Episode 179: Dierdre Wolownick – Mother of Honnolds.

On Episode 179 of the Enormocast, I sit down with Dierdre Wolownick, perhaps better known in the climbing world as Alex Honnold’s mom. Up until now, Dierdre has appeared to the climbing world as a talking head in Alex’s movies, and I believe, she’s a bit misunderstood. Dierdre has recently put her thoughts on raising Alex, her life as a mother, and her new climbing passion in a book titled The Sharp End of Life: A Mother’s Story. In our interview, Dierdre talks about being the mother of perhaps the greatest climber ever to live, but she also relates being a beginner and dipping her own toes in the climbing life for the first time well into her 50s. Despite her son being a mentor of sorts, Dierdre had to overcome a life of the workaday straight-and-narrow to jump into the cliquey, jargon filled world of rock climbing. Initially she sought out climbing to simply understand her son Alex’s crazy life, but soon Dierdre found her own inspiration in climbing that lead all the way to an ascent of El Cap.

The Sharp End of Life at Mountaineers Books

Episode 161: Jordan Cannon – Looking Back to Go Forward.

On Episode 161 of the Enormocast, I sit down with young wall-climber, Jordan Cannon. Jordan’s path to climbing, while rather normal 30 years ago, flies in the face of the standard young person’s path through the gym to the boulders. Instead, Jordan went pretty straight to the big walls without passing GO. Armed with endless stoke, fitness, and a reverence for the soul-climber of the past, Jordan did a ground up ascent of the Free Rider only 3 years into his serious climbing career. Part Stone Master, part clean living climbing nerd, Jordan Cannon is one to watch for the future of big wall free climbing.

Jordan on the FreeRider

Jordan in Owens River Gorge

 

Episode 142: John Middendorf – Build It and They Will Go

On Episode 142 of the Enormocast, I sit down in a wide open and relaxing space in SLC to talk to big wall legend, John Middendorf. John disappeared to Tasmania after single-handedly changing big wall climbing in the 1990s. Previously, porta-ledges afforded respite from the vertical, but could not hold any serious storm at bay. John’s designs at his company A5 lead the way to a ledge that could handle nearly anything the weather could throw at it.  Armed with this shelter, climbers could cast off into the upward void for as log as it took come rain, shine, sleet, or snow. John himself took the ledge to the great ranges, putting up The Grand Voyage on Great Trango Tower with Xaver Bongard, perhaps still the hardest wall route in the world. Now he’s back in the designing game with the new D4 Ledges. And a shout-out to Rock Steady Body Works for the recording space.

John and D4’s Facebook Page