On Yosemite’s El Capitan, Climber Makes History With His Bare Hands | NBC News
4 Video Views·May 21, 2026
Alex Honnold scaled one of the most well-known walls of granite in the world, thousands of feet tall, with no safety gear or ropes in four hours.
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AI GeneratedAlex Honnold achieved a historic milestone by free soloing El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. Without any ropes or safety gear, he climbed the massive granite wall in just four hours—a feat that typically takes experienced climbers several days. His ascent, captured for a National Geographic documentary, marks a crowning achievement in the world of rock climbing.
It's a towering wall so enormous that those brave enough to challenge its face
aren't even visible to the naked eye.
And thousands of feet above the valley, Alex Honnold is etching his name into El Capitan's
history using only the chalk on his bare hands. This is a few seconds of his historic climb
captured as part of an upcoming documentary film by National Geographic.
Look closely and you see no safety gear, no rope. It's called free soloing. And on his
way up, he passed climbers camping out on a route that can take the most experienced
three to four days with ropes. It took Honnold four hours.
I probably do know literally every hold all the way up.
Or in Mexico, finding his zen on a ledge.
Now the world is celebrating Honnold's crowning achievement. Honnold taking it all in stride.
I don't know. Honestly, looking at the wall, it looks exactly the same to me.
I'm like, it's still the most amazing piece of rock. It is. It is kind of hard to believe.
The climbing king, Yosemite's majestic El Capitan.
Gotti Schwartz, NBC News, Yosemite, California.
Thanks for watching.