Devil's Climb, The (2024)

[bunniefuu]

I think

this would be, like,

the grandest adventure that

we've been on in our lives.

I'm doing this to

support my friend.

One. Go.

My turn.

Uh-oh. It's real.

It's real.

It's really happening.

I do worry

about how Tommy will hold up

on the Devil's Thumb.

It's gonna get steep.

Wow. This is crazy.

I'm pretty sure you're

uh, you're not on route.

Those are the types of risks

that I don't really wanna take.

You know the

only thing keeping you alive

is your trust in your

climbing partner,

and your best friend.

My name is

Tommy Caldwell and I've been a

professional climber

pretty much my entire life.

The Devil's Thumb has

always been there,

in the back of my mind.

It's kind of like

this mythical mountain.

It's got the biggest alpine

face in North America that's

never been climbed.

Only a few people have

even attempted it,

and a lot of the ones

that did, died trying.

And so I've been putting

it together in my mind,

and sort of logistically, for,

like, a year or something.

But I needed a partner

to help me pull it off.

So I called up Alex Honnold.

He's the guy that climbed the

3,000-foot face on El Capitan,

in Yosemite, without a rope.

Yeah, buddy.

He's probably

the best climber on Earth for

an expedition like this,

and I was like, "is there

any way that you'd wanna

do this whole trip with me?",

and his immediate

reaction was, like,

"No, Sanni's gonna

divorce me if I do that.

Like, there's no

way I could do it.".

But I got in his mind a little

bit and he called me back

a week later, and was like,

"yeah, we're gonna do it.".

I think this is,

this could be mega.

This could be really big.

This is definitely

not light duty.

It's hard to say, 'cause

we don't know what the rock

quality is or what the

weather's like, but from the

photos, it looks insane.

I mean, there's also the

possibility of just going

straight up from the bottom,

you know, climbing

the whole south face.

Yeah.

Most teams of recent history,

have just helicoptered

right to the base,

but that's

not really my style.

So I started trying

to imagine, like,

"what would be the grandest way

possible to do this trip?".

I've always wanted to do a long

bike tour, and I came up with

an idea for, like,

this epic road trip.

Biking from my house, across

nearly 2,500 miles of the

American West and Canada,

all the way to the

border of Alaska.

Honestly, I haven't done

a big adventure like this

in a long time.

Keep my aging body fresh.

So it's like,

"let's climb something

that's very challenging

and really earn

our stripes getting there."

Can I get you guys

to look in each others' eyes?

No.

.

What do you see?

I see fear and pain.

.

What do you see?

I mean, I'm slightly

concerned about Alex's

lack of empathy

on this kind of trip.

.

Three, two, one.

Go!

My turn.

I've been

sidelined for a few years with

an injury and

raising a family.

Go!

So the Devil's Thumb is

kind of, like, the biggest

challenge imaginable,

for making my comeback.

I don't know, I just hope

to have a great, you know,

a grand adventure together.

Because I'm supportive and

kind, really empathetic, too.

This is when Alex will

be who he is, you know?

It always works... it's's always

worked out in the past,

and hopefully it'll

work out again.

Uh-oh, it's real now.

It's real.

It's really happening.

This is gonna go

by really fast.

I am excited that Tommy gets

to go on an adventure,

'cause I feel like Tommy

is the most himself,

he's the most Tommy when he

gets to do this kind of thing,

and it's been a while since

he's gotten to do that.

But two months is

a really long time,

and they're climbing a mountain

that could potentially be

a dangerous climb.

I haven't made

it past that yet.

Bye. Have a good Summer.

I'll treat him so well,

don't worry.

Oh, no!

Love you.

Love you, baby.

This is what we

like to call a "downhill",

so we really like

doing some speed here.

Just try to make it look fast.

Spent two years of my

life in a foreign land,

Came home to find my

mind still stuck in the sand

Okay, so here's a rattlesnake

that I just biked by,

heard the rattle,

and then it jumped at Tommy,

who's on the other track.

Welcome to Wyoming.

I had to tell myself,

"Did 'em all for you"

Oh, yeah. Buffalo.

This is,

like, X-rated filming.

Most people think

X-rated means naughty,

you mean dangerous.

Yeah, dangerous.

And oh, it shows

On the faces of

those who know

Waiting for Alex to cruise by.

We got camera on the tripod.

Boom.

Taylor Shaffer from San Diego,

and I've been a fan

of Tommy and Alex

for a very, very long time.

My job is to take some

photos during this journey,

massage their sore

butts, you know,

when they're just on

the bike for hours on end.

Taylor was in my kitchen one

morning, and I said that

we were looking for somebody

who was young and hungry,

and ready to go on

a big adventure and support,

and he literally was like,

"I'm young and hungry.".

Yeah, Taylor.

You're looking

like a man right now.

This is what ice

axes are actually for.

And

I'm driving the van.

I like driving,

it's not too bad.

Oh, my gosh, is

that Alex Honnold?

Wow.

Dreams do come true.

Check back soon.

This is the content

we need, right here.

The whole youth group.

Alex can't go

anywhere these days.

Tommy, nobody

cares about Tommy.

See, the lonesome dad.

Then we've got

Alex, over here.

Tommy's like, "okay, I'm just

gonna start biking because

nobody cares about me."

The average

person might not recognize

Tommy in the crowd, but

in the climbing world,

he's a total legend.

I was a ten-year-old

when I first

heard about Tommy Caldwell.

I was just a kid, going

to the climbing gym in

suburban California,

and Tommy was one of the

best climbers in the country,

and I mean really, one of the

best climbers in the world.

He was doing these insane

first ascents on some of the

hardest big wall

routes in the world.

He's like the Captain America

of rock climbing.

Basically, he was the

climber that I hoped to be.

I first heard

about Alex, you know, he was

kind of this budding, young

climber, and then he soloed

some big routes in Yosemite

before I ever met him, and

I was like, "whoa,

that's not normal.

He's doing stuff that

people really haven't done

at this point."

But it was in, kind of,

like, this angstful way,

in terms of needing to,

like, prove something.

I just remember talking to

him for, like, six hours

one night, which,

.

surprised me, 'cause that

wasn't kind of what I'd heard.

I'd head he was

super shy and awkward.

So we, like,

kind of connected.

The first big

climb that I did with Tommy

was the free trip on Yosemite.

It was something like a

24 hour climbing experience,

where we did the three biggest

and hardest walls together.

Okay, I got you good!

Nice, Tommy.

Climbing with Alex,

it's like a vice, in a way.

It's like smoking cigarettes

would be, or something.

It's like, you know

it could k*ll you,

but you do it anyway.

Dude, that was off the hook.

We had the

same sets of strengths and

weaknesses, basically.

It allowed us to climb in a

way that neither of us had

ever actually climbed before.

Climbing with

Alex, all the mountains shrunk

to about half their size.

We could climb things together

that we could never

do individually.

It was really addictive

right from the start.

Okay,

I'm making a movie.

Okay.

Okay, Tommy.

What are we doing?

I mean, so

we're looking at all these

awesome photos, trying

to figure out our route.

Turns out the walls are a

little three-dimensional,

it's a little bit

hard to figure out

until we get there and see it.

There's going to be

plenty of mysteries.

Okay, I'm

gonna look at more photos.

Whoa, big mountains.

Whoa, scary mountains.

Whoa, unclimbed big faces.

Unclimbed big faces.

Lots of rock.

Okay, well,

that's what we're gonna climb.

Cool, that's our mountain.

Okay, bye.

I first learned

about the Devil's Thumb

from Jon Krakauer's book,

Into The Wild.

It was, like, his formative

youth climbing experience,

going and trying to climb this

mountain, and his descriptions

of the mountain

captured my imagination.

It's an incredibly

beautiful mountain,

but it's just so remote,

and the weather is so terrible.

So I think it's gonna

be a big adventure.

Krakauer

attempted to climb the

north-east ridge of the

Devil's Thumb in 1977.

He made it about halfway up

when he realized there was

no way he could pull it off.

People have called it

"the last great problem"

in North American

mountaineering.

For Tommy and me, I think

climbing the Devil's Thumb

is really about the

chance to do something

that's never been done before.

I'm doing this to

support my friend,

I think that's kind of

the role of the partner,

is to keep you motivated,

to keep you moving,

to keep the team moving forward.

The bike ride, though,

not really my thing.

100 miles of, like, this.

I think I'm loving it.

Only my feet are numb.

This slowly

grinding our way across the

country, personally,

I think it's a bit much.

Like, just get me to

the climbing already.

You guys look beat.

Pretty tired now.

We look like beasts.

.

We

also got up at four.

Maybe tomorrow we should--

I'm gonna go take a shower

and look fresh as a daisy.

Tommy is known for his

good nature, his positivity.

Like, he's always upbeat.

You wanna wrestle?

No. Heck, no.

I think this was the stance.

Alex is sort of known for

being a bit of a grump,

sometimes, on the

way to the mountain.

But honestly, there's,

kind of, a bigger reason that

I need this time on the

bikes before the climb.

How's all the

legs, all the injuries doing?

I mean,

pretty good. Yeah.

I think, overall,

they're getting better.

Everything that I know

about life is, kind of, like

imbued through this lens

of being a climber.

All of my craziest experiences,

all of my hardest experiences,

all of my best

experiences are basically all,

somehow,

associated with climbing.

Year-and-a-half ago, I was

trying a climb in Yosemite.

I swung into the

wall really hard,

and it tore my Achilles tendon.

An Achilles injury, for any

professional athlete,

is very serious.

It can easily end

your entire career.

Biking is something I can do

before it's completely healed,

and so I started to conceive

this idea to do this big trip.

Which gives me about 50 days

to get ready for the climb.

My old man strength is

starting to pull through, here.

I'll take what I can get.

I'm usually

floundering behind you, so.

That's not,

that's not actually true.

You've got, like,

slightly flounder-y

in the last year or two,

and only because you

ruptured your, your Achilles.

I think Tommy's Achilles

injury has been hard for him,

for sure, especially for him

as a professional climber,

it's like, it's his

livelihood, in addition to the

thing he loves doing.

He needs to

be set free, physically,

to fully be himself.

And then you just wonder, too,

it's like, our, like, security

is kind of based on him being

physically able to do stuff.

And so, having that

threatened, there's that,

you know, just a little

bit of vulnerability.

Well,

they put bolts in there,

they put a cadaver

part in there,

they stitched the whole thing up

using all these crazy things,

and they completely

rebuilt the Achilles tendon.

Hopefully it'll hold up on the

Devil's Thumb, but we won't

really know until we get up on

a real mountain and test it.

We've made

it about halfway on our

bike journey to Alaska,

and we're stopping off

at a mountain range called

"Bugaboos", in Canada.

It's a famous climbing

spot in North America,

and a proving ground

for bigger alpine climbs,

like in Alaska.

It'll be kind of a

climbing boot camp to

test Tommy's Achilles,

and ease back into full-on,

like, elite rock climbing.

We are up early 'cause

we're gonna go climb today.

Right now, we're just having

a nice, early breakfast,

enjoying the stars.

Giant rockfall in

the middle of the night.

Sounds big.

That sounds really big.

Nothing like

just starting the day

hearing this massive rockfall...

as you head off

into the mountains.

5:00 a.m.

We're here.

It's a big jumble of

rock above us, huh?

El Cap size.

Ready to blast off.

Our

objective, today, is to climb

a 3,000-foot granite wall.

Alex climbed the first 100 feet

in like four minutes.

Gonna have to go fast.

Pretending my toes

aren't about to fall off,

and start crying like a baby.

Alex is leading

and he's going really fast,

and honestly, I'm struggling

to keep up with him,

especially with being

injured for the last year.

The

micro's on, Tommy.

Okay.

I'm gonna

keep going up the next ridge.

Whoa!

This whole thing is loose,

that I'm standing on.

Was is strenuous

climbing past this?

- Is it strenuous?

- Yeah.

The

crux is hard, at the top.

Man, that was

a little more physical than

I was hoping.

How's

the Achilles, Tommy?

How do you feel?

Umm...

You know, like this has been

a bit of a journey.

Did have two Advil 'cause of

the bolts they put in my heel.

Hey, you

ready to take us to the top?

- Yeah.

- Oh, yeah.

Woke up today,

might as well be bad-a*s.

Yeah,

that's the spirit.

Alex is being

pretty patient with me,

but we both know the partnership

to take on the Devil's Thumb

together doesn't really

work if I can't keep up.

Nice, Tommy.

Come on.

Nice, Tommy.

Nice, dude!

Nice effort.

Thank you.

Solid, Tommy.

Come on.

I do wonder if he's

more beat than he lets on.

I mean, I think he's kept

shockingly high spirits,

but truly, it's taken a toll.

Tommy just took the lead after

a year-and-a-half of injury.

What a boss.

Tommy Caldwell,

childhood hero, you know?

Getting off belay, Alex.

Nice job.

Alright, Tommy. Come on.

So high up

there that you can't even see

the mountains anymore.

Oh, my God.

.

Just amazing.

After nearly two years of

recovery, where, at times,

I didn't know if I'd ever

climb big mountains again,

honestly, it just

feels incredible.

.

Oh man.

Yeah!

Yeah, Tommy!

High-fives.

What a boss.

Yeah, good work.

Bam, the summit.

- Yay, the summit!

- I have no idea if this is...

Tommy gets to

the summit and I can immediately

see that he seems

pretty emotional,

and, and we celebrate.

It's really freaking cool.

Oh, yeah.

Well, I think that

was a great day.

Pretty psyched.

You know, I've had enough

big setbacks, in my life,

that I've almost

become addicted to

the progression that

happens as I come back.

I think, somehow,

Kyrgyzstan built that in me.

When I was 21-years-old,

I did my first big,

international trip to these

wild mountains in Kyrgyzstan.

A small w*r broke out.

We got kidnapped, held hostage

in the high mountains

for six days.

Went six days, basically,

without food and water.

We saw people get

shot point-blank

right in front of us.

One of the kidnappers was

escorting us to a new location,

one day, and we

ultimately escaped that guy

by me pushing him off a cliff.

When I pushed him,

he fell 20 or 30 feet,

bounced off a ledge,

and then we just saw him

disappear into the blackness.

And so, yeah, I figured,

in that moment,

that I just k*lled someone.

And we ran six-to-ten miles

down to a military base,

and then ultimately made

our way out of there.

I think that affected

me in a lot of ways.

We experienced, like,

fear in a way that

still doesn't feel real.

Not long after that,

I was back home,

just trying to get my

life back together,

bought this little, tiny,

rundown cabin.

Didn't know how to use

power tools or really remodel.

And I chopped off my

finger with a table saw.

My doctor said my

climbing career was over.

But through both

those experiences,

I built this intense drive

to not lose climbing.

I basically learned

that climbing can

save me from anything.

.

Our climbing

the Bugaboos was definitely a

big step, but I do still worry

about how Tommy will hold up

on the Devil's Thumb.

You know, he turned

45 on this trip.

I mean, for a professional

athlete, that's old.

I think Alex

walks this interesting line of,

like, supporting

me and pushing me.

You know, he's not, like,

a hugely sympathetic

climbing partner,

that's for sure.

He makes these off-handed,

kind of, harsh remarks,

at times, and he's actually

said to me, he's like,

"maybe I should find somebody

younger and more hungry,"

and I don't know whether

that's tongue-in-cheek,

whether that's truth.

I don't know.

I think I wanna show Alex I

still have it, but I think,

more than that, I wanna show

myself that I still have it.

Hey, dude.

We made it to the ocean.

We

made it to the ocean.

We are in

Prince Rupert, British Colombia.

There's no roads beyond here,

so this is where we ditch our

bikes and sail to a place

where we can start our final

approach, on-foot,

to the mountain.

Alex is, unfortunately, passed

out in the bottom of the ship,

face-down, trying not to puke.

Somebody's gotta

captain the ship.

Yeah, it's starting to

get a little bouncy.

Well,

we're sailing, there's whales.

Oh, yeah.

That was sick.

Alex doesn't seem sold.

I love doing

trips with Alex, but he is a

little bit of an enigma,

I would say.

Every time we are out doing

something that, I think,

is kind of incredible,

Alex is, oftentimes,

pretty grumpy about it.

I always thought that it

was just kind of a shtick,

like, he was just being funny,

but I think, now, there's, like,

a little bit more

to it than that.

He gets the most happy

when we find a scrappy,

little climbing gym.

That's when he's

the most joyful.

I mean, I'm realizing that he

needs to pull hard on

small holes, all the time,

to feel right in the world.

We should do what we did

before, which would be you

leading the free blast.

Back in 2016, Alex was

prepping for his big Free Solo

climb in Yosemite,

which was really putting

his life on the line,

and I was trying

to help him get ready.

He used to periodically go

through existential crises,

he would blow up

his relationships.

You'd call him and he'd

just seem dark and conflicted.

Can you read me your

journal entry for today?

Says, "Today 7-C

plus one fall on crux,

too pumped, need more fitness.

Do you

ever put things like,

"miss my dog,

and my mom?"

I don't know.

- No, no.

- No?

I think I

felt like I could only perform,

as a climber,

with a certain amount of

angst or kind of aggro energy.

You know, that I needed some

darkness in order to achieve.

When I grew up, nobody in

my family hugged, full-stop.

And so I didn't really start

hugging until my mid-20s,

and it was a conscious

effort to, sort of,

learn how to touch other people.

Some people look at me

and they're like,

"oh, he's, you know, an

emotionless robot," like,

"he feels no fear, he's

just like a climbing machine."

I feel emotions, I would

just say that I'm probably

less emotive than,

than the average person.

With Alex,

there's always a

protective wall.

I think it's hard for him to

let down his guard of this,

like, persona of

the fearless climber.

You ready?

One, two, three.

Alex, you should do it.

No

chance I'm jumping in.

.

I'm also here, hoping for a

transformative experience.

And hoping to figure out

what a trip like this actually

means for me, as well.

I think I'll feel a little

more at ease once we get some

real intel on what the

climb and the mountain

actually looks like.

Hey Dieter.

Finally.

Yeah so great to meet you.

Great to meet you.

Nice to meet you.

Thanks for having us.

My pleasure.

Dieter Klose is

probably the most prolific and

knowledgable climber

on the Devil's Thumb.

He's one of the few people

on Earth who can give us

real info on the

potential climbing routes,

and on navigating

the maze of obstacles

between here and the mountain.

The Devil's Thumb

is very remote.

You're totally alone.

It's only climbers that

are really drawn, I think,

because it's so forbidding.

These are awesome.

I thought

you'd like this one.

It gives you a good, you know,

view of the north-west face.

Makes

it look very ominous.

- It's terrifying.

- Yeah.

So there's no routes on

any of this part of

the north-west face?

Negative.

- So there's nothing over there?

- Yeah.

There are three

potential routes, that we're

considering, to reach the

top of the Devil's Thumb.

The south face is

the cleanest route.

It's a good option in bad

weather, but doesn't offer

much in terms of

climbing objectives.

A much more impressive option

would be to do a full traverse

of the entire

Devil's Thumb massif,

which means to summit

each of these incredible

needle-like spires

on our way to the top of

the Devil's Thumb itself.

The final option is to summit

via the massive wall of the

north-west face, which

has never been climbed.

It might

never get climbed,

because it's so fickle.

It's like, everybody that's

gone there, you know,

high-end climbers,

don't even go

onto the face at all.

But why don't they try?

It's avalanching.

Yeah.

Normally, you don't go to a

climbing destination that's

also a good place to go

avalanche-watching.

I know.

They're beautiful, right?

If they don't hit ya.

Can't wait.

I was on the west

buttress, I got hit by rockfall,

and my daughter was

six-months-old, and for me,

that was a total wake-up.

Like, it was, "you're a dad now,

you're not doing

dangerous climbs anymore."

I don't think there's any

advice, that I can give you,

that you don't already know.

I mean, it's like, I would say,

"stay alive, you have a family."

It'll have

to just be, like, a

game-day decision, I think,

on which route we actually take.

You won't know until

you're right there.

Yeah, totally.

The next

step is figuring out how to

actually get to the mountain.

Navigating this

new approach, up a new valley,

that nobody has

really travelled through.

So this

approach route is kind of

your brain child?

Yeah.

So if it's terrible,

we can blame you?

Absolutely.

That does

look hard to get through.

It's just miserable walking.

It's rocks on ice.

Oh, my God,

just like this nice rain,

there's the mountain,

somewhere, in the distance.

Yeah. You picked a

place to climb.

I know.

Up the river,

across, and then zigzag on

the ledges, hopefully.

Look it, we see it!

What?!

Here we are,

the Devil's Thumb.

Yeah, whoa.

Oh, wow.

This is cool.

Oh, my God,

it looks so crazy right now.

So beautiful.

We've journeyed all

the way from Colorado,

and first view

of the mountain.

That looks so epic.

It's awesome.

This is, like,

insanely pretty.

We're about

to hike over a glacier,

and then we have to go

all the way around

the corner, over there.

This is

what Dieter calls,

the witch's cauldron.

What used to be, relatively

benign, snow fields, have now

melted out into shattered

glaciers and exposed rock.

We are now on the

glacier-glacier.

We have to watch out

to not fall in holes.

Oh, jeez.

I think I'm gonna do it

different, just 'cause

I'm an old man.

The terrain

that we're navigating is

exactly the kind of

thing that you probably

don't wanna be doing

on an Achilles injury.

His greatest risk are, sort of,

acute stresses while hiking.

After

my surgery, I, like,

convinced myself that

I was totally fine.

I got in the walking

boot and I was like,

"oh, I can actually climb

in the walking boot.".

So I started climbing again

in my orthopedic boot,

I resoled the front with

climbing shoe rubber.

I was like, "oh, I'm just

gonna get back after it.".

So I went out with Alex,

one day, to test it,

and just, like,

pushed into this foothold really

hard and felt it go again.

It just, like,

catastrophically exploded,

like, audibly, like,

pow, you could hear it.

I mean, sadly,

I was belaying Tommy when he

re-ruptured his Achilles.

He re-ruptured it either three

or four times through the

recovery process, and had

another surgery, and had,

I mean, all kinds of,

it was quite a saga.

It makes me feel

slightly complicit.

I don't think it's totally my

fault, but I was like,

"oh, maybe we should've been

reining him in a little

instead of urging him on."

So I think, for me, this trip

is less about, sort of, like,

a personal drive,

and more like a certain

feeling of obligation.

If I can help him accomplish

this big climb, and make his

official comeback to climbing,

I think that'll mean

a lot to both of us.

Hit it with speed, Tommy.

Is that really better

than pitter patter?

Yeah, 'cause

I can't, like, I can't jump on

to the toe of my foot,

I gotta land on my heel.

It's probably, like, the

hardest terrain imaginable

on a healing Achilles tendon,

and we're trying

to go fast because

we don't want

it to last all night.

One, two.

Yes, Tommy.

It is fully dark now.

A little terrifying.

We still have everybody?

Okay.

Even Taylor, back there?

We

finally reach a place to camp

at around midnight.

The bolts in my heel get, I

think, just, like, walking,

just, like, tugs on them, and

given, you know, 13 hours of it,

tugged on

them a fair amount.

Alright, we

did 13-and-a-half hours today.

The watch says it's

three-and-a-half days

till we recover, so let's set

the alarm for a couple hours

and go again.

Should be fine, huh?

After nearly two

months, and over 2,000 miles,

we're finally here.

Alex and Tommy

About to climb the

Devil's Thumb.

We're up high

on a glacier

In the sun

Man, this has been so fun

.

Racking up,

putting together our tiny kit

to go across all

the mountains.

The weather,

right now, looks fine.

So we're gonna go

rock climbing soon.

The Devil's Thumb is notorious

for bad weather, and yet,

when we get here, a huge

high-pressure system comes in,

and we get a good forecast.

Alex racked,

I usually let him do it,

'cause then, if I do it,

he just takes half the

stuff off anyways.

That's not even true. Look how

big that rack is, it's huge.

The thing is, we wanna be

prepared for rappelling,

we wanna be prepared for

anything, and we're simul

climbing huge blocks really,

so we want a lot of gear.

Yeah.

And we're both,

you know, we're both young

fathers, we're

trying to keep safe.

Yeah.

Our luck with

the weather means we have a

chance to really go big

by attempting the

first one-day traverse

of all five peaks

in the Devil's Thumb massif.

We'll have

to move really fast and light

to basically race up and down

each of the five

peaks before sunset.

It's over

3,000 feet up and down the

first two peaks,

called, the witches.

Then, another 800 feet straight

up this incredible spire,

called The Cat's Ears.

Potentially the most dangerous

section is this insane

600-foot rappel down to notch

between the Cat's Ears and

the Devil's Thumb.

The final climb up

the Thumb itself

is 1,500 feet of

vertical rock.

- Let's go for day packs.

- Yeah.

Just going for it.

The Devil's Thumb

is the main objective,

but the spires next to the

Devil's Thumb are equally

impressive, from a

climbing perspective.

They're, like, the stuff from

fantasy, like, slender,

little needles

sticking in the sky.

The fact

that we're gonna try and just,

like, blast the whole

traverse, basically, in a day,

sounds kind of

intimidating to me.

I wonder how it's gonna go.

But I like the strategy,

you know, you gotta, kind of,

go for broke sometimes.

The key to

our partnership, and taking on

crazy climbs like

this, is speed.

When you can move faster

together, you can climb

further before you

run out of things

like daylight, or supplies.

Over the years, Tommy and I

have, sort of, refined our

technique to allow us to

climb pretty darn fast.

Simul climbing is when both

climbers climb simultaneously.

Come on, Tommy!

Come on!

Bah!

Yeah.

And it's contrast to normal

climbing, where one climber

goes up and brings the

other climber to them.

Done climbing, Alex.

Both climbers

are moving in tandem, which is

way faster, but also

a bit more dangerous.

The leader

is, oftentimes, climbing 50,

60 feet above their last piece

of protection, which means,

if they fall, they're gonna

fall twice that distance.

120 feet.

Whoa, you okay?

Whoa, jeez.

Yeah, yeah. I'm fine.

The stakes are high, so you

need to be very aware,

very on top of your game.

A fall like that on

the Devil's Thumb

would probably be fatal.

Hi, dada.

Hey, Ingrid.

How you doing?

Hey, Fitzy.

What's up, buddy?

Awesome.

.

Hey baby.

How's it going?

Ready for tomorrow?

Yeah, getting

all geared-up, psyched.

Everybody's getting

ready for tomorrow.

Tomorrow's the big day.

I think I always question the

risk side of adventures

like this, especially

these days, as a father.

That makes me a little bit

nervous, but on the other hand,

this is, like, what we do,

this is what Alex and I do.

Ingrid, dad's

talking to you and he's about

to go up a mountain, so

pay attention, please.

Yep.

I love you, sweetie.

Don't go!

Back in a few days.

Okay, here we go.

Have a good day.

Oh, yeah.

See you guys later.

Bye.

Oh, yeah.

Finally going rock climbing.

Off they go,

into the darkness.

I just hope everything

goes safe and sound.

No-one has

ever attempted climbing

all five peaks of the

Devil's Thumb massif

in a single day.

Honestly, I'm not

sure we can pull it off.

Wow.

We have to move

super fast, and Tommy's body

just isn't what it used to be.

But I also know how badly

he wants this climb

to be a success.

This is Tommy's trip,

Tommy's idea, Tommy's goal.

I just hope I can

help make it happen.

There's

always part of you that says,

"What if this doesn't work?

What does that mean for me,

for my career, for my life?"

There's only one

way to find out.

.

Good morning mountains.

I think this is the official

start of the route,

I'm starting my timer.

We have now begun

the outward traverse.

Oh, yeah.

Wow.

Seeing the whole thing up

here looks amazing.

Yeah,

I was just taking it in.

Doing a one-day ascent

adds a sense of urgency

to the whole day.

If we don't make it during the

daylight hours, we're either

gonna have to keep

questing through the dark,

stop and shiver through the

night, or bail altogether.

So we normally start climbing

big mountains in our tennies.

Yeah.

No rope?

Yep.

Alex starts

climbing up to the base of the

first spire without a rope,

because it's faster.

There's Tommy,

soloing up the

beginning of the route.

Tommy climbing carefully.

I'm just not

comfortable climbing without

safety gear the way Alex is.

I feel like he's already pushing

me over that line of risk,

but I also don't wanna slow us

down right out of the gate.

We ended up climbing, unroped,

almost half of the first route.

But it does get us into

position to start the

first pitch a little

head of schedule.

Okay,

I'm freaking repacked.

Are you ready to go?

Tommy Caldwell is starting

the first section of

technical rock climbing.

There's the top of

the Witches teat.

Okay, you're tied in.

Line's on, you

have all your things.

Take me to the summit.

The first spire is 2,000 feet

of vertical, with no clear

route to the top.

Tommy sets off in the lead,

and he quickly

climbs out of sight.

Okay.

Traction's on!

Nice, I'm climbing.

When we simul climb, we try to

go for really long stretches

at a time, without stopping.

Which means that we place

protection less frequently.

I mean, sometimes you're going

100 feet in between pieces of

gear, so that means you could

take a 200 foot fall, which,

on this type of terrain,

would probably be fatal,

because you hit ledges,

and bounce off things,

and you'd probably die.

The thing with simul climbing

is it requires total trust

from your partner,

because, oftentimes,

you can't hear your partner and

you can't see your partner,

but you just have to know that

they're doing the right thing.

I come around the corner and

see Tommy up, below this big

chimney system that

we're aiming for, and I can

immediately see that

he's fully off-route.

I'm pretty sure

you're uh, you're not on route.

What, do you think I'm

supposed to be over left more?

Yeah, I know

you're getting into all kinds of

weird [bleep] over there.

Seemed like the way, but.

No, uh, uh, uh.

I mean, I kind of think you

just, if you can reverse what

you just did, just down-climb

and quest back over, into it.

I get to a

place where the rock is wet,

the cracks go away, things

seem dangerous and loose.

And so I resign to the

fact where I actually have to

down-climb about 100 feet,

and get back on route,

which probably adds another

20 minutes to our day.

Oh, my God,

there's rocks falling.

Tommy's crossing.

We all get lost sometimes.

I find it a little bit

frustrating, though, because

you know that those things just

compound themselves over a day,

and if you think you're

gonna be out for a 24-hour

push in the mountains, any

time you waste 20 minutes,

like, that stuff adds up.

Sorry.

I got lost for a

minute, there.

No worries.

Tommy, back on track.

Is that you, Alex?

Yeah, I'm climbing.

I'm feeling

the pressure to move fast.

This feels like the moment

when I have to, kind of,

dig deep and prove

I've still got it.

Honestly, I'm just

gritting it out.

That's why I've gotten

where I am, and so

part of me wants

that to be kind of like,

as strong and as fierce

as it can be, always.

Yeah, buddy.

Yeah!

Woo!

I'm on the top, Alex!

Oh, yeah.

That was pretty good.

We make it to

the summit of the first peak,

which is only the beginning,

but it feels like

a big success to me.

Look at this.

This feels like, freaking,

straight out of

Lord of the Rings to me.

Menacing mountains everywhere.

There's the Devil's Thumb,

we're going over there soon.

There's Alex, just, you know,

walking around unroped.

Motored up this.

Yeah, right now,

I'm feeling like we're,

we're making good life choices.

Hopefully it stays

that way all day.

Okay.

I'm rapping.

Let's see where we get.

We're making good progress,

but we need to keep up the pace

if we wanna avoid getting

stuck up here in the dark.

I mean, depending

how uh, how that feels,

we could basically just solo.

Yeah.

Yeah, let's

just solo as far as we can, huh?

Yeah.

Wow.

I mean, it looks easy,

but it's super exposed.

Pretty exciting.

Are we roping up there, Tommy?

Yeah.

Uh-oh, Tommy got scared.

Yeah, I

kind of wanna rope up.

It's a little unnerving.

I'm climbing.

I know

that Alex wants to just stay

unroped, you know,

he's a free soloist.

But he stops, and we rope up for

the next section of the climb,

which is kind of nice.

I was like, "oh, he's

taking it seriously.

He kind of cares

about me a little bit."

You're on, Tommy!

Okay, I'm climbing, Alex!

Oh, man.

Just looks so sketchy.

Yeah, Tommy!

Oh, my God.

That's a good shot.

What should I do?

Should I pray?

Should I throw my

hands in the air?

.

What are we?

Where are we?

Oh, my God, the wind.

This is kind of unnerving.

Okay, let's start rappelling.

We descend the other

side of the ridge,

down into a shoulder on the

side of the Cat Ear spires,

which is over 800

feet of climbing.

Alright, you

wanna lead this one?

Uh no,

you should lead it.

No, no.

I think you should.

We start working our way up

the side of the first spire,

and we find our rhythm,

and we just fly.

Nice job, Tommy!

Cruising.

Thank you.

Yeah!

You're on belay, Alex!

Yeah.

Pretty crazy spot.

Woo!

Yeah, buddy.

Oh, yeah.

This might be the craziest

summit I've ever been on.

Oh, I can't wait.

Wow.

Boom, good work.

That's a good summit.

This is

something I kind of don't feel

like dancing around on top of.

I'm like, "Oh, my God."

You could do that.

Maybe

I'll do a handstand.

Here I'll sh**t some video.

Does it look epic?

I mean, it'd

be more epic if I could take,

like, two steps

further back, but I'll die.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think it's fair to say

this is one of the craziest

summits that we've been on.

Oh, my God, yeah, don't fall.

Hi, mom.

.

Hi, Becca.

Hi, Sanni.

On the top

of the Cat's Ears spires.

Cat's Ears spires. This is

a totally insane summit.

My adrenaline

is peaking standing here.

I know, I feel a little shaky.

This is how you do Pfor the Achilles, right?

Yeah, totally.

Just one-foot balance on

top of the Cat Ear spire.

Jeez.

What do you think of the

Devil's Thumb behind us?

The north-west

face looks imposing.

That's the face of death, huh?

God, it does kind of look

pretty deathly, actually.

Look at that.

Oh, wow.

Oh, my God.

Giant avalanche.

Wow.

That is why we're not gonna

climb the north-west face.

Look at all the

consecutive lines of

debris down here.

There have been some big

avalanches down there.

That thing seems like death.

I know that

avalanches have k*lled several

people on the north-west face

of the Devil's Thumb, and so

in the back of my mind,

it just feels unsettling.

I'm definitely glad we didn't

go that way, but we still have

to figure out how to get to

the top of the Thumb itself,

which is another

1,500 feet straight up,

and we have no

idea how to climb it.

Check out that, that shield of

rock, with the zigzagging crack,

that black crack.

That looks cool, huh?

I guess we'll

see if there're holds,

we'll see if it goes.

Come on, huh,

do you wanna finish this off

with a bang or what?

No, I

just wanna get to the top.

Before we can start the climb,

we have to do our

biggest rappel yet.

It's like 600 feet straight

down, which is insane,

and potentially very dangerous.

Okay, we are now totally

detached from the mountain.

There's no anchor.

Can you actually see

over the edge there,

like where the

we're going?

I mean, no.

Sick.

We're working

against the clock, so Alex and I

are doing some very

advanced techniques for speed.

And one of those techniques

is simul rappelling,

which means we put the

rope through an anchor,

and then we counter-balance

each other, on our two ropes,

as we rappel down.

I mean, do we

think that thing looks good.

It, like, seems good enough.

It's just basically,

like, a one-nut anchor.

The problem

with simul rappelling is that,

if somebody loses control of

their rappel, both people die.

Okay, ready to weight.

Ready to weight. Weighting.

The scariest part of alpinism,

for me, is rappelling because

it's the one time

where one simple thing

could k*ll you both.

You're completely trusting

your life to your equipment.

Okay, there's no way

we can knock that off.

There's sharp edges.

There's always the chance that

a rope can get damaged, or,

you know,

worst-case-scenario, even cut.

This is so far.

It's 600 feet of

free hanging space,

and it's really quite scary.

Wow.

This is freaking crazy.

It's gonna get steep.

You are 100%

trusting your life to

your very skinny rope.

Only slightly thicker

than a shoelace, really.

And this very skinny piece

of hardware, that you

left behind, to rappel off of.

This is

kind of [bleep] scary.

Oh,

my God, the wind.

The

wind is, like, taking me.

This is the craziest

thing we've done all day.

This is,

like, an insane rappel.

Rappelling

like this is always

a little stressful.

So what just happened?

We just

did 600 feet of rappelling.

It was very scary.

It's, like,

intimidating to do that stuff.

Yeah,

it's real intimidating.

Well, I mean, the thing about

it is that, if a piece of gear

blows, you die.

Do you

ever think, when that happens,

like, "why do I do this?"

Well, those are the

types of risks that

I don't really wanna take.

'Cause, you know, like, if the

flake ripped and both pieces

came out, and we both

just die, you'd be like,

"well, that was friggin stupid."

Yeah.

So we finally made it to

the Devil's Thumb itself,

and it's massive.

From its base, this thing is

nearly five times taller than

the Empire State Building.

We're in the notch

below the Devil's Thumb.

Alex is taking us to the top.

Well, we'll see.

Here we go.

Tommy asked me to

take the lead and...

Oh, yeah!

...I think part of it is

because Tommy just isn't

quite feeling 100% gung-h*.

The bolts in his heel

might be hurting.

Basically, he wants me to

step up and lead us to the top,

and we don't have a

lot of time left to do it.

Woo!

Micro's on, Tommy!

Okay, cool.

Thank you!

The wall is huge.

It's thousands of feet

straight down below us.

Does it look easy above you?

Like, should I gain?

If you want to,

this middle part's kind of hard.

This is next level.

Yeah.

We climb

the first 400 feet

relatively quickly,

and Alex actually stops,

which surprises me.

Starting

to get a little tired.

Also, don't fall on this part,

we're on a one-piece anchor.

Okay.

Yeah,

I was really like,

not bad at climbing.

A little scary, though.

Yeah, a little wet.

I had one foot slip, but,

luckily, I had a

good hand jammed in.

At least we're

higher than the Cat Ears again.

Now, I wanted to

go over there...

Yeah.

...But it's

not good, so we're going around.

As we're climbing up,

I run into a section of,

somewhat difficult,

tricky climbing.

We still got

like a ways to go.

I mean, it's like way, way up.

We could

go straight up those zigzag

cracks, I think it would work.

Tommy yells up

that he wants to go straight

through this really

imposing head wall.

It's this huge, overhanging

section of rock jutting out

from the face, blocking our

final approach to the summit.

Let me just figure out how to

uh, how to make this work!

Looking up at the summit, in

this moment, it's almost like

time slows down.

I realize the summit means

a lot more to me than

I would've expected

from just the climb.

It's like the trip has

never been just about

climbing the Devil's Thumb,

the trip's about spending

two months with Tommy,

and helping him

achieve his dream

of making his big comeback.

That's the reason I'm here.

Come on, Tommy!

Come on!

Woo!

In the world of climbing,

a partnership that

is as special as this

is not easy to find.

Yeah!

Woo!

I said, at the start of this

trip, I was worried about

Alex's lack of empathy,

but he's supported me

every step of the way.

He's not lacking in anything.

He's my best friend.

This is the

moment of truth, to get Tommy

to the top.

Suddenly,

I see him go out, onto this

shield of rock.

You are going that way?

Yeah, yeah I'm gonna try.

Yeah.

I shout

up at him, I'm like,

"you're doing the shield,

you're going up the gash!"

We're gonna end this whole

climb in the most

heroic way possible,

which is climbing up

the most spectacular

section of the wall.

Climbing

really freaking scary troughs.

Very scary.

As Alex is

climbing that final shield,

I see him, sort of, working his

way back-and-forth up these

zigzagging cracks.

He's getting in them at times,

and then he's coming out, and

finding little gear placements,

and balancing on

the little edges.

This is

pretty freaking mega.

Yeah, nice work!

There's

one last pitch above me,

and then it's a clear

shot to the summit.

h*!

We're on top of a

freaking big wall.

Heroic way to end.

After such a

long journey, after such a

long adventure,

I'm surprisingly,

like, I mean, moved is the

only word, I don't know.

And particularly seeing

Tommy below me,

powering up the final stretch.

I've spent a

life of, kind of, overcoming

adversity, and, sort of,

harnessing the angst from

setbacks to push me forward.

I was worried about my

Achilles, just being, kind of,

an old man, being able to

keep up with Alex, but

I'm turning back into, like,

a mountain athlete,

in a way that I haven't

in a few years.

You're on the lip, Tommy!

Enjoy yourself,

this is freaking mega!

Woo!

I know that

the summit of big journeys,

like this, marks the end of

this, almost, love affair,

and I, I'm not quite

ready for that.

I'm feeling just incredibly

lucky to be in this place

on such a beautiful day,

with such a good friend,

and have things go so well.

Yeah, Tommy!

Yeah!

Wow!

That was incredible.

Two months.

Good work.

Oh, my God.

What do you think?

Look at this place.

It's

pretty cool, huh?

Pretty amazing.

Your triumphant

return expedition climbing.

You're back!

Yeah, I'm back.

I mean, I think I've gotten to

the point, on this whole trip,

where I was like,

"well, you know,

if we climb the Devil's Thumb,

it'll just be

the icing on the cake."

This is pretty sweet.

.

Usually, it's not about the

destination, but this is about

the whole

freaking destination.

Scary.

I think the real power of an

expedition is the fact that

you condense years of life

into a single month or two.

But at the same time, you know,

I think I'm maturing my spirit.

The relationships in my life,

and the friends that I keep.

When I was younger,

it was just so glamorous

to be dark, and broody,

and conflicted,

but now, I'm like, yeah,

I think I'm kind of

getting it, you know?

Like, why not do the

same hard things,

but be happy while

you're doing them?

It's like, why not?