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Alex Honnold Introduction
Alex Honnold is an American rock climber.
He is most renowned for his unassisted solo climbs of big walls. He gained national attention in June 2017 when he accomplished the first free solo climb of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. It was a performance that sports journalist Daniel Duane called one of the greatest athletic exploits of all time.
Alex Honnold Net Worth & Salary
Alex Honnold’s net worth is $2 million.
He has worked on advertising projects for a number of well-known companies, including Range Rover, Citigroup, and Squarespace. He is also known to have earned numerous sponsorships for climbing. The North Face, a reputable brand of upscale athletic wear, sponsors him as an athlete.
He makes a sizeable income via speaking engagements, sponsorship agreements, and commercials.
Alex Honnold Age, Early Life & Biography
Alex Honnold is 37 years old.
The date of Alex Honnold’s birth is August 17, 1985. California’s Sacramento is the place of Honnold’s birth.
His mother, Dierdre Wolownick, is Polish, and his father, Charles Honnold, was German. In 2004, at the age of 55, his father passed away. Both of his parents were employed at a community college as professors.
At the age of five, he began climbing in a gym, and by the time he was ten, he was doing it frequently. As a teenager, he competed in numerous youth climbing competitions at the national and international levels.
He attended Mira Loma High School and received his diploma in 2003. He matriculated in the civil engineering program at UC Berkeley.
However, during his freshman year of college, he found himself ditching classes to climb alone in order to cope with the death of his grandfather and the pain of his parent’s separation. He eventually discontinued his studies and moved back home. He then spent his time driving around California and looking for new climbing spots.
He remembered using his mother’s minivan as his home base. He would frequently drive to Joshua Tree, where he would climb, or all the way to Los Angeles to see his girlfriend. He, therefore, was able to quickly damage the van. He spent the next year traveling by bicycle and sleeping in a tent.
In 2007, he purchased a 2002 Ford van. This allowed him to concentrate on climbing while also keeping an eye on the weather.
Name | Alexander Honnold |
Gender | Male |
Age | 37 |
Birth Date | August 17, 1985 |
Birth Place | Sacramento, California |
Nationality | American |
Height | 1.8 m |
Sexual Orientation | Straight |
Marital Status | Married |
Spouse Name | Sanni McCandless |
Children | 1 |
Dating | N/A |
Profession | American rock climber |
Yearly Income | N/A |
Net Worth | $2 million |
Content Last Updated | February 2023 |
Alex Honnold Personal Life
Alex Honnold met life coach Sanni McCandless in 2015 at a book signing event in Seattle. They soon announced that they were in a relationship. They got engaged in December 2019 and married in September 2020.
The couple wed again in a small, family-only ceremony on Lake Tahoe in September 2021 after postponing their wedding due to the pandemic.
They welcomed their daughter, June Honnold, in February 2022.
Sanni wrote in Outside magazine that they had chemistry despite being polar opposites and that her life changed dramatically after she began dating the iconic adventurer. The relationship between the two was heavily covered in the award-winning documentary, “Free Solo,” by National Geographic Documentary Films.
Alex Honnold Career
He recalls a time in his childhood when he would come across children his age who were physically stronger than him and seemed to be naturally gifted at the sport. He remembers himself as a competent climber but never an exceptional one.
He modestly denies that he is a gifted climber. He claims that with practice, he has improved over the years, but he denies being a gifted climber. Alex stated that he began climbing out of pure love for the sport.
Alex’s first solo ascent was the Knapsack Crack at Lovers Leap, a straightforward route. The rock is of high quality and is at such a low angle that even newcomers can easily walk up it. To gain confidence, he used to practice climbing up this rock.
Climbing Corrugation Corner near Lake Tahoe, on the other hand, proved a little more difficult for young Alex because the rock is vertical and has three pitches.
He rose to prominence in 2007 after climbing the Astroman and the Rostrum in Yosemite National Park in a single day without any safety equipment or harness.
One of his early accomplishments included climbing the Moonlight Buttress at Zion National Park in 2008. According to Nathaniel Rich, he practiced the most difficult pitch on a rope over and over until he knew every move by heart. In an interview about his 1,200-foot free solo ascent, he stated that climbing the rock felt safe because it was a straight finger crack.
The climb that catapulted his fame was free-soloing El Capitan, the 900 m vertical rock in California, in under 4 hours. The death-defying stunt and the days leading up to it were documented by Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi for the National Geographic team in 2017.
After years of practicing the route, his ascent up the most difficult rock to climb was a tremendous athletic feat. He was the first person to climb the 2900-foot rock without using any safety equipment.
Alex Honnold Awards and Achievements
In 2019, Alex and the documentary team were showered with accolades. The documentary titled “Free Solo” went on to win the Academy Award for Best Documentary (Feature), the BAFTA Award for Best Documentary, and seven Primetime Emmy Awards, including that for Outstanding Directing for a Documentary/Non-Fiction Program.
Alex Honnold Major Investments and Assets
In 2017, he and his now-wife Sanni McCandless, purchased a mansion in Las Vegas.
Alex Honnold Must Watch Latest Video and Trending Photographs
Alex and his exploration buddy, Estaben Mena, ascended the Ellsworth Mountains in Antarctica: