El Sendero Luminoso

Six minutes, one wall, no rope, no narration, and the film that made Honnold's name outside climbing. In January 2014 Alex Honnold climbs El Sendero Luminoso, fifteen pitches and roughly 1,500 feet of limestone at El Potrero Chico in Mexico with eleven pitches at 5.12 or harder, without a rope. Renan Ozturk shoots it for The North Face.

This is for anyone who wants the purest piece of free solo footage available for free. Honnold in the pre-dawn dark, tiny against an ocean of gray limestone, edging up terrain where most strong climbers would want a double rack. It is also the right first film for someone who has never watched climbing. Skip it if you need context. The film gives none, and Ozturk's cinematography turns the wall into something abstract rather than explained.

What works is the restraint. No music cues telling you what to feel, no interview, just the scale. Six minutes wastes nothing. What it leaves out is everything else: the 1994 first ascent by Jeff Jackson, Kurt Smith and Pete Peacock, the three-hour timing, Cedar Wright filming nearby, and the later tragedy on the descent that reminded everyone what the wall's scale means even on a rope.

Alex Honnold Solos The Phoenix is the harder solo, a 5.13a crack in Yosemite, shot raw and close. Sendero is the bigger one, and the more beautiful. If you want to understand why people outside the sport know his name, this is why.