Black Diamond Presents: Next Go For Sure with Alex Honnold
2025 · 16 min · Trad, Documentary · Black Diamond
Next Go For Sure follows Alex Honnold for a day of trad cragging near his home in the Lake Tahoe area. Honnold climbs an obscure splitter high in the Sierra Nevada alongside Carlo Traversi and Nik Berry; the short film is directed, shot and edited by Traversi. The camera work favors close, handheld angles that show gear placements, jammed hands, and the rhythm of a sustained crack rather than long panoramic hero shots. The film is framed around a domestic turn in Honnold’s life — the filmmakers refer to a nascent “trad dad” phase — and the climbing scenes read as a practical reminder that Honnold’s movement and crack technique remain sharp. It’s useful as a compact portrait of modern trad cragging: intimate footage of a splitter line above Tahoe, on-the-rock conversation about gear and sequence, and simple editing that foregrounds climbing details over spectacle.
Review
A compact portrait of modern trad cragging, and Carlo Traversi's camera is the reason it works. Alex Honnold climbs an obscure splitter high in the Sierra Nevada near his Lake Tahoe home with Traversi and Nik Berry, and Traversi directs, shoots and edits. The angles are close and handheld: gear placements, jammed hands, the rhythm of a sustained crack.
This is for climbers who want to see Honnold's crack technique up close rather than from a drone. The film frames a domestic turn, the trad dad phase, and the climbing reads as proof that the movement is still sharp. Skip it if you want a named route or a grade. The splitter is never named, and the film is fine with that.
What works is the on-rock conversation. Three strong climbers talking about gear and sequence while climbing is the most natural footage of Honnold on the site. What it gets wrong is that sixteen minutes of a day at the crag is exactly that, and the domestic framing is asserted more than shown.
Alex Honnold Free Climbing 'Solar Flare' with Emily Harrington is the other Sierra film: nine pitches of 5.12d on the Incredible Hulk in six minutes. That one is a vignette. This one has time to breathe, and I like it for the same reason I like cragging with friends.
