right away, as soon as he moved to town, he was pretty hard to miss
because of his crazy, youthful exuberance and stoke.
Come down and switch the rope.
Marc: I think I was, like, pretty dorky.
(Laughs) Like, super psyched.
And I was always sort of chomping at the bit,
like, gotta get up early,
like, climb until my fingertips are bleeding.
(Groans)
He was not afraid to jump right into the deep end.
(Grunts)
Oh, no! Oh, shit.
Man 1: Crazy.
Man 2: He came in just all guns blazing.
I was like, "this kid's a really special breed."
Man: He was a bit young and brash.
You know, it's like, "I'm here," you know what I mean?
But if you're not young and brash between 17 and about 24,
you might as well shoot yourself,
cos that's when people are young and brash.
Will: Marc was just a true dirtbag. Like, seriously broke.
He didn't have a car, he didn't even have a phone.
Marc: I had a phone for a while.
Left it in a stuff sack with some smoked salmon
and then the phone was stolen by a wild fox.
Peter: No way!
I feel like maybe I'm just better off without one.
For a couple of summers there, he was, like, living in a stairwell.
It was surprising when he managed to find a cute blonde girl
to live in the stairwell with him. (Laughs)
His stairwell was just, like, a small futon
at the bottom of the stairwell, like, an entryway.
The longer time I spent there, the more it became decorated.
So then, like, he had tapestries and pictures.
His stairwell became, like, the lounge.
There was no need to live luxuriously,
because we have what we want, which is climbing.
It was easiest just to live as cheaply as we could.
And then we decided to just move into a tent in the forest.
I was attracted to him
because he was so different than anyone I'd ever met.
He was also super socially awkward.
But I didn't care, cos, like, that's who he is
and I love him for that.
- Going on? - Look, there he is.
Your timing's perfect, guys. You nearly missed me.
They call me hevy duty.
It's a nickname that's been with me since the early '703.
I'm more like light duty now than hevy duty. Or old duty.
Hevy is kind of, like, the mayor of squamish rock climbing.
He's also, like, a hula hoop expert.
(Dance music plays)
I am the hoop guy.
Peter: Yeah, tell me about Marc-Andre'.
I can tell Marc-Andre stories all day.
Peter: Please do, yeah.
My first memories of Marc-andré
was seeing him come running out of the forest in squamish,
barefoot with no shirt.
He just broke my speed record on the grand wall
and I was just like, "who is that guy?"
The grand wall might be the most iconic route in squamish.
I'd climbed it the fastest bottom to top.
Speed records are a game.
They're not the most important thing in climbing, but I do love speed records.
And then this local kid, who I'd never heard of, did it faster.
Marc: I was soloing the route quite regularly,
and one time, I just decided to see how long it would take me.
I got to the top and checked the time,
I was, like, two or three minutes faster than the established record.
And suddenly, Alex honnold came back to squamish
to get his record back on the grand wall
that I had kind of, like, unintentionally broken.
I was like, "oh, man, I'm gonna go fast."
He totally destroyed it. He cut my time in half.
Alex: I think I did quite a bit faster.
Enough so that it discouraged Marc from ever wanting to try again. (Laughs)
Marc is a very, very driven climber, but he doesn't care about accolades.
He doesn't even care if anybody knows what he's climbing.
I've always approach climbing from an athletic background.
I grew up climbing in the gym and I think of it more as a sport.
But he cares about, I don't wanna say the spiritual component,
but he cares about the experience in the mountains, and the journey,
and just wants to have a good time while he's out there.
And I really respect that. It's a...
I mean, obviously, it contributes to him performing at such a crazy level.
Peter: The first climb we filmed with Marc
was a solo ascent of the grand wall.
(Birds sing)
It's always nerve-racking to film someone climbing without a rope.
But for Marc, this was just part of his daily routine.
Marc: When I'm soloing rock climbs,
I don't really like to feel like I'm pushing myself.
That's not the reason for soloing rock for me.
I don't like to feel like I'm doing something intense and scary or...
Peter: So then why do it?
Like, more just to have a casual fun adventure
and... cruise around.
Hevy: And when you watch him climb, he's just magic on the rock.
He's got style, he doesn't lunge, he's very precise.
There's not the slightest margin for error
from the minute you set off, is there?
Peter: Watching Marc move so beautifully up the wall,
it was clear this goofy, unassuming kid
was a master of his craft.
Brette: I really love just watching him climbing.
Marc is a very calm and, like, steady, controlled climber.
Hey, Marco, I missed you.
Marc: Yeah, I missed you, too.
(They laugh)
Brette: I get the fact that he wants to solo, because I love it, too.
I'm feeling really, like, calm and good with soloing, too,
so I would be psyched on going and climbing...
It puts you directly in the present.
You can't be thinking about anything else.
And you're interacting and improvising in the moment.
And you're just in control.
Marc: When I first met brette,
she definitely had a pretty big impact on me.
At that time, I'd lost touch with the whole climbing portion of my life.
There is a really lively party scene in squamish.
Definitely got hard into the partying.
At the beginning, it was pretty, like, basic experimentation,
like, it was really fun to experience all these different states of mind.
It's almost like a parallel to climbing.
My friends like to explore a little bit, and sometimes I like to explore a lot,
and it was the same with the partying.
Everyone would wanna take a tab of acid and hang out and have a good time,
and I'd wanna take six tabs of acid and disappear for 20 hours.
(Laughs)
But I got to the point where I felt like I couldn't really do anything
without taking drugs.
Which isn't a healthy place to be.
I remember that.
Marc: When brette and I started climbing together,
she was just totally going for it.
Hanging out with her reminded me of what I'd lost,
what it was like to be... spirited.
- Brette: Fun. - Marc: Yeah, super fun, hey?
Brette: Yeah.
I could see how Marc could have easily slid down that path,
the dark side of drug life.
(Indistinct conversation)
- Man: Have a good day, guys. - Marc: Thanks, guys.
Brette: Marc is interested in intense experiences
and living to the fullest.
Drugs can provide some version of that, but it's not genuine.
And I think he recognized that climbing is the real experience.
- Marc: Nice, brette. - Brette: It's so cool.
Marc: I know, isn't it beautiful?
(Laughs)
- What a fun route. - See?
Brette: I know for Marc,
rock climbing in squamish is all about having fun.
But Marc's vision is more towards soloing big alpine faces
on beautiful mountains.
He loves the mountains and he is definitely ambitious.
He wants to improve upon what's been done before
to make his contribution to the history of alpinism.
Peter: Alpinism, the discipline of climbing big technical mountains,
is more than just a sport.
It's an ideal that has evolved over generations.
(Pipes blare)
In the first half of the 20th century,
large-scale expeditions used lots of equipment and manpower
to conquer the world's highest peaks.
News reel: They stand victorious on the windswept roof of the world.
(Applause)
Peter: By the 1950s,
it was no longer about getting to the top of the mountain,
but how you got there.
In the European alps,
there was a revolution in climbing technique and philosophy.
Smaller teams using less gear
tackled steeper and more dangerous faces.
Man: That was the next step in the evolution of alpinism.
Climbing harder, climbing faster and climbing in better style.
A rope, a rack, and the pack on your back, that's all you get
and you have to make it work with that.
Woman: When you look through the history of alpinism,
climbing was a form of freedom.
It was physical freedom, but it was also a philosophical freedom.
And the ultimate experience of freedom was to climb alone.
Unfettered, unleashed, absolutely solo.
Solo climbing on a high level is an expression of art.
The art of surviving in the most crazy situations.
Peter: While solo alpinism may be the purest,
most adventurous form of climbing,
it's also the deadliest.
Maybe half of the leading solo climbers of all times died in the mountains,
and this is tragic and it's difficult to defend.
But this is the philosophy.
If you're going in an adventure, you need difficulties.
You need danger.
If death was not a possibility, coming out would be nothing.
It would be kindergarten.
But not an adventure and not an art.
(Wind whistles)
Peter: A few months after our shoot in squamish,
we followed Marc to the Canadian rockies
where he'd come for the world-renowned ice climbing.
Marc: There's always a point
where I just cannot wait for ice-climbing season.
I'm just ready to go climb frozen waterfalls.
Peter: Ice climbing is a crucial skill in alpinism.
Over the years, it's developed into its own highly technical sport
and the ice in canmore is a proving ground.
By the time we arrived,
Marc had already been there for a few weeks,
camping outside of town
and climbing things that had the locals talking.
Man: First time I heard about Marc-andré,
he was living in a snow cave on the parkway or something. (Laughs)
And he was, like, soloing all these ice routes all day long.
I was like, "here's somebody who's just going after it and pushing things
that is pretty much unknown."
Man: Ice climbing, solo, it's not something many people do.
You're climbing frozen water
with just a few centimeters of your ice tools
and crampons in the ice.
It's a very ephemeral medium.
Climbing something that wasn't there maybe a few weeks earlier
and that might not be there the next day
if the thing you're climbing on decides to collapse.
Alex: People think the free soloing that I'm doing seems crazy,
but what I'm doing is on rock.
It's safe in a lot of ways. The medium is super solid.
And then I see Marc-andré free soloing on ice and snow.
It just shows so much experience on such different kinds of terrain.
Man: In all my years of climbing,
I don't think I've seen another climber quite as hungry for it as Marc-Andre.
He's got this headspace that nobody else seems to have.
Nothing fazes him.
Marc doesn't just solo the ice, he goes out and solos mixed routes.
Marc: With mixed climbing, it's the whole mentality
of the ice doesn't have to be fully formed to be climbed.
Raphael: Instead of embedding your picks in the ice,
you're just kind of placing them on these little rock edges.
That adds another dimension of insecurity.
Peter: Filming Marc on this insecure terrain was terrifying.
But he couldn't have been more relaxed.
Peter: Holy shit, dude.
Then he took it up a notch
by climbing solo on the notorious Stanley headwall.
Marc: The Stanley headwall is the centerpiece of rockies mixed climbing.
None of the ice is a hundred percent continuous.
It forms in blobs, and pillars and hanging daggers.
You have to climb steep, overhanging rock just to get to the ice.
And so it makes for really good, engaging climbing.
Barry: There's a high degree of craftsmanship
that has to go into the mixed-climbing equation.
The pick of an ice ax can hang on to just the smallest of edges.
But you don't have nerves going to the end of the ice ax.
You have to evaluate and test.
Raphael: The difference between having your pick solidly seated on a hold
and having that pick explode off of it is very, very small.
Alex: I don't know if I've seen someone climb bare-handed with ice tools
in the freezing temps, being able to improvise
between pulling on the rock and pulling on ice tools.
He's just combining all these unconventional tactics.
(Ice crunches)
Barry: Marc soloing the Stanley headwall, it's just like, "wow!
I never thought of that in my wildest dreams."
- Peter: How was it? - It was super fun. Yeah.
- Peter: Scary? - No, not particularly.
- Peter: Just another day out? - A really good day out. Yeah.
Definitely a memorable day out.
Raphael: Marc-andré soloing those routes was pretty stunning.
I think right there that made me sit up and go, "wow!
Who is this guy?"
(Train bell clangs)
Marc: I grew up near a town called chilliwack.
In chilliwack, you become completely desensitized
to the smell of cow manure,
but it's surrounded by beautiful mountains.
When we were growing up, my dad was doing construction jobs
and my mom was serving in restaurants.
Peter: Aren't you and your mom really close?
Yeah.
My mom, she's definitely been a big influence on me.
It's kind of hard to explain.
We've just been really good friends my whole life.
Marc-Andre did have some challenges as a kid.
He certainly didn't come into this world
as a square peg ready to fit into a square hole.
And he had a diagnosis of adhd.
So, he didn't sit still for very long
and he didn't fit easily into the typical educational environment.
Kindergarten was awesome, like, that first year.
You build things out of blocks, and do art, and that kind of stuff.
When it started into actual first grade, and we had to sit at our desks,
it turned into hell for me. (Laughs)
For a kid who had a ton of energy, who loved to learn,
he was losing his, his joy in learning, you know, to be in school,
so I made the leap and I schooled him at home for a while.
We'd do some schoolwork for a while. Usually it would finish at lunchtime.
And we would do cool things together
like go explore the forest and identify plants,
instead of just always sitting at your desk.
Michelle: If you're never given free rein to have little adventures as a kid,
you never really learn who you are,
you don't learn what your strengths or your weaknesses are,
and you never learn that you're capable.
Marc: She wanted me to discover what I wanted to do
rather than pick out what she thought I should do with my life.
Michelle: We may not have had two cents to rub together,
but we always had books and Marc-Andre was a voracious reader.
He was really captured by adventure,
so we had a house full of those kind of books.
And the more interest he showed in them, the more books I provided for him.
I must have been, like, eight years old.
It was this big, awesome picture book with stories from all these expeditions.
And the ones about mountains always really captured my attention.
(Wind whistles)
Looking at pictures of big snowy peaks,
guys with ice axes trying to climb these things,
I don't know, it seemed really...
Brave.
I was so inspired by all of these climbers of the past
and I wanted to be a part of it.
Like, carrying on the tradition or something.
At first, it was justjeans, running shoes,
a few granola bars in the pocket.
Always off trail, never had a rope or anything.
Michelle: At times, I was concerned something could happen to him out there,
but he had a great sense of direction,
and he was very confident when he was out and about.
Marc: After, like, a couple of years of scrambling around by myself,
it just naturally progressed to technical climbing.
When I'm in the mountains on a big adventure,
life is so incredibly simple.
I'm, like, totally focused.
I don't feel that squirrel-brained, twitchy sort of stuff.
And I have the feeling of clarity and calmness and control.
The whole climbing part of my life, everything was falling into place.
But then, like, I went back to school for high school.
Michelle: He eventually had to go back to the standard curriculum at school.
I think to him it was like a form of incarceration.
Help me!
Michelle: He was never looking for trouble,
but he certainly seemed to find it.
Firecrackers explode!
(Yelps)
(Laughs)
- (Firecracker explodes) - (Laughs)
(Grunts)
Michelle: It was clear he was never going to get
a standard nine-to-five job or life.
He was never wired that way.
Hi, I'm Marc-Andre Joseph leclerc. You might have heard of me.
I am doing some of the biggest walls in the world.
Michelle: When he graduated at 16, he was doing drywall, making some money.
He didn't have a real clear purpose or plan at that point.
I told him, "if you want to do this climbing thing,
what are you waiting for?"
And off he went. Marc-andré found freedom to be himself.
He's going to go as far as he can take it.
- We got it! - Yeah, yeah.
- Can you just do a kind of blank...? - I'm gonna look like an idiot.
Smile.
(Laughter)
Peter: Marc's plan to become a full-time climber
certainly seemed to be working out.
He 'd recently landed his first sponsorship.
And here we were making a film about him.
- Peter: Serious. - Really serious?
Peter: Really serious, like your passport.
(Laughter)
Peter: But Marc had little Patience for posing.
And he was getting restless.
As we were planning the next shoot, Marc just suddenly dropped off the radar
to who knows where.
(Phone rings)
We'd even bought him a phone to keep in contact...
- Voicemail: I'm sorry. - But he wasn't picking up.
Voicemail: The person you called has a voicemail box that has not been set up.
Peter: It's just a frustrating situation.
Man on speaker: You've got Marc somewhere in the backwoods.
Peter: He just disappears and doesn't call us for months on end,
having all of us waiting and on hold.
Man: My bags are packed. Everyone's bags are packed.
If we don't hear from Marc, we might not do the shoot.
Peter: We started seeing him in other climbers' social media posts.
It's day six on the wall and day five of the storm.
Peter: Brette was posting these videos.
- Brette: What are you doing, Marc? - I'll just get a t-slot my for skis
so I can lower brette over this cliff.
Brette: Oh, man.
Peter: We saw they'd gone all the way out to baffin island.
- Brette: This is so awesome. - Marc: Whoo!
Peter: Then Marc was in Scotland
where he knocked off a string of solos like they were nine holes of golf.
- All righty. - All righty, then.
(Marc yells)
Alex: At one point, I was climbing in South America,
we could see this tiny, tiny speck on this 4,000-foot wall.
We could look over and be like, "that is Marc-Andre, by himself,
on this fricking journey to the gods."
I was like, "this is messed up. I cannot believe he's soloing that."
Peter: Finally, we heard Marc was back in Canada,
climbing in the remote ghost wilderness.
In an act of desperation, I called a filmmaker from the area
to go into the backcountry and track Marc down.
Peter: He shows up, and Marc is out there with brette and a friend,
and they're putting up hard first ascents
on these huge walls,
having the time of their lives.
(Marc grunts)
Nice, brette.
(Grunts)
Falling!
Whoo!
Brette: Hey, Marco, how is it down there?
It's great.
Brette: Here we go.
(Marc laughs)
Brette: I think it's so cool that you're making a movie about Marc.
But honestly, he doesn't care about movies.
He's not gonna put the time and energy
into making his own climb significant to the world.
He's out climbing, he's too busy climbing.
Pretty incredible, the weather.
Nick: He's different than any climber we've ever dealt with.
He doesn't share any information with us.
It's frustrating, but at the same, it's pretty noble.
Marcjust kind of follows his own path. He's a free spirit.
And that can be difficult to plan around.
Kind of makes him lovable in this weird way, you know?
He doesn't give a fuck.
Peter: This whole time, chasing Marc around,
it was clear he was building up to something big.
But we had no idea what it would be.
Then the news broke.
He had made the first-ever solo of the emperor face on mount Robson.
And it sent shockwaves through the climbing world.
Man: When I heard that Marc had soloed the emperor face,
it was one of those like, "holy shit! Marc soloed the emperor face."
That is absolutely outstanding and probably the greatest solo ascent
of anything that's been done in North America.
Barry: Robson is the king.
It's the highest mountain in the Canadian rockies.
It's like three El caps.
But Robson is not yosemite. (Laughs)
It's got glaciation, it's got crevasses, it's got avalanche.
You're climbing rock, ice and snow all at the same time.
It's a legendary, mythical objective, even with a rope.
Peter: I was frustrated that Marc had made this historic ascent
and he hadn't even let us in on his plan.
Eventually, we reached Marc and asked him why.
Marc: When you guys approached me about doing a film,
it seemed like a cool experience,
but I've never let you guys come and shoot one of my real solos.
Peter: Why not?
Marc: Because it wouldn't be a solo to me if somebody was there.
Yeah, I mean, I guess that's true.
Marc: It's just a completely different experience if somebody comes with you.
Yeah, even if they don't help you.
It just wouldn't even be remotely close to the adventure that I was looking for.
The only way I was interested was actually doing it fully by myself.
And if that happened, I'd be ok to go back and film.
I had this really awesome experience.
Now, I'm actually ready to share it with people.
Peter: So Marc invited us back up to film on mount Robson
so we could see first-hand his approach to solo alpinism.
Marc: For me, the very best climbs
are when you can walk up to a mountain with nothing
except for your ability to climb, and that's it.
Being by yourself out there, immersed in your environment,
tuning in to the rustle of the leaves...
(Wind blows)
The sound of the wind across the Ridge,
the aura that the mountain has.
Peter: On his big mountain solos, Marc follows a simple set of rules.
He carries no communication device
that could be used as a lifeline if things go wrong.
And he climbs on sight,
meaning he's never been on the mountain before,
never rehearsed the route.
He has to figure it out on the fly.
Barry: The gold standard of alpinism is the on-sight solo.
A climber approaches a mountain without any prior knowledge
and just climbs it. (Laughs)
But it's only for the very best climbers on their very best days.
You know, it's such a deadly game.
Marc: The goal is to climb as safely as possible.
But when you step into the mountains,
and there's stuff that's beyond your control.
You control what you're doing,
but you can't control what the mountain's doing,
and that's by far the biggest danger in my mind.
The mountains are alive all around you and you're kind of at their mercy.
You have to think about avalanches,
seracs that can collapse at any time.
You have to learn to read the signals that the mountains are sending you.
The conditions of the snow, the ice, what time of day is it gonna get sun,
what the weather's gonna do. It's like a game of chess.
You have this ultimate goal,
but then unpredictable things are going to happen.
I think that interaction with the environment, with the mountain,
is, like, a huge part of what makes alpine climbing so interesting.
And if you're smart and you, like, make the right moves,
you can, sometimes against the odds, pull off a great climb.
(Wind blows)
One of the coolest feelings
that a human can experience is, like, to feel so small
in a world that's so big.
Barry: Moving over the mountain unencumbered
is about as close as you're gonna come as a climber
to sprouting wings and being totally free.
Absolutely awake, absolutely alive.
Receiving any kind of impulse that's coming in
and reacting to it almost instinctively.
It's a great dance.
Jim: Marc is doing things that people thought could never be done.
He's redefining what's possible.
This is the evolution of alpinism,
and it's happening right now in our backyard,
and it's happening with that young guy.
(Wind whistles)
But I am definitely concerned for Marc-Andre
and anyone else pushing the limit of what's been accomplished soloing.
The place he is in is such a special, finite place,
and such an incredibly risky place.
Marc-Andre is playing with a pretty heavy deck right now.
He is walking relatively close to the edge in big environments.
And I think he can do a fair amount of that and get away with it,
but sooner or later,
it's gonna bite him.
He is gaining recognition because of his solo climbing,
and all of this is wonderful for him, and it's exciting to hear about,
and read about and watch.
But... I mean, maybe it's just an age thing,
but I find it a little bit scary.
I just... you know, I just hope he's careful.
He's really comfortable in mountainous terrain.
Sometimes I wonder if he's just almost too comfortable.
One could say that it's crazy and irresponsible
to place yourself in that kind of danger for what?
Kicks, glory?
I think that free soloing is a very emotionally charged subject
and so it draws strong reactions from everybody.
If you fall and die, everybody thinks you're an idiot,
you're a risk-taker, daredevil, like, "what an idiot."
If you succeed, everyone celebrates you as a big hero.
But the reality is you're the same person either way.
Marc: People are always freaking out about soloing,
"it's such an unacceptable risk. People shouldn't be doing this.
What kind of example does this set?"
I mean, I know it's dangerous.
I'm not, like, deluding myself that it's not dangerous to go soloing,
but I probably just have a different view of everything, I guess.
You know, like, to me, it's not really an unacceptable risk.
I'm still so young. There are so many things I wanna do.
I've really had to think about it within our own lives,
because we do put ourselves in situations
that anything could happen.
Like, an avalanche could take you out randomly.
The more times you put yourself in that situation,
the more likely it's gonna happen.
And yeah, sometimes it's concerning the amount of soloing he wants to do.
He has an insatiable desire to do more at an extreme level.
I worry for him, of course.
Peter: A few months after Robson, Marc set off for patagonia
at the far southern tip of South America.
His objective was a climb that had never been attempted.
A winter solo ascent of torre egger, the most difficult peak in the range.
Patagonia's jagged summits
are a proving ground for serious alpinists,
who gather each summer in the village of El chaltén.
But in the winter, the mountains are lashed by vicious storms
and El chaltén is a ghost town.
Jon: To go winter climbing in patagonia solo,
he's definitely upping the game by a lot.
Going to patagonia in the winter! It's just mind boggling.
Jon: The weather is horrific.
Barry: Avalanche hazards can be extremely high.
Jon: And trying to solo torre egger on sight.
I mean, torre egger is a coveted peak.
Some people consider it the hardest peak in the Americas.
Hevy: People ask me, "don't you worry he's not coming back?"
I just shake my head,
"Marc will be coming back. He's got this sixth sense."
Peter: Soloing torre egger had long been a dream of Marc's.
So he obviously didn't want a big film crew.
But this time, he was willing to bring one cameraman,
his climbing buddy, Austin siadak.
I'm gonna basicallyjust try to keep up,
tag along, and document as best as I can along the way.
I don't wanna, like, impose on his experience.
Peter: Austin would hang with Marc in town
and shoot some climbing on the lower sections of the route.
But for the summit push, Marc would climb alone
and bring a small camera to capture what he could in real time.
Yeah, this is torre egger.
I've been thinking about this climb for the better part of a year.
If there's ice, it might be quick
to go straight up this ice gully under the serac and then...
Torre egger is this 1,000-meter rock pillar
rising up out of the glacier with an ice aréte in the middle.
You know, not always perfect rock and capped with ice mushrooms.
I could look at it on paper and be like,
"ok, like, this is totally mathematically, like, feasible."
But at the same time, it still seems a little bit out there,
like, "whoa, this is the next step for me."
I spent the majority of the last year doing things
that would prepare me for this climb.
A ton of mixed climbing, and a ton of ice climbing,
and then the emperor face.
It was all sort of preparation with egger in mind.
Just gonna check weather models.
I check all these models multiple times a day.
Friday morning, the wind rolls in, with precip.
When the lines are close together, that means a lot of wind.
(Wind gusts)
The peaks right now are just getting nuked.
We have to hang out in town and wait for a weather window.
Coming down here by yourself in the winter time...
(Speaks Spanish)
You become immersed in the El chaltén life.
Hanging out with the locals.
And they're making you part of the family.
(Speaks Spanish)
Yeah, it's actually like a big part of the whole experience.
(Conversation in Spanish)
(Laughs)
(They laugh)
(Rock music)
(Marc and Hugo laugh)
Marc: Just checking the latest meteogram.
Looks good, like, Tuesday, Wednesday.
- Austin: What does that mean? - Means we're going climbing.
Part of the crux of soloing in these mountains
is the amount of stuff that you have to carry.
It's pretty heavy.
Like, when you have to put everything on your back
and just, like, solo with the pack on.
This bag, like, ripped open. I've taped it shut.
It's lost half its insulation. It just means it's even lighter.
It's even more super light.
Well, I don't wanna sound grim or fatalistic,
but it's, you know, undeniable that every time you go to the mountains,
it could be your last time,
so all these things that you love you have to appreciate.
Whatever dinner you'd want to possibly be your last dinner,
you have to eat it.
Cos you're going to the mountains. (Laughs)
Yeah.
(Birds sing)
Reinhold: The whole game is very simple.
We go somewhere that we should not go.
Where our own instinct is telling us, "do not go there."
Many things can happen.
We can fall.
The storm can take me away.
We know that we could die up there.
But still, we go there.
We try to make real our dreams.
Our visions.
Marc: I had spent a whole year imagining this climb,
and I felt like I had the skills to do it,
and it would require all of them.
But I don't know the route whatsoever.
No idea how this is gonna go. Like, no idea what to expect.
Conditions are definitely tough right now.
You can see my trail there.
I was literally digging through a trench,
through chest-deep snow with wind slab on top,
and I think there could be a lot of this kind of snow
on the hanging glacier in the gully.
And not only is it really hard work,
I think avalanche conditions could be quite dangerous.
So I'm gonna go over and see how the rock is
and see if that goes.
I started on really snowed-up rock, which took quite a long time.
Well, two pitches of climbing and it's kind of heinous, actually.
Here's my tracks.
I have to go tack along the edge of that serac
and bivvy on top of it.
The climbing was hard and slow. Conditions were awful.
I think the route goes up there.
I had to keep taking my gloves off.
My hands were numb because of the cold.
Almost on top of the glacier.
(Exhales)
Definitely challenging so far.
There's my backpack that I'm hauling up.
Check out my hands.
My fingers were bleeding and everything was just kind of gnarly.
Well, here I am at the top of the hanging glacier
and I'm settled in for the night.
I originally hoped to be six pitches higher than this
on the snow aréte. Not going as fast as I wanted to.
You split left off of that hanging glacier
and that brings you to the snow aréte in the middle of the east pillar.
I've come a good ways now.
Here's the snow aréte that I wanted to make it to yesterday,
but, you know, it just goes how it goes.
There's the upper headwall, so we'll see.
I might be able to keep going even if I have to make one extra bivvy,
one more than planned.
You're switching constantly between boots, crampons and rock shoes.
You'll climb an ice pitch
and then all of a sudden, you're on a rock pillar climbing 5.10.
Or mixed climbing
through some narrow gully filled with ice.
It's just, like, everything in the repertoire.
Well, I'm in the upper ramp,
looking down the route.
Whoo!
When you encounter a situation where you're like, "ok, this is real.
I can either keep it together and do this
or I can, like, fall apart and have a meltdown."
You gotta do one or the other.
And that process of evaluating the situation,
and then getting it together, and carrying on,
it's a challenge every time.
Well, persevering, and things are working out.
Quite the view.
I'm literally in the middle of the headwall.
I'm stomping out this sick little platform to sleep on,
the only place I could find to bivvy, which is super cool.
I'm gonna freeze my ass off tonight, that's for sure, but that's ok.
Yesterday, progress was so slow and difficult
that it was kind of discouraging, but now I'm in a really good position
to go for the summit tomorrow morning. I'm only a few pitches away.
So as long as the weather holds, I'm psyched.
(Wind whistles)
Hey, brette, this video's for you.
I just wanted to, uh...
Let you know that when I'm out here in these mountains by myself,
I really miss you.
And I'm thinking about you a lot,
and there's a part of me that...
Wishes I could just quickly rap to the ground,
and get out of here, and change my flights,
and come back and see you, cos I'd love to...
Just... yeah, see you.
I love you.
(Wind whistles)
I woke up at around five in the morning,
peeked outside my sleeping bag. A full snowstorm was starting.
Now, I just have to pack up as quick as I can
and rappel the whole mountain in blizzard conditions.
I hope it goes well, cos it's a long and complicated way down.
Holy shit!
Well, I'm back in my tent.
I am sorry to say that I did not reach the summit.
But... I survived,
which I think counts for a lot.
Kind of a bummer, cos I made it within four pitches of the top.
It was still probably one of my very best solo efforts in the mountains,
just in terms of sticking with it and coming really close, and...
And, you know I always said...
Cos I've always dreamed of trying to solo egger
and I always said
that if you got caught in bad weather near the top of egger by yourself,
that's the ultimate nightmare, and it actually happened to me,
and I made it down just fine, so... That's kind of... that's cool, I guess.
Peter: I was relieved to hear that Marc had made it back down.
(Indistinct conversation)
And after such a close scrape, I figured he would just fly home,
unsuccessful, but safe.
Well, it's amazing just feeling how tired I am from that climb.
(Conversation in Spanish)
Peter: But Marc couldn't let it go.
He saw another weather window in the forecast,
this one even shorter than the last.
Marc: And on Friday, you have half of a good day,
and overnight's good.
Peter: And he decided to go for it, again.
This time, he was raising the stakes.
Marc: Because I already know the route, I decided I could do the route in a day
without carrying any bivvy equipment.
But I won't have the option of sleeping up there on the mountain.
I have to go really light and move fast in order to get it done.
Here we go.
Peter: For his second attempt, Marc would carry just a small pack
with no sleeping bag, no extra food.
Just the basic tools to climb light and fast.
Starting the climb that night,
he hoped he could get to the summit and back down
before the next storm crashed in.
Austin: Good luck, Marc!
Marc: Well, it's 5:45 in the morning and I'm back at my first bivvy site
on top of the hanging glacier.
It's only taken me a couple of hours to get here.
So, yeah, off to a good start.
I'm just going for it,
just this tiny little adventure on this huge mountain.
Well, the sun's rising.
Check out how incredible this is.
I'm more than halfway up the route already.
Well, I'm in the upper ramp.
Things are working out.
I'm on the summit of egger!
Super psyched!
Whoo!
Yeah, look at this!
Holy smokes!
To solo torre egger
seemed like the perfect combination of everything I'd learned how to do.
It's almost like my whole life leading me to a certain place.
Austin: Nice work, dude.
(Exhales) Yo.
- How's it going, dude? - Austin: How do you feel?
(Laughs)
- Austin: Perfect. - Dude, yeah, things are awesome.
No alpine ascent is truly complete until the beers go clink.
- Cheers. - Cheers, man.
- Si. - Si.
(In Spanish) When you grow up,
(laughs)
(Conversation in Spanish)
Austin: Psyched to be going back to states?
Yeah, I'm super stoked to see brette
and eventually see the family back up in Canada.
There's the taxi.
I have to negotiate, cos I don't have pesos. (Laughs)
Brette: When Marc comes out of the mountains,
he has this, like, radiating energy.
He's had some sort of extreme experience
that had moved him deeper than anything else could have.
Marc: When you're in the mountains with a mission,
it's like all the superficialities of life just sort of evaporate,
and you can often find yourself in a deeper state of mind,
and that can stick with you for a while after a big climb.
(Indistinct conversation)
You appreciate everything so much
that you take for granted most of the time.
It's kind of funny.
The actual achievement doesn't really change your life
like you think it might, when you're building up to it,
but what you're left with is the journey that got you to that point
and if you have this big journey
where you had to figure a lot of stuff out,
and you had to plan, and it was more immersive,
and then you were somewhere really beautiful for a long time,
and then had to work really hard,
and overcome some kind of mental barrier,
you're left with so much more of a story
or, like, a memory and an experience.
And that's what I find is the most important.
Peter: For two years filming Marc's climbs,
it was like trying to capture lightning in a bottle.
Now, it was time to assemble the film and release Marc back into the wild.
He still had so many mountains to climb.
Ok, brette, I'm secure!
Hey, dude.
Peter: And that is where I thought this story would end.
But while we were editing,
Marc chased a weather window up to Juneau, Alaska,
where he met up with a strong local climber,
Ryan Johnson.
Climbing as a team, with a rope, they made a first ascent
on the north face of the mendenhall towers.
At the summit, there was cell reception.
So Marc sent text messages to his mom and to brette.
And Ryan sent a video message to his girlfriend.
Hey, babe, figured why not be up here with me?
- Marc, right there. - Yeah.
Ryan: Pretty amazing up here.
We've got a long way to get down, so we're gonna get to it.
Marc: The descent does not look straightforward.
Peter: But by the next morning, nobody had heard from them.
Brette was on a sailboat off the coast of tasmania.
She was the first to realize they were late to check in.
She contacted search and rescue, took the next flight out,
and called us when she landed in Alaska.
- Peter: Fuck! - Yeah, so I don't know, Pete.
- I'm so sorry. - I don't know what to do.
I don't know what's gonna happen or what would happen if...
A climber from squamish has gone missing in Alaska.
Marc-Andre leclerc and another climber were last seen on march 4th.
Peter: We followed brette up to Juneau
and met Marc's family at the search and rescue office.
Some of Marc's friends from squamish had come along to help with the search.
But a storm had rolled in,
so nobody could get a helicopter in there.
All we could do was wait for the weather to break
and hope that somehow, they were still alive up there.
After four agonizing days, the weather finally cleared enough
for search and rescue to fly a helicopter into that zone
and get visuals of their descent route.
With all the new snow, conditions were too dangerous to land there,
but they spotted a rope.
It was covered in avalanche debris
and it was clear that Marc and Ryan were buried there.
There was no chance of survival.
Brette: We were hoping to do a recovery of their bodies but...
It didn't happen. They just disappeared into the glacier.
I remember sitting out there on the ice field and wondering, like,
"why wasn't I with him?"
Like, I felt I should've been there.
I didn't even know that life could be that painful.
I didn't even know it existed until you experience it.
It's like we're kind of living in this blissful magical life,
and then you're hit with this shockwave of pain,
and you'll never be the same.
After he died, I just didn't care about anything.
Nothing mattered.
Maybe I would just disappear also.
But then I remembered this conversation that I had with Marc.
Marc said that if something happened to him,
he wants me to keep going.
He didn't want me to lose my spirit.
He just wanted me to keep climbing, keep loving life,
and be happy. Yeah.
You have no idea how hard it is.
In theory you can say it, but to actually be living that...
I went back to Alaska.
It's so beautiful there,
but being there without him felt so awful.
I was in so much pain
and the only time I could feel an escape from that
was being in the mountains.
I keep returning to these places we climbed together.
They are infused with him.
I came upon this piton and I'm certain it's Marc's.
I feel like you're here, Marc.
I just miss him so much, like, I miss our adventures together.
But I know that you'd want me to be here
and I know that you'd be proud.
(Wind gusts)
Just his typical smile.
(Sighs) Yeah.
Peter: You guys have a similar smile. (Laughs)
Michelle: How I'm doing is a day-to-day thing.
Without Marc-Andre, yeah,
it was like something was suddenly and irrevocably wrong with the universe.
It was, like, that's just not how it should be.
I'm sorry.
In some indefinable way, you've moved to another place
and you have to learn how to live there.
Peter: A few months after the accident,
friends came to squamish from all over the world to celebrate Marc.
(Chatter)
He was one of a kind.
He was an individual individual.
He just burned very bright
and he left an indelible Mark on a lot of people in a short time, didn't he?
Wow, there's a lot of you.
As any parent knows, raising children is a tough job,
but I am thankful
that at least god granted me the grace to understand this about my son,
to not stand in the way of his passion for the mountains.
Michelle: Of course, I worried.
What mother doesn't worry about the children she's raised
to leave her and go out
into this beautiful but dangerous and broken world?
(Laughs) It's so exposed.
Michelle: I believe Marc-Andre lived the life he was intended to live.
That he was meant to scale mountains,
stand on summits, find his way into lonely valleys...
Super happy.
Michelle: And love one woman with all his heart, his little b.
- How are you, brette? - It's pretty chilly. (Laughs)
Michelle: Tolkien in the hobbit says,
"there are no safe paths in this part of the world.
You're over the edge of the wild now."
Marc: Oh, yeah, look at that.
Michelle: Well, Marc-Andre, you are truly over the edge of the wild now.
Marc: The storm came in with a strong north wind.
Michelle: I hope the mountains there are amazing and the sunsets are beautiful.
Marc: And then it cleared for a bit as the eye of the storm passed over us.
We are all richer for calling you son, brother, partner and friend.
Whoo!
Michelle: Thank you for giving us 25 remarkable years.
Holy fuck!
(Applause)
Whoo!
Peter: Having come to know Marc as a friend, as well as a climber...
(Laughs)
It's hard to reconcile the idealism of his ascents
with the tragic consequences.
That's why alpinism remains such a contradiction in my mind,
such a mystery.
But I believe what Marc did with his time on earth was beautiful.
He followed the course of his own dreams.
Michelle: A lot of us live our lives thinking of the things we'd like to do
or the adventures we'd like to have, but we hold back.
That's what really stands out to me about Marc-Andre's journey.
It's about what is it that you would do
if you were able to overcome the things that you see as limitations
or the things that you're afraid of?
You know, what would you do?
(Wind whistles)
(I "Manchester" by kishi bashi)