Climbing
Meet the man who just completed a free solo climb of Fitz Roy in Patagonia
American climber Jim Reynolds just became the first person to free solo up and down Patagonia’s mighty Fitz Roy mountain. We spoke to him to find out how – and more importantly, why – he did it.
The sawtooth summits of Patagonia are up there with the giant walls of Yosemite National Park when it comes to big ticket climbing – and Jim Reynolds just bagged the first pure free solo of the region’s ultimate prize: Fitz Roy.
He’s not the first to reach the 3,359m summit without ropes (that was the late Dean Potter in 2002) but he is the first to go up and down unassisted rather rappelling the return, which is considered a less pure way of completing an expedition in climbing circles.
The American's near 16-hour slog on the Afanassieff route is a big statement and adds to the buzz around this extreme form of climbing, which hit the headlines after the success of the Free Solo and Dawn Wall movies.
We caught up with Reynolds back in Yosemite to discover the story behind his extraordinary achievement.
Why on Earth do you like to do this sort of thing?
For me, it’s about striving for the most beautiful and most amazing things in life. I love to be social, but I really love to be alone in the mountains. And sometimes there are moments when I just feel a fire inside.
For the last decade, I've progressed in free solo quite a bit, doing more and more technical things. For me, it’s important that they always – well, mostly – feel well within the upper limit of my physical ability.
Just to get to a base level of what I needed to climb out in Patagonia, I spent so much time climbing rock in Yosemite, climbing granite, becoming super familiar and comfortable. So when I did go down there, I felt ready.
Jim Reynolds on Aguja Mermoz
© Jim Reynolds
Why climb Fitz Roy?
It’s very hard to describe the draw of Fitz Roy. It’s got this notoriety that seems to pulls people towards it.
When you show up at El Chaltén in Patagonia, it’s a powerful place; the glaciers, the force of the rivers, these massive granite spires busting out from the earth. Fitz Roy is a culmination of all that power and energy.
It’s obvious, you know. You go there and it’s just obvious that Fitz Roy is the mountain there.
Snow covers the Fitz Roy Mountain massif
© Getty Images
Free soloing can be very dangerous – how do you focus your mind?
There’s a big process that goes into that and I spend a lot of time thinking about the risks I'm taking. I'm always asking myself: why am I soloing and why do I feel compelled to do it?
You have to get your mind to understand it’s more about the high risks if you fall, not the high risks of falling. Once I'm committed, even if it’s scary, I get into the moment, settle in, and it all seems so clear.
Starting the Motocross Traverse
© Jason Leki
You also use Samurai philosophy as part of your preparation – why does that help?
Samurai gives you a sense of discipline. It’s all about being able to control your emotions in stressful situations by recognising that big risk is a part of life. It lets you pursue things with the highest level of commitment.
It’s not just philosophy though, it’s also the craft. Movement in Samurai takes a lot of conscious focus, connecting body and mind together. That’s very useful when you go rock climbing and have to do scary things.
I do a lot of things through flow and not through intention, but improvisation is a heavily practised art. The ability to do things spontaneously really well comes from the time you put in practising.
Jim Reynolds uses Samurai philosophy as part of his training
© Tad Mccrea
Free soloing is more in the public eye now, so do you fear climbers are starting to think ‘ah, that’s a cool idea, I’ll do it’ without the mentality and experience you need to be able to do it?
Yeah, it is a concern, and I think it’s a concept we free soloists all have to work to fight against. We need to make sure that with the awareness of our feats comes the awareness of the dark side of them as well.
I find that when people first try it, if it’s for the wrong reasons or they’re not the right kind of person, they’ll quickly scare themselves and learn it’s not for them. It’s like the sport selects the climber, not the other way around.
On your first attempt you aborted – what happened there?
It’s hard to pinpoint why I bailed, but a big part of it was I was really tired. We only had two days of rest between what was maybe the biggest climbing week of my life and then going for this.
I got to this certain point on the mountain where I felt I was just slogging to reach the top. It was supposed to be this amazing adventure, but I didn’t really care about getting to the summit. I wasn’t feeling it.
When I came back the second time, I was less tired and could appreciate and enjoy the moment. I had also realised that on these really big mountains you have to want to get to the summit. You can’t not care.
Was there ever a scary point on the climb?
There was one point where I climbed off-route and into some really steep cracks. One was really wide and I thought I might have to down-climb or rappel it.
Also, near the summit, a bunch of ice started falling down. I didn’t expect so much sun or so much ice – and that’s a bit scarier because it’s not about decisions you’re making. It’s fear of something out of your control.
How do you define a free solo (is the down climb important)?
I guess to rappel off the peak in some ways lessens it a little, but it’s about levels of style. Someone argued that the fact I had a rope and could use it if I needed it makes this not a free solo. I totally disagree with that.
Taking a rope and gear is not something I wanted to do. But I hope to spend a lot of time in the mountains, not just a few extreme radical years, so I feel it’s really important to maintain a margin of safety.
I mean, I definitely free soloed Fitz Roy. But could I have free soloed it in a better style? Could I have done it at a higher level? Well, yeah. You could do it barefoot and topless. Or naked.
Looking up at the upper part of Chiaro di Luna
© Jim Reynolds
How does your Fitz Roy climb compare to Alex Honnold's completion of the Freerider route up El Capitan in Yosemite?
Obviously they’re both free solo events so it’s hard not to ask the question ‘how are they similar?’ But, really, they are totally different beasts.
To me, there are three categories of free soloing: the easy version you do with friends; moderate, where you can get away with mistakes; and hard, where every movement is precise and you have to achieve perfection.
What Alex Honnold did on the Freerider project was so, so hard. It was the culmination of years of dedicated mastery of this one super hard style of rock climbing, training on the route, dialling in every move.
For me, the Fitz Roy free solo was well within my limits but was inspiring in a different way. It gets people thinking about climbing in other ways. It was a bit more like the essence of flow in nature, soul quest oriented.
So, what’s next for you?
Back in Yosemite, I’ve got a lot of rescue work to do. But for me, personally, as a climber? I need to free climb El Cap. And I might have to climb the nose a couple of more times.