INTERVIEW: Alex Honnold, Tommy Caldwell on their journey to the Devil’s Thumb
Photo: Tommy Caldwell climbed the Devil’s Thumb alongside Alex Honnold. Their adventure is captured in the new TV film The Devil’s Climb. Photo courtesy of National Geographic / Pablo Durana / Provided by press site with permission.
The new National Geographic documentary The Devil’s Climb, which premieres Oct. 17 at 9 p.m. on the network, follows climbers Alex Honnold and Tommy Caldwell as they head across the western United States, traveling from Colorado to Alaska, capping off the trip with a dangerous climb atop the Devil’s Thumb, an icy edifice in Southeast Alaska. All along the way, the Nat Geo cameras are there to capture their every move, whether they’re cycling, sailing, walking or climbing.
To adventure enthusiasts, Honnold and Caldwell are well-known names. They have been part of the climbing community for quite some time and frequently appear in TV specials and documentaries showcasing their chosen life of ascending some of the trickiest mountains in the world. For their climb up the Devil’s Thumb, they logged some firsts. This complex ascent was the first time someone had climbed the Thumb in a single day, and they made it to the top of each of the five peaks along the complicated route to the top.
Recently Hollywood Soapbox spoke with Honnold and Caldwell about their achievement and the new film, which begins streaming on Disney+ and Hulu on Oct. 18. Here’s what they had to say …
On what makes the Devil’s Thumb a unique mountain to climb …
CALDWELL: “I think we made it different kind of. This is the kind of thing that big mountain climbers and adventurers are looking for — a remote mountain in a cool place that’s going to provide this great experience. I think the fact that we made it into this journey all the way from Colorado and biked all the way there and then trekked into the mountain through the rainforest made it a very unique experience.”
On how they found the inner-motivation to complete the journey …
HONNOLD: “I don’t know if either of us really needs to motivate ourselves. I think the big challenge is evaluating the risks involved and then managing the best we can. I think with a climb like the Devil’s Thumb, we have to handle the environment, like navigate the glaciers, navigate the crevasses, get up on the wall, and then find a good route, find a safe route. We’re both very motivated climbers. We both love doing it and want to climb things that inspire us, so that’s not really a challenge. The challenge is just figuring out how to do it as safely and as well as possible.”
CALDWELL: “The energy that these kind of things bring to us, the motivation it creates is why we do it in the first place. I feel way more motivated when we’re on an expedition like this than I do generally in life because you’re seeing new things. You’re working toward this very distinct goal. There are so many things about the format of doing a trip like this that is just like the way you want to live life.”
On the weather elements they encountered along the route …
HONNOLD: “We had shockingly good weather, just sheer good luck. It was a long, hard expedition in general. But then we got to Alaska, and we had incredibly good weather for the whole time that we were at the Devil’s Thumb. You just have to smile and say thanks. Sometimes it just totally works out.”
CALDWELL: “Yeah, the fact that we decided to make this National Geographic film in a place where the weather is historically terrible was stressing me out a little. I was like, I really hope this idea works out in the end, and so when we got 10 days of incredible weather, and the locals that live up there in Petersburg, Alaska, were like, ‘This never happens. This is so rarely like this.’ And so that enabled us to film this crazy mountain in this really remote place in a way that basically never happens. The visual beauty of this film, I think, is going to be pretty unique, and the film crew that we and National Geographic pulled together was incredibly badass. And so, I think it made for something that’s going to be memorable for people.”
On whether the trek from Colorado changed how they climbed the Thumb …
HONNOLD: “I got more and more tired the whole trip. Tommy did much better physically, but for whatever reason, the cycling really wore me down. No, for sure, by the time we got there, we kind of sucked. At the same time though, you can always rise to the occasion. When you finally reach your big goal like that, you can always pull together one big day, pull it out of the reserves somewhere. We were for sure tired.”
CALDWELL: “There were a lot of different ways we could have climbed the mountain, and we kind of chose the objective that seemed to suit the safety element, how tired we were and our motivation in the end. We could have chosen to make the climb even harder by climbing a 2,000-foot hard route up the first mountain, and instead we chose a much easier route. And that’s because we were like, man, we’re at the end of this two-and-a-half month journey. We’re kind of tired. We have a very big day in us, but we don’t know if we want to make it a 48-hour journey. We just chose what seemed right.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
The Devil’s Climb, featuring Alex Honnold and Tommy Caldwell, premieres Thursday, Oct. 17, at 9 p.m., on National Geographic. The film streams the next day on Disney+ and Hulu. Click here for more information.
