Alex Honnold (born August 17, 1985) is an American rock climber best known for his free solo ascents of big walls.

Honnold rose to worldwide fame in June 2017 when he became the first person to free solo a full route on El Capitan in Yosemite National Park (via the 2,900-foot route Freerider at 5.13a, the first-ever big wall free solo ascent at that grade),[3] a climb described in The New York Times as "one of the great athletic feats of any kind, ever.

"[4][5] Honnold also holds the record for the fastest ascent of the "Yosemite Triple Crown", an 18-hour, 50-minute link-up of Mount Watkins, The Nose, and the Regular Northwest Face of Half Dome.

Honnold is the author (with David Roberts) of the memoir Alone on the Wall (2015) and the subject of the 2018 biographical documentary Free Solo,[7] which won a BAFTA and an Academy Award.

"[13] After graduating from Mira Loma High School as part of the International Baccalaureate Programme in 2003, he enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley to study civil engineering.

His maternal grandfather died, his parents divorced during his first year of college, and Honnold skipped many of his classes to boulder by himself at Indian Rock.

In 2007 he free soloed Yosemite's Astroman and the Rostrum in a day, matching Peter Croft's legendary 1987 feat, and suddenly Honnold was pretty well-known.

Five months afterward, Honnold took the unprecedented step of free soloing the 2,000-foot (610m), glacially bulldozed Regular Northwest Face of Half Dome.

Croft called this climb the most impressive ropeless ascent ever done.He gained mainstream recognition after his 2008 free solo of the Regular Northwest Face of Half Dome was featured in the film Alone on the Wall[17] and a subsequent 60 Minutes interview.

[22][23] In November 2014, Clif Bar announced that they would no longer sponsor Honnold, along with Dean Potter, Steph Davis, Timmy O'Neill and Cedar Wright.

[26] On June 3, 2017, he made the first-ever free solo ascent of El Capitan by completing Alex Huber's 2,900-foot (884m) big-wall crack climbing route, Freerider (5.13a VI), in 3 hours and 56 minutes.

[29][30] On June 6, 2018, Honnold teamed up with Tommy Caldwell to break the Nose on El Capitan speed record in Yosemite.

[33] In its first season, Climbing Gold focused on telling stories of extraordinary climbers across history and featured notable climbers and ascents including Lynn Hill, John Gill, Beth Rodden, Hans Florine, and coverage of the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, which featured competition climbing for the first time.

In total, the endeavor took 32 hours and 6 minutes, with Honnold covering 35 miles of running, scrambling, and climbing, logging 24,000' of elevation gain, and summitting 18 out of the 23 peaks in Red Rock Canyon.

[44] While Honnold is best known for his starring role in the Oscar-winning documentary Free Solo, he has also appeared in several other films and television episodes.