The death-defying documentary ‘Free Solo’ follows climber Alex Honnold as he prepares for the ultimate feat: becoming the first person to climb 3,000 feet to the top of Yosemite National Park’s infamous El Capitan mountain—without ropes or a harness. A daredevil team of filmmakers, led by co-directors Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, went to their own extremes to capture Honnold’s ascent to the top in painstaking detail. Here, in photographs with captions written by Chin himself, The Daily Beast gets an exclusive look behind the scenes of their nail-biting, award-winning film.
In the photo above, Mikey Schaefer films with his jacket over the camera during a hail storm in Morocco. Dave Allfrey pulls his hood up to prepare for the incoming weather after finishing rigging for the day while Tommy Caldwell and Alex Honnold pack gear to get down the mountain.