Spoilers follow.
About halfway through “Arctic Ascent With Alex Honnold,” National Geographic’s new three-part docuseries, a shift in tone begins to emerge.
Honnold is one of the greatest living big-wall climbers, whose reputation soared after his ascent of Yosemite National Park's 3,000-foot El Capitan, documented in the 2018 Oscar-winning documentary “Free Solo.” Here he is outnumbered by five adventuring companions crossing the Renland Ice Cap, Greenland's vast ice sheet, the first known to be crossed on foot.
They are making the grueling, 100-mile journey over six weeks to Ingmikortilaq, a nearly 4,000-foot untouched breakwater that is as tall as three Empire State Buildings. Honnold and two teammates, Hazel Findlay and Mikey Schaefer, both superstar big-wall climbers, plan to expand on that. For any elite mountaineer, this would be difficult, dangerous and probably undesirable. “I’ve never climbed a wall of that scale, that size,” Honnold told CNN.
About 90 minutes into their march across the ice cap, whiteout conditions and howling winds hit them, robbing them of all visibility and forcing them to head sharply back and forth.
Honnold wants to continue even as he approaches the center of the crevasse field, which is difficult to spot until huge cracks hundreds of feet deep in the surface are almost beneath his feet. “The goal today is to cross the ice cap all the way,” says Honnold. When Schaefer suggests setting up camp until the weather clears, Honnold says he cannot believe what he is hearing. “Are you kidding?” he asks.
During their trip, famous adventurer Aldo Kane suggests they stop, so Honnold suggests they band together instead. “Having a leash doesn’t make you safer, because we can’t see,” answers Adam Mike Kjeldsen, the team’s Greenland guide. To which Honnold retorts, “But the chances of dying are small.”
This is where the anxiety of watching professional people take risks like those with lives in the balance becomes even greater. Compared to flashbacks, they are rarely experienced in real time, and as a viewer they trigger something similar to a vagal response, making us realize that the reassurance and unity we expect from an expert is not what we are after all given.
Outdoor adventure documentaries typically tell the story of a hero's journey, overcoming obstacles and succeeding in a mission as planned. In “Arctic Ascent,” streaming on Disney+, we not only observe some of the most dangerous and technological risk-taking on the planet, but we also witness the mental gymnastics that the boldest among us think about when death is the most daring of all. Completely plausible: a split-second decision; Intuition that is wrestled with and sometimes ignored; shaky trust among team members; The pressure to convey while filming in extreme, remote locations. This is a more holistic and honest view of the undertaking, giving equal weight to both the physical and mental aspects.
“I think as climbers you learn to make life and death decisions and normalize them,” Findlay says in “Arctic Ascent.” “Often it is my heart rather than my strength that leads me astray.”
Back at the ice caps, French glaciologist Heidi Sevestre weighs in. “I don’t think it’s completely safe to continue,” she said. She is there collecting rare samples for climate research, which is the purpose of the expedition.
With that they set up camp. Once the skies clear, they send out drones to deliver eerie scenes. In fact, they are surrounded by huge crevasses. While the team's spirits were restored, it soon became clear to the audience that their trust was cracking.
“Alex's case is a little different, because he's very confident and very capable,” says Schaefer, who has been friends with Honnold for years. “It’s a little harder for me to blindly trust what he tells me to do.”
By the time of Honnold's famous free solo climbs (no ropes, anchors, holds or companions), he had already completed more than 1,000 solitary big wall ascents, making the interpersonal dynamics of “Arctic Ascent” even more fascinating. Honnold, now 38, is an athlete who thrives under extreme pressure, relying solely on himself and without the intervention or influence of others.
In Greenland, Schaefer acts on intuition.
As Honnold, Schaefer and Findlay plan their multi-day route to Ingmikortilaq, Schaefer and Honnold have a tense exchange. They faced challenging conditions that meant loose and brittle rocks. The chunk, which Schaefer called the “death block,” was raining as Honnold climbed up first.
The weather prevented support teams from transporting supplies, so the group was underequipped and improvising rope setups. Only Honnold had proper hiking boots.
When Honnold suggests an alternative rope option to Schaefer, who is hanging several feet below, Schaefer looks somewhat incredulous and says: that It has to do with the overall safety of what we’re doing, and we don’t have a good risk assessment right now.”
Honnold answers: “Some people are really mean. I mean, just — —”
Schaefer interjected. “No, buddy. I am not grumpy. I am real.” He likened falling rocks to “getting shot by your friend.” An iceberg is calving hundreds of feet below.
Schaefer tells the audience that he has lost more friends through climbing than he can believe with his hands and feet. “I don’t want to die.”
While putting the rock face aside, Schaefer admits to Findlay that he is borderline on climbing. “This is not what I signed up for,” he tells her. Findlay is shocked and admits that it was probably a lot more dangerous than she thought.
Back at camp, Schaefer broke the news, citing risks that could not be mitigated. He said, “There’s not enough value to go on.”
Honnold says this almost casually and nonchalantly. “Don’t you want to climb a huge sea cliff? I mean, it’s pretty cool.” He added: “You already took too many risks there. It would be a shame not to do that, but — —”
“But that’s not always a reason to take more,” Schaefer interjects. Honnold agrees.
Findlay, on the fence, tells Honnold that he is grateful. He has a can-do attitude, but you need to be sure he's thinking clearly. “Do you sometimes feel like you’re so optimistic that you don’t see what’s really going on?”
He asked if he had been too optimistic, adding that he hoped none of this would affect their friendship back home.
“is it so.” she says
Eventually, Findlay and Honnold reached an understanding and made history, climbing to the summit of Ingmikortilaq. “We hit a scary wall, didn’t we?” Findlay speaks from the top.
“I felt like we got something done.” I heard Honnold recall: “It’s like you can only roll the dice this way so many times.”