Brad Gobright wanted to be as good and special as Alex Honnold, but shaking off his immense fame, media exposure, and star life against his will. Despite his low profile, his nomadic life, his small car as his entire home, in the United States Gobright already carried the heavy label of “new king of free solo climbing,” a fresh surname to add to the respected tradition of climbers who dispensed with the rope: Bachar, Croft, Osman, Potter… It was the year 2019 and then, the unexpected became real: Gobright lost his life in a stupid accident while rappelling simultaneously with a partner without a knot at the end of the rope, unaware that it was running out.
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Seven years later, Gobright is back in the spotlight thanks to an old video recovered by its author and uploaded to Youtube. It is not clear why, the cameraman and climber Cedar Wright, one of Alex Honnold’s close friends, has now decided to share such an unclassifiable, powerful, and unsettling document. Interestingly, Wright is the author of a superb short film that captures Honnold’s free solo ascent of the route Sendero Luminoso, in Potrero Chico (Mexico). It was while rappelling that route that Gobright died.
The now recovered and unedited video captures one of the moments that placed Gobright at the center of the American climbing scene: in 2015 he free soloed the route Hairstyles and Attitudes, a single pitch of 40 meters, but with a more than notable difficulty of 7 c/c+. This route demands moves on half-finger holds, crosses, and stands out for its high technical difficulty and certain random moves where a simple slip guarantees a fall.
The video simply shows a silent but chilling struggle to survive. Below, you can see a road, parked cars, climbers on their way to the wall, with their ropes and backpacks, unaware of one of those moments that make the act of climbing something animal. The images capture a move in which the complexity of the movement, its random nature, the all or nothing, is perfectly appreciated: Gobright executes a move where his right hand seeks to meet the left, reaching for a hold that seems too far away and that he will never reach. The movement, static, seems executed in slow motion and you can almost sense that the left hand will not withstand so much tension, nor his abdomen, that his body will open away from the wall causing the failure of the hand gripping the rock. The image conveys the fear experienced by the cameraman. There is also a top-down moment where the left hand trembles on its way to reach a pinched hold. A horror to be in that situation.
But Gobright survived. And he began to be known. Outside magazine interviewed him shortly after, asking about the climber’s motivations. His effort was neither improvised nor whimsical. The difficulty of a climbing route pales when one knows its moves, learns to execute its movements, knows the size of the holds, knows where to place the feet, when to press and when to try to rest. Gobright worked the route at least 50 times, he admitted, until he memorized every crack, optimized every gesture, and convinced himself that he could climb it without the protection of the rope. What remained to be known was why he wanted to do it. It was not just about climbing, but about gaining tons of self-confidence by doing it: “I want to test my mind and know that I have the safety, confidence, and strength necessary to do it. It requires absolute confidence.”
Gobright discovered that technique and strength would be useless when he stood at the foot of the route ready to face the challenge and realized he was scared. Very scared. Despite having been practicing for a year, he had lost confidence. Two weeks of introspection later he was able to believe that, indeed, he was capable of taking on the challenge with guarantees. So he called Cedar Wright and warned him that if he wanted to film him, it would be that day or never. Wright arrived on time.
Gobright shared on his social media a photo showing him executing the key move. He described the moment as the “most intense” of his existence and swore he would never again put himself in such an aberrant position of compromise and uncertainty.
His career exploded immediately with huge performances in Yosemite, the theater of great climbers. He broke speed records, and in June 2019 he made, hand in hand with Honnold, the second free ascent of the route El Niño to El Capitán. Five months later, already a star, he disappeared. Climbing has nothing to do with doing it without a rope. But in American culture there is a deep respect for those who, on occasion, dispense with a net that saves them from a mistake. Cedar Wright recalls that filming his friend on Hairstyles and Attitudes was the “most impressive and terrifying” experience of his career. Sharing the images is his tribute. One in which beauty and unease are confused.
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