Original subtitles

JIMMY KIMMEL: It's Alex Honnold, everybody!

(applause and cheering)

ALEX: Climbing El Capitan was something that I'd been

dreaming about for years,

and then I probably spent a full year in preparation.

JIMMY: Is there anything left to climb

after you've climbed El Capitan?

Is there anything bigger than that?

ALEX: I mean, there are technically some bigger walls

in the world, but they're in very remote places,

like Greenland.

MIKEY: Oh, my god.

ALEX: It looks insane!

HAZEL: Wow!

Is it insanely big?

ALEX: Yeah. It's crazy, huh?

That is so much wall.

It's taken more than three weeks,

but we've finally made it to our main objective...

...Ingmikortilaq,

a giant 4,000-foot sea cliff

and one of the biggest unclimbed rock faces on the planet.

MIKEY: Oh, man, this thing is absolutely huge.

There's just not a lot of cliffs this big in the world.

I don't know how we're gonna do this.

ALDO: What's the obvious line? Can you see one?

ALEX: Nothing yet.

So far, I'd say nightmare on all sides.

HAZEL: Like, everything just looks terrifying

from this angle. (laughs)

ALEX: Yeah.

HAZEL: It definitely looks bigger than El Cap.

MIKEY: Yeah, it's bigger than El Cap.

ALEX: Yeah, yeah, it's huge. It's huge.

It's nearly three times

the height of the Empire State Building

and nearly 1,000 feet taller than El Capitan.

MIKEY: To have such a large objective

completely unexplored is, is pretty amazing.

ALEX: If we manage to climb Ingmikortilaq,

it'll be the biggest first ascent I've ever done.

The size and scale of the challenge is insane.

I don't know what your definition of adventurous is,

but it's hard to imagine anything more adventurous

than an unclimbed 4,000-foot wall

with icebergs floating down below.

I mean, yeah, when little kids dream about adventure,

I mean, I think this is basically it.

You see way to the left how it kind of gets lower angle?

HAZEL: The very slim right-facing corner?

ALEX: Yeah, I'm thinking way to the left of that.

HAZEL: Oh, okay, right.

ALEX: Here, let's see, I'm gonna just take my backpack

and just jump off the front.

MIKEY: Well, we got on the mountain.

HAZEL: Wow, shall we try and scramble up a bit?

ALEX: Wow, it's so smooth.

MIKEY: Yeah, it's like slippery, huh?

ALEX: Yeah.

HAZEL: When you look at photographs,

things can feel a lot friendlier

than when you see something in the flesh,

and this wall is just so insane-looking in the flesh.

ALEX: Hazel and I will focus on the climbing,

while Mikey helps Aldo to fix the ropes and haul up the gear.

We'll get as high as we can each day

before descending to base camp.

Okay, I'm gonna start. Don't let me die.

HAZEL: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

I can only feed out so quick, so just don't run.

ALEX: I'm gonna move back over

and go across to this other arête.

HAZEL: That's 30 meters.

ALEX: Oh, wow.

HAZEL: Yeah.

We just don't know what we'll face up there,

so we just don't know if we'll make it to the top.

It's just a massive undertaking.

Like, I think it could be the biggest undertaking

potentially of my climbing career.

MIKEY: Has he actually put any gear in?

HAZEL: No.

MIKEY: We can't just start up one line and be like,

"Oh, this isn't the route."

If we chose the wrong one and it turns into like,

you know, a bunch of loose rock and awful climbing, like,

then we're just done.

HAZEL: I think that top section could be so hard.

MIKEY: Way up high?

HAZEL: Yeah. MIKEY: Yeah.

HAZEL: It looks so steep from here, doesn't it?

MIKEY: Yeah.

ALEX: None of the options look easy.

The middle section's blank and featureless,

and the right-hand section looks like a death route,

so we're going with the left side,

which seems to be the safest way up.

All the routes wind up on the head wall--

1,000 feet of vertical rock which will definitely be

the hardest part of the climb.

Okay, I'm off, Hazel.

HAZEL: Okay, I'm climbing on green!

ALEX: Alright, there's Hazel climbing below me,

and Mikey, everybody's cruising!

The view's starting to improve--

more icebergs, crazy glaciers,

epic big wall.

We're doing it! Very exciting!

(iceberg calving)

Oh, look, you can see the wave. There's a big one over there.

Little baby tsunami.

HEÏDI: What's scary with a place like this

is that if one iceberg starts to roll or to calve,

it can really trigger a domino effect,

and, and everything starts moving very quickly.

Ingmikortilaq is just a few miles away

from one of the largest

and fastest-moving glaciers in the Arctic--

the Daugaard-Jensen.

It's a huge 40-mile-long glacier

flowing from Greenland's vast inland ice sheets

down into the sea.

It's more than three miles across.

At this time of year, huge chunks can break off

with no warning, unleashing massive icebergs.

There's so much ice. Crazy.

It's like navigating through a minefield,

like making sure you don't trigger anything

that's gonna collapse on you.

(rumbling)

I think this, this is definitely the front of the glacier, yeah.

ADAM: I think we will still keep going a little,

but, yeah, it looks really dramatic, huh?

HEÏDI: Yeah.

Past data has shown us that the Daugaard-Jensen Glacier

loses about ten billion tons of ice per year.

This is a natural process,

but as the ocean and air temperatures have warmed,

glaciers further south and slightly further north

are now losing much more ice than they were 40 years ago.

I want to find out if the Daugaard-Jensen

is following the same worrying trend.

Do you think we could get a little bit closer, or?

(man speaking Greenlandic)

ADAM: This is the final destination.

We can't get closer to them.

HEÏDI: We're stopping here? Okay. Yeah, are you ready?

ADAM: Yeah.

HEÏDI: Yeah, there you go.

(drone buzzing)

(drone buzzing)

HEÏDI: Ah, look at this!

ADAM: Look at those pictures, the colors.

HEÏDI: It's amazing.

HEÏDI: I'm going to use my drone

to map the front of the glacier.

Just start the new survey line.

It is absolutely huge, up to 300 feet high.

And it blows my mind to think there's much more of it

below the water surface.

No one has been here to study the Daugaard-Jensen

for almost two decades,

so I want to know if it is losing more ice

and making an even greater contribution to sea level rise.

The drone footage, combined with data

from an experiment I'm running back on land,

will hopefully tell us what state

this gigantic glacier is in.

HAZEL: How does it look above, Alex?

ALEX: Yeah, it's really hard to decide where to go.

After a night in base camp,

we've ascended our fixed ropes

and have pushed on past yesterday's high point.

In classic style, this crack is all rotten, like,

all soft and...

HAZEL: Is it pretty chossy?

ALEX: Yeah, it's like really sandy.

It's like the first, uh,

like bad rock we've experienced, really.

Oh, rock, sorry.

HAZEL: Oh, rock, rock, rock!

ALEX: Oh, (bleep)!

Holy shizzle.

(splashing)

MIKEY: That was heinous.

So, the loose rock poses a couple problems.

The initial danger is just as the lead climber,

which has only been Alex at this point,

he could pull a block off and hurt himself.

And then as we progressed up the wall,

it's sort of just a train,

like you can always hit the person below you.

HAZEL: Because you could just knock a block off now,

and it could kill me, do you know what I mean?

ALEX: Yeah, totally, totally.

If there are multiple members on the team,

whoever is furthest back is at the most danger of rockfall

because there's more things bouncing

and they've been going further, they're traveling faster.

MIKEY: Okay.

I'm off, Aldo!

ALDO: Just shout if you kick anything off.

MIKEY: Okay.

ALEX: You know, if a medium-sized rock hits you

from 50 feet away, it just kind of hurts.

If it hits you from 500 feet away, then you'll be dead.

I'm like standing on just teetering choss.

Rock!

HAZEL: Oh, (bleep), rock.

MIKEY: Rock, Aldo!

ALDO: Huh?

(splash)

Super sketch.

To use climbing terminology, it's a massive choss pile.

Choss is basically lots of rock and gravel and things

that's just continually shedding

or exfoliating down the fault line.

I don't particularly want to be hanging around under you.

I'm below Mikey, and so most of the rocks

are coming down my way,

and that's actually what I think is worrying Mikey and Hazel

more than anything else is that they kick something off

which comes down and kills me.

ALEX: This thing is, uh...

MIKEY: Yeah, no, it's (bleep) all (bleep).

Yeah, no, we're fully like, this is--

ALEX: We're mountaineering.

MIKEY: We're doing something, but it's not super safe,

that's for sure.

ALEX: Do you want to lead this one?

MIKEY: I don't have shoes.

ALEX: Oh, I thought you said you had 37s.

MIKEY: They're, they're who knows where.

ALEX: Oh, they're the Constable Point ones?

MIKEY: Yeah.

ALEX: All our gear is held up in various places.

MIKEY: So that's why our whole jumaring, ascending rope setup

is a little, uh, improvised,

and we're improvising a fair bit right now.

I mean, we're sort of lucky that Alex even had his shoes,

and that was just like--

ALEX: Yeah, thank goodness, huh?

HAZEL: That was just an off chance

because you brought three pairs instead of two, right?

MIKEY: Yeah. ALEX: Yeah.

More than a week ago, we had to leave a lot of our climbing gear

at the top of the Pool Wall.

The weather has been so bad up there

that our support team hasn't been able to recover it yet.

We don't know when, or even if, it'll get here.

HAZEL: Alex is the only person on the team

with climbing shoes right now.

I mean, he's the strongest member of the team,

so it's lucky that it's his shoes that we have

and not anyone else's,

but at the same time, it would be really good

if we could share the weight of the leading.

(rumbling)

ALEX: I'm at the high point for day two.

This is the next pitch above me,

and then that is the top over there in the distance.

There's Hazel going down.

Another beautiful day on the wall.

(whine)

ALDO: Did you sleep well in your palace?

HAZEL: Oh, yes, so nice.

ALDO: Where are the life jackets?

MIKEY: I think they're on the boat.

ALEX: Today we'll start hauling up everything we need

to camp on the rock face.

If all goes well, we'll spend one last night in base camp.

And after that, we'll be committed to the wall.

ALDO: What are you thinking, Hazel?

HAZEL: Shall we pack a haul bag and start hauling?

ALEX: Yeah.

HAZEL: So, here's two people's food.

ALDO: How much water do you reckon?

ALEX: 36 liters is like a maximum.

ALDO: (bleep) It's heavy.

HAZEL: One of the hardest things

about climbing something like this

is you don't just have to bring

your person up the wall with you.

You also have to bring all the things you need to survive

with you as well.

We're doing this climb without the right stuff.

We don't have a drill to back up the anchors.

ALDO: What's that anchor like there?

(pin loosens)

(Hazel gasps)

(rocks falling)

MIKEY: Did you guys just pull the pin out?

HAZEL: Yeah. ALDO: Yeah.

ALDO: Yeah.

HAZEL: The first pitch,

one piece of our two-piece anchor blew out.

At what point do we all just give up and say...

ALDO: ...too dangerous.

HAZEL: Honestly.

ALDO: We just don't have the gear to be hauling...

HAZEL: You know what, I think it's just easier

if we jug really slowly with really heavy loads.

ALDO: Yep.

HAZEL: I'll just carry that as I go.

(breathing heavy)

Always hard work with a bag.

ALEX: Mikey.

It is actually some of the better climbing.

MIKEY: Well, yeah, but like,

I mean, the gray rock is like, full of death blocks.

What all have we got here? Something...

ALEX: Uh, I'm on this lead line. What do you think is safer?

Let's go with the belay device for now.

MIKEY: Why?

ALEX: So that you don't drop me to my death!

MIKEY: Dude, if you really think that that has anything

to do with the overall safety of what we're doing...

ALEX: Yeah, yeah, it helps.

MIKEY: ...you have poor risk assessment at the moment.

ALEX: Somebody is really grumpy.

I'm just saying, get the belay on the belay device.

MIKEY: No, dude, I'm not being grumpy, I'm being real,

like this is definitely

like the chossiest thing I've ever climbed.

I mean, do you know how many rocks

have (bleep) just missed my head?

ALEX: Yeah.

MIKEY: Ideally when you're climbing with people,

you need them to be able to empathize

and relate with how you're feeling.

ALEX: I got it.

Ah, oh, rock, rock, rock.

MIKEY: Rock!

HAZEL: Rock! ALDO: Rock.

ALEX: Rock.

MIKEY: Rock!

HAZEL: It's so sketchy.

This is terrifying!

MIKEY: Dude, Alex.

ALEX: I know.

MIKEY: It's like literally getting shot at by your buddy.

Alex is not doing a great job

at understanding the experience that the rest of us are having.

There's only so many times, man,

you can dodge rocks and stay psyched.

ALEX: That's fair.

I mean, everybody's bummed because it's really hard work.

And normally you justify that level of hard work

by the fact that it's enabling you to climb this wall.

HAZEL: Ah, man, it's so hard in approach shoes.

ALEX: But in this case, no one else on the team

is getting any of the upside.

HAZEL: Ah!

ALEX: I mean, in general, I felt like I was being pretty careful,

but I mean, I'm sure I've knocked some rocks.

HAZEL: Well, yeah, I mean, rocks have been coming down

the whole time.

ALEX: They don't have any of their gear,

so they're just improvising random bits and bobs

to slide their way up the rope.

I mean, they're basically just following me like pack animals.

You know, I get it, but I think that we're doing

the safest and easiest thing that we can.

I'm off belay, Mikey!

MIKEY: Okay, you're off!

ALEX: We're poised to do the first ascent

of one of the biggest unclimbed walls in the world.

It's a great opportunity as a climber,

but if anybody doesn't want to do that, then, I mean,

that's, you know, it's like we're all here by choice.

You can come up on the white when you're ready!

MIKEY: Yeah, one sec!

So, yeah, what's an honest take right now of this whole thing?

Oh, god, here, if you hand that to me, I can...

HAZEL: Yeah, put it up there.

MIKEY: I think I got it.

I mean, those last two pitches were...

HAZEL: Really, really bad.

MIKEY: I mean, there's just no way to like--

I'm just struggling to figure out

how to make it remotely safe.

HAZEL: Like there's more loose stuff than there is solid stuff.

MIKEY: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I'm--

HAZEL: And not having the correct gear

is a real kick in the teeth.

MIKEY: Oh, yeah, that, this was brutal.

I'm not gonna lie. I'm pretty borderline at this point.

HAZEL: Yeah.

MIKEY: Like, it just, this is not like

what I signed up for, you know?

HAZEL: Mikey has a lot of experience under his belt.

And if he's saying that his intuition is

that he shouldn't be on the wall, then I'm like,

uh, you know, maybe I shouldn't be on the wall either.

You know, it's making me think

that it's riskier than I thought.

ALEX: Is anyone coming up?

MIKEY: Yeah, yeah, I'm jugging.

ALEX: Oh, wow. Is Hazel going down?

MIKEY: Yeah.

ALEX: I feel like morale is really low today.

MIKEY: Yeah, no, morale is tanking at the moment.

Just so you know.

It's just the danger.

ALEX: Well, what do you think we should do to make it better?

MIKEY: That's the problem.

Some climbs are just really dangerous.

It doesn't matter how good you are.

And over the years, I've lost quite a few friends to climbing.

You know, more than I can count on my hands and my feet.

And at this point, it's hard to be optimistic

that the climbing's gonna improve at all.

It is more of the same, if not harder up there

because the head wall looks steep.

It's like, I don't want to die.

Oh, man. Ah, yeah.

ALEX: Well, you survived another day.

MIKEY: I did, yeah.

ALEX: Anyway, should we go down

and join our friends on the boat?

MIKEY: Uh, Alex, you know,

he does have the confirmation bias, right,

like nothing's essentially bad happened to him.

This piece is sort of a joke.

ALEX: Cool, I'll see you at the bottom.

MIKEY: Okay.

And it is how some things get done.

HEÏDI: It's amazing to be right here.

ADAM: Yeah.

HEÏDI: So close to this giant glacier.

ADAM: I wonder how fast it's moving.

HEÏDI: We need to pick up time-lapse cameras

that I've focused on the Daugaard-Jensen Glacier.

And using the images that I've captured,

we'll be able to work out its current speed.

All glaciers move, but when ocean temperatures warm,

they can start to melt from below,

which makes them speed up, calve more icebergs,

and contribute more to sea level rise.

The future of New York, London, and Shanghai

is directly linked to glaciers like this one.

Oh, they look good, huh?

ADAM: Yeah.

HEÏDI: Let me see.

All the data from the time-lapse cameras

are on these cards.

Ah, I can't wait to see what there is on this.

Two time-lapse cameras have taken pictures of the glacier

every hour over the entire duration of the experiment.

These time-lapse cameras are my eyes.

ADAM: I'll just demount this.

HEÏDI: That's great.

By tracking features like crevasses and rocks,

we can use the time-lapse images to determine

how much the glacier has moved,

and from that, we can work out if it's moving faster

than when it was last studied two decades ago.

Today is all about pressure.

There's so much to do.

We really have to maximize the science we can do,

and every second matters.

(grunting)

HAZEL: Should we chat about our future?

ALEX: Yeah, love chatting about our future.

HAZEL: Mikey, do you want to start

and let the team know where you're at?

MIKEY: Yeah.

Alex, obviously, like, Hazel and I have, like, chatted

on the side a bit, you know.

ALEX: Hmm.

HAZEL: Well, quite a lot, really.

MIKEY: Yeah, yeah, yeah, just trying to sort it all out,

and I think you are fairly aware

of my, as you said, grumpiness.

ALEX: Morale.

MIKEY: Yeah, you know, and overall take.

And you've known me for a long time

and sort of know where I stand

as far as overall, you know, safety habits.

ALEX: What are you thinking?

MIKEY: There isn't enough value in it for me to, like,

continue on and, like, I just think that to me,

there's, like, risks that are gonna be, like,

too hard to mitigate continuing on.

ALEX: It's like, you don't want to climb a giant sea cliff?

MIKEY: No, I mean.

ALEX: I mean, it's pretty cool.

What if you go first the whole way?

MIKEY: I was definitely hoping that, like,

conditions were gonna improve,

and they have definitely not improved.

ALEX: You don't think so?

I thought the rock was slowly getting a little better.

MIKEY: I mean, that last pitch, you know, pitch you led,

you, like, changed course because you were like,

"Oh, these are like Jenga blocks."

And I'm like, "Yeah, those are proper Jenga blocks."

ALEX: Yeah, but they didn't fall off.

MIKEY: Yeah, but like, they do fall off, you know, like...

ALEX: It's just too bad because you've already taken

so much risk up there,

it's a shame to not then also climb the wall.

MIKEY: But that is always a poor reason to take more.

ALEX: That's, that's true.

MIKEY: And I would be more disappointed in myself

if something happened while I was up there

than the disappointment I'd have by not going, I think.

ALEX: Mikey is an old friend of mine.

And we've been climbing partners for a long time.

I just worry that he won't be as satisfied

if he's not actually climbing the wall.

But, like, are you sure you're happy with that because--

MIKEY: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no.

You know, and I've never been one to like,

like, dwell on my decisions.

Alex's biggest concern is that I would be

disappointed in retrospect,

which I thought was, was very nice of him.

ALEX: What, uh, what do you think, Hazel?

HAZEL: I think for me is I need to know that, like,

you're thinking clearly about it, you know.

Because it's really cool how positive and psyched you are,

and that's one of the reasons I really like climbing with you.

But then sometimes it's like, are you being so optimistic,

you're not actually seeing what's going on.

ALEX: Do you feel like it's been,

been too, too optimistic so far?

HAZEL: Yeah, yeah.

And, like, I'm definitely more risk-averse than you,

and so I think it would just be cool to, like, hear from you

that you're listening to that, you know,

and that, you know, I just, I just want to make sure

we're on the same page basically.

ALEX: I hear you. I hear you.

I mean, we definitely want to be on the same, same page.

I mean, I guess to me the thing is, are we all--

I don't want to sound hokey-- but, like, when we all go home,

I want to make sure we're all still friends,

everyone's happy, no one's like bummed with their decisions.

Nobody, you know, like, is this, is this okay?

MIKEY: No, I mean, I think we're making decisions,

and we've talked it through a lot.

HAZEL: But you still need, you need, I think you need

to tell me that, like,

this is gonna be good up there, you know?

ALEX: You're now the sole partner, so I would say

that now suddenly your opinion carries a lot of weight

because if you don't feel comfortable,

then the party's over.

Hazel was very clear that she wanted me

to respect her opinion on anything up there

and to be understanding about however she feels on the wall

and honestly, if our opinions are gonna be totally equal.

You know, if she wants to go down, we have to go down.

If you get your gear, then you can basically lead us

as far as you want to the top, and I think you'll enjoy that.

I mean, it is pretty cool.

HAZEL: Overall, I still want to climb that wall.

I have that pull to have the adventure.

I want to know what that head wall's like.

So it was really important to kind of sit down with Alex

and be like, "Look, I'm your only teammate now,"

and so... (laughs)

I think he got it, in his own way. (laughs)

ALEX: Climbing the steep, final head wall

is definitely going to be a challenge,

especially if it's just the two of us.

HAZEL: Oh, the boat's here.

That could be our climbing gear, or some of it.

MIKEY: What do you got there, Aldo?

ALDO: One bag of climbing kit.

ALEX: Finally, a break.

Some of the climbing gear that we left behind at the Pool Wall

has caught up with us.

ALDO: We got some stuff at least.

HEÏDI: Yeah.

ALEX: Hello, shoes!

HAZEL: Yes! My shoes!

ALEX: Is this your helmet?

HAZEL: Yeah, my helmet.

ALEX: Ah, sweet mercy.

Mikey is right that it's a dangerous place.

But for me and Hazel,

to climb one of the biggest unclimbed walls in the world,

something that hasn't been done that's big, that's meaningful,

it's worth it.

The ropes are about halfway up.

A lot of food and water is already up on the wall.

Now we just have to grab our sleeping bags

and finish the route.

So we're splitting the roll mat out there.

I'll use my backpack as the rest of my pad probably.

HAZEL: I've got, I'm gonna borrow Heïdi's, like,

lightweight blow-up thing.

ALEX: Okay. I think I'm good.

We'll see you guys in a few days, then.

ADAM: Nice climb up there. Worth the trip, huh?

HAZEL: Yeah. MIKEY: Bye.

HEÏDI: See you soon. MIKEY: Okay.

ALEX: Alright, see you guys in a bit.

ADAM: Alright, good luck.

HEÏDI: Good luck, guys!

MIKEY: Be safe.

ALEX: This is it.

It's just me and Hazel and Ingmikortilaq.

Our goal for today is to get as high as we can and then camp.

Then tomorrow it'll be a big push

up the head wall to the summit.

HAZEL: Each piece of rock is different,

and each wall is different, and it's been weeks

since I'd even climbed properly, you know.

Should you go first or...

ALEX: No, you should go.

Just watch out for little rocks.

HAZEL: Yeah.

After we climbed the ropes,

we get to the first bit of unclimbed wall.

It's so exciting putting my shoes on for the first time

in a really long time.

And I put my shoes on, and I stepped on the rock,

and I'm like, "Yes, this is why I'm here."

ALEX: Oh, my god, we're climbing.

We made good progress through the afternoon...

...getting closer and closer to the head wall.

Here's Hazel with a really nice view of our route down below,

the nice arching swirl of the wall.

Pretty cool!

Icebergs have gotten even prettier,

and the reflections of the mountains,

it's all pretty beautiful.

But, you know, we're just cruising along.

Yeah, it's sad to not have Mikey up here, huh?

HAZEL: Yeah, it's sad. We miss you, Mikey.

ALEX: Oh, this actually is a great place to camp.

This is amazing.

We should definitely stay right here.

HAZEL: Yeah. It's pretty flat.

ALEX: Yeah, this is really flat and really beautiful.

Look at the wall.

Oh, you've got your life raft?

Is that because we're on a sea cliff?

HAZEL: Yeah, if I fall off, I'll float down,

and then I'll float back to camp.

ALEX: Ah, that'd be nice.

That looks pretty comfy. How do you feel?

HAZEL: Yeah, pretty good, yeah.

Now I just need my sleeping bag.

I absolutely love sleeping on walls.

It's one of my favorite things about big-walling.

Can I take a picture?

ALEX: Yeah.

HAZEL: It's this moment to actually enjoy the wall

and be present and calm with the wall

without wanting to just be climbing up it.

That looks sick!

How's your bed, Alex?

ALEX: This is actually really comfy.

I've gotten pretty--

I just used the rope to prop up my head more,

and it's very comfortable.

HAZEL: What a nice spot.

ALEX: Oh, it's so nice to wake up with some sunshine.

Okay, you're ready!

Take us away, Hazel.

HAZEL: Alrighty.

ALEX: We've still got a good 1,400 feet

between us and the summit.

We're traveling light, with limited supplies.

There's no plan B. We're going to the top.

HAZEL: Yeah, who knows what this head wall will hold.

The blank face that you want to go towards

is looking blanker and blanker as we get closer to it.

ALEX: Two pitches later, and we're finally starting

into the hardest part of the climb--

the head wall.

It's my turn to lead.

HAZEL: It just looks so scary, though!

ALEX: All the features are big blocks waiting to fall off.

If you touch it with your rope, if you touch it with your foot,

it just showers loose rocks down.

The whole mountain is like a stack of cards

because it's just stacked blocks teetering on top of each other,

and it feels like if any one of them goes,

then they're all gonna crumble.

Like, normally you climb a little bit,

you might be a little scared,

but then when you finish, you're safe.

But on this,

there just are hardly any points where you feel safe.

HAZEL: Halfway, Alex!

ALEX: Okay!

We just feel kind of on edge the entire time.

HAZEL: How's it look?

ALEX: This is like, definitely stay hidden down there, though.

This is all incredibly loose.

HAZEL: Okay!

ALEX: It's just hard to know exactly where I want to go.

HAZEL: Yeah.

ALEX: I'm thinking about going left into that corner

and then up through some cracks

and kind of like aiming for the left side of the big roof.

HAZEL: Okay.

ALEX: As we get higher up the wall, we realize

that the whole summit is guarded

by these big overhanging roofs,

and so the route-finding starts to become a lot more important

where we have to nail the right way

to navigate through this maze.

There's the little tower right above us.

Like, you see that little, like, block.

HAZEL: Yeah.

ALEX: Basically I think it's like a not a terrible place

to try to tackle this roof.

But for literally hours,

as we're slowly moving up towards this,

you know that it might not work.

Just not really knowing whether or not it will dead-end.

I mean, should I just go easiest possible line

like as if I was soloing?

HAZEL: What would that be? Left?

ALEX: Yeah, just take the corners.

HAZEL: Do we think right is better?

ALEX: Yeah, I think right leaves our options open for longer.

(rocks falling)

Ah, little rocks, rocks.

HAZEL: Whoa!

ALEX: We switch, and Hazel takes the lead.

Alright, that's a really good pitch you did so far.

That's halfway, Hazel.

HAZEL: Halfway?

ALEX: Yeah.

HAZEL: You'll catch me, though, if I fall, right?

ALEX: Well, these ledges will probably catch you.

I think you can just go left and follow that big corner.

HAZEL: I was just gonna place a piece, but I'll sack it off.

ALEX: Yeah.

HAZEL: This is terrifying.

Oh, that's terrible.

I mean, I can't put any gear behind that.

(thump thump)

Aw, I don't even want to hold that.

Hmm.

It is hard to describe how hard it is to do something like this.

ALEX: Nice, Hazel.

HAZEL: You really don't know

if the next pitch is gonna be possible.

There's like not many footholds that aren't gonna break.

ALEX: Just tread lightly.

HAZEL: You really don't know if, like,

your next handhold's gonna break.

ALEX: How does it look trending up and right?

HAZEL: It's just like pretty blank,

protectionless for a ways.

We only have enough food and water until the end of the day,

so we really need to get to the top of that wall.

ALEX: You should probably try to build an anchor

in the next, you know, 20.

HAZEL: Yeah, I'll try and aim for those ledge systems.

The only viable route is sideways across a blank section.

But this wall, it's crumbling with every move we make.

It's really sketchy, but it's the only option we have.

Now I just have a terrifying traverse.

Ah, god!

ALEX: You're doing great!

HAZEL: Oh, my god, it's so scary!

ALEX: Nice job, Hazel.

HAZEL: Yay! Finally.

ALEX: Hazel's pitch was awesome. She did a great job.

It was, it might be the crux of the route so far.

I swing back into the lead

for what we hope will be the last pitch,

but it's still so chossy.

Rock!

(thud)

HAZEL: That almost hit me!

I'm a little bit scared to come out of my nook here

because a rock just came right past my head.

You can see the dent in the rock there.

Scary!

Hopefully this is the last pitch,

and it'll all be over soon.

ALEX: The most important part of climbing the wall for me

is just staying in the moment.

You know, focusing on each task at hand

and not thinking about the scale of the wall in front of us,

not thinking about what might happen.

Really you just have to focus on "Can I do this move?"

and just take it one move at a time all the way to the top.

Ooh, I think I'm, uh, I think I'm getting somewhere!

Sweet mercy.

I've never been happier to get to the top of something!

We're so over it.

It's, it's a horrible...

I'm so psyched.

HAZEL: Yeah!

Alex, is this the top?

ALEX: Yeah.

HAZEL: Ah, so psyched!

ALEX: Yeah.

(Hazel laughing)

We made it to the summit.

HAZEL: Yeah!

I was like, please say we are, we're at the top!

ALEX: We're at the top of the mountain.

High fives!

HAZEL: Yeah! Oh, this is amazing!

Alex is a bit of a difficult character

to be friends with sometimes.

But there was nothing but good vibes between us

the whole climb.

ALEX: That is so cool.

HAZEL: Ah, that's special.

ALEX: This is the coolest summit I've ever seen.

HAZEL: Can we stand right on the top?

ALEX: Yeah.

HAZEL: It was a really nice experience for us to share,

and I think we're gonna be better friends

because we shared this experience.

Yeah!

ALEX: Yay!

Summit!

HAZEL: Please don't break your ankle doing this now.

ALEX: Climbing with Hazel on the wall was a total pleasure.

Summit!

Of all people, she was well-equipped

to handle the challenges of that wall.

Definitely pretty satisfying to get to the top.

HAZEL: We came up a terrifying wall, didn't we?

ALEX: You know, for literally two days,

we were climbing on terrible rock.

Neither of us has ever climbed anything

that's so consistently scary.

But it did feel like we sort of got away with something.

You know, it's like you can only roll the dice like that

so many times.

It's the kind of climb that you do

only if it matters enough to you.

Oh, wow, look at the Daugaard-Jensen.

HAZEL: Alex, that's a crazy-looking glacier.

ALEX: It was pretty incredible

to get to the true summit of the peak

and then suddenly see one of the biggest

and most active glaciers in Greenland

shedding these enormous icebergs into the fjord.

It's like one of those things

that you kind of have to see to believe.

(rumbling)

Down at camp, Heïdi's got good news about the huge glacier.

HEÏDI: I've analyzed the information

from the time-lapse cameras, and to my surprise,

I've discovered that the Daugaard-Jensen

is still quite stable,

moving at the same speed it was 10, 20 years ago,

more or less 25 to 30 feet per day.

I don't know exactly why,

but somehow the Daugaard-Jensen Glacier is still quite stable,

while the rest of the Arctic is collapsing around it.

And to me, this tells me that all is not lost,

that some glaciers are trying to hold it together

and trying to stay strong.

But for how much longer?

The Daugaard-Jensen is the exception.

If we don't act now, we'll lose the Arctic as we know it

and we'll be forced to live in a much more challenging world.

(laughter and cheering)

ADAM: Congratulations! Welcome back.

HEÏDI: Alex!

ALEX: Ah, thank you.

HEÏDI: Well done, huh?

ALEX: Hearing that the Daugaard-Jensen

is relatively stable so far is interesting and encouraging.

It's nice to know that some glaciers

haven't begun a terminal decline yet.

(cheering)

ALDO: You made it!

ALEX: Yay!

I couldn't be happier.

But I think that I just have

a natural, sort of an innate optimism around it.

You know, like a lot of the environmental issues

that we face, if we resolve them,

it also vastly improves the human quality of life.

We have this amazing opportunity to make the world better.

We just haven't quite chosen to yet.

Captioned by Side Door Media Services