Rotpunkt (2019) - full transcript

[GRUNTING]

ALEX: I never thought that

I would be able to push

the limits of sport climbing.

I mean, I was

scared of failing,

so I would then end up

not trying certain things

because I knew that I might

not succeed on them.

Now I've already spent

more than 40 days

on the project,

and I don't even know

how close I am to sending.

With climbing, there are

so many different movements.

Mother Nature just creates so many more interesting things

than just left-right,

left-right.

I think that's what's appealing about climbing.

The challenge to only use

the natural

features of the rock

to get up, which makes

rock climbing

infinitely hard.

[GASPS]

[SCREAMS]

[UPBEAT INSTRUMENTAL

ROCK MUSIC PLAYING]

RUSS: It was strict, yes,

because it meant, like,

okay you fuckers,

no more pulling on

the pitons to get to the top.

Now you suddenly have

a whole new game.

MAN 2: In Germany, they had

another school of thought,

which turned out

to be revolutionary.

NORBERT: It was absolutely

counterculture.

MAN 4: The rotpunkt

changed everything.

Complete history of climbing

changed with this red dot.

MAN 5: The obvious beauty

of free climbing

is you're actually

giving the rock

a chance to win.

It's a fair game.

MAN 6: Style. It's about style.

MAN 7: It gave climbing

what climbing is nowadays.

MAN 8: Free climbing

is just an expression of trying to set yourself free.

It's just a way.

Okay, it is a bit

bigger than I thought.

[CHUCKLING]

Okay, and it is steep.

It's not a slab all the way.

Jumbo Love,

the first ascent was made

by Chris Sharma in 2008.

Climbing it in one

giant 80-meter pitch

and making it the first 9b.

The first 15b worldwide.

To everything,

the route is flashable.

I think every

route is flashable

if you're strong enough.

DICKI: It comes down

to linking all the sections.

There's no trickery to it.

He wants to flash that route.

Fast flash.

Whatever.

Can't be that hard,

or the sections

can't be that hard.

Got a 50-50 chance

of climbing it in one day.

I just give slack today.

Just give rope.

Rope, rope, rope, rope, rope.

Anchor, bam...

That's it.

Start here ... end up there.

In between is just climbing.

The first time I met Alex

was in a climbing gym

in Southern California.

We knew that Alex

was going to be strong,

but we weren't really prepared for how strong Alex was.

It was very clear that,

at that moment in the gym,

that that was the future.

DICKI: The route starts off

with easy 5.12d climbing.

A bit of a tricky

section in there,

but afterwards

you're sitting on a ledge

and you get a no-hand rest

and that's where the actual

45-degrees

steep climbing starts.

[BREATHING HEAVILY]

ALEX: Oh, fuck!

DICKI: Physically, he's able

to climb way harder than

he's climbing now.

And way harder than

the grades are existing.

Yes, good...

But the mental part

of this is also

something which is not easy.

[BREATHING HEAVILY]

ALEX: The actual crux is a big

move to a right-hand pinch,

and from that position

it's really hard

to get a left foot drop-knee

from which to take

a cut-loose

and take a big swing.

From there, the endurance part of the route starts.

Twenty feet before the lip,

there is an

undercling pocket to a crimp,

which was for me

the redpoint crux.

[SCREAMS]

Got a bit shot down,

definitely, on my first day.

On the second day,

went a little bit better,

just marginally

better, I would say.

Fuck!

Like I did it in multiple

parts and I linked

some sections

but it was still far off

anywhere near sending.

ALEX: You know, the hands

are just a little worse.

I don't know, it just gets

all the edges of the fingers.

That's why I taped up

this one before.

'Cause there was one pocket

that was really cutting into it

and I didn't want to open it up.

DICKI: I think he's

a bit nervous,

and not really confident.

On one hand he's a machine,

on the other hand,

also just human.

ALEX: I know I am

able to climb it,

and in my head, if I want

to be the best rock

climber in the world,

I should have already

climbed it in my eyes.

If I were to leave

without climbing it,

it would just mean

I've not got

what it takes to be the best.

[SHOUTING INDISTINCTLY]

There's that personality trait

where he's hard on himself.

[GRUNTS] Fuck!

SONNIE: You don't just go climbing for fun every day.

You're working

towards something

that is sort of this vision

beyond what most people probably

are able to conceive.

And he was training for routes he wanted to do years later.

DICKI: When there is chalk

on a hold,

and someone hold it before,

and when you're

not able to hold it,

to accept this,

"I'm not the best?

Someone climbed before

and I'm not able."

ALEX: God, no!

[SCREAMING] Fuck!

Fuck!

SONNIE: You're strong, dude.

ALEX: Yeah,

but not strong enough.

I wouldn't blame it on anything else, to be honest.

I mean, when it comes down,

then it actually was

because I was

not strong enough.

Well, I'm gonna fly back home,

and I haven't climbed

the route I wanted to climb.

The hardest part is that

you feel like you've failed.

I feel like I'm probably

traveling about

eight months a year.

Well over 200 days,

I'm gone from home.

Every time I come home

from travels,

that moment when you

turn into your home street

is always a special moment.

Just have my routine back

that I was used to

from some years ago.

And I think that's important.

This is

performance-enhancing drugs.

Double power.

Orange and purple sweet potato.

MAN: They're not

sweet potatoes.

ALEX: Oh, rewind, rewind.

Orange and purple carrots.

Special about my hometown

is that it's got

the Frankenjura next to it,

which is one of the

biggest climbing areas

in the world, actually.

There's about 12,000 routes

in the Frankenjura.

Since most crags are

not very high, the routes

are normally not very long,

so that means to make it hard, obviously,

the moves have to be hard.

The rock is limestone.

Gnarly moves,

really hard climbing.

Small holds and weird holds

that you don't really know

how to grab, first of all,

and where it makes

a massive difference

where you place

your index finger,

where you place your thumb.

Wolfgang Guüllich and Kurt Albert back in the day

made the Frankenjura famous.

NORBERT: Climbing is sharing,

because you always

are with a partner.

You have to trust your friend,

your partner,

and if you trust somebody

and if these are friends,

we share everything.

Maybe not same

wife anymore, but ...

[LAUGHING]

I met Kurt first time in '73.

It was outside climbing,

Frankenjura.

"Ah, you are Kurt Albert,

and I'm Norbert Sandner,"

and so we climb together.

[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

And a couple of weeks later,

he moved to my house.

And from since on,

we became the best friends.

[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

He was avisionaire,

and he was really smart.

He studied physics and math.

He was always up for irony

and good or bad jokes.

And he was fearless.

He did a lot

of powerful free solos.

He was by far the best

climber I ever had seen.

And then when he started

with his redpoints,

everybody was laughing

about him and said,

"Hey, Kurt, the redpoint."

At first it was with a brush.

With a brush and with a color.

And then later on

and be sprayed them.

Redpoint, done.

At the base of the route,

to let people know it was

no longer an aid route,

if it had been

first free-climbed,

you'd have the red circle

painted at the base of it.

And that would get

the rotkreis,

the red circle.

Once you've started from

the ground and placed

all your gear on the way up,

then the red circle

would get filled in,

that would get the rotpunkt ,

that was the redpoint.

NORBERT: If you fall, you have

to go down, you have

to pull the rope down

and then you have to restart

from the ground.

That was, and still is,

the definition

of the redpoint climbing.

The idea of the redpoint came,

well, from the coffee pot.

In the house that

they all shared

in Oberschoöllenbach,

they had this one coffee pot,

and in order to

get the spout to pour,

you'd line up

this red dot with the spout,

and it would open up

and pour coffee,

and that's where the actual

red dot thing came from.

NORBERT:

"What do you want to do?

Do you want to paint

redpoints on all

the climbs we climbed free?"

And he said, "Yes, why not?

Because we have

to show the community

that we climbed it free,"

and it was also

a little provocation

for the old classic climbers.

[YODELING]

Of course, the idea

of rotpunkt,

it has to do something

also with the protest against

the old structures of alpinism.

NORBERT: We wear these

kind of knickerbockers

and we go out

on a Sunday afternoon.

Maybe we climb a little bit

and we sit in the restaurant

and have singing songs

at these times together.

[SINGING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

[SINGING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

NORBERT: Everybody will think

we are drunk already.

[LAUGHING]

RUSS: There are still

old traditionalists in Europe

thinking of those cliffs

as being preparation

for the big mountains.

So it really was just practice climbing and meant,

if that was free climbing,

it was free climbing pulling

on gear, pulling on gears,

stepping in stirrups.

It just didn't matter.

There was no free climbing

in Germany,

it was all aid climbing.

RUSS: It was strict, yes,

because it meant like,

"Okay, you fuckers,

no more pulling on the pitons

to get to the top.

You know, it doesn't

count anymore."

No, I'm not pulling on anything to get up this,

just the rock's features.

So the evolution

of climbing really

just went from

just getting to the top

of something

to, how do you get

to the top of something?

NORBERT: It was like

a revolution here.

It was absolutely

counterculture

at this time because

it was 100% different.

Everything was like in '68,

very famous in Germany,

getting more free.

Being against structures,

being against pressure.

Being against social pressure.

I think free climbing's

just an expression

of trying to set yourself free.

I mean, when I was taking

photos of these guys,

I was not always sure

that they are pictures

that will make climbing history,

or whatever.

Except, maybe, Action Directe.

I knew at this time,

oh, that's something

really, really special.

Kurt and myself, we met Wolfgangat a climbing festival

and we saw he's a really young,

talented climber.

And three years later, he rented a room in the house.

And it started to become

really well known

as a climber house

where every climber can stay.

And that was when the name

"Hotel Frankenjura" started.

RUSS: It was always

a very open house

and always full of climbers,

and it was very communal.

So there was Kurt,

Wolfgang, Norbert, and Ingrid, Kurt's girlfriend.

They were the four people

living there first,

when I first went to the house.

[MAN SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

RUSS: Yeah, Wolfgang

was the sort of leading

force in German climbing.

You know, he was well known

in Europe by the early '80s.

Truly a great climber.

I mean, his resume is not

one to be trifled with.

In 1985, one of the first big

routes that Wolfgang did

was Punks in the Gym.

That was the world's first 14a.

The following year

he would do Wallstreet,

which is the world's first 14b.

And then, of course,

the cap was doing

Action Directe.

[BREATHING HEAVILY]

DICKI: All the things in your life influences your climbing.

Uh, one of the vertebrae

is out of place.

When you only see the climbing,

you see not the whole person.

[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

DICKI: With Alex, it's not that

we have to show him how

to do some pull-ups;

he knows, after all these

years, how to train.

[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

DICKI: One of the

biggest points

is that we talk a lot.

He can call us day and night.

One of us, Patrick or me,

we are always there for him,

to handle with the situation,

to be a professional climber.

And being a professional

climber is not easy.

When you see in the magazines

or in Internet,

you just see them succeeding,

saying, "9a, 9a+, 9b, 9b+."

But the approach to this

and the times in between...

all their faults

and all the pain

and all the suffering.

This is a daily struggle.

You get up.

"How do I feel today?

Can I train hard?

Maybe today

I'm not the strongest.

[SIGHS] What's going on?

Yeah, I have to climb hard

because it's my job.

My job is to climb hard."

Yesterday we filmed Wallstreet.

I think he climbed it

a few times, months before.

Okay, it was

very bad conditions.

28 degree and humid.

And when you're

not climbing well,

it means for Alex everything.

"Last year, I could

do the moves

and today not.

So now I'm not that strong.

So there is something wrong.

I'm on a wrong way."

He never will say this.

But it's inside.

Not every day is the same.

One day is good,

one day is bad.

No, every day have to be good.

And this is not possible.

What can I do to accept this?

And this is not fucking easy.

ALEX: I can't do it.

I'm not at the point

where I can say

I can deal with failure

or I'm a patient person.

Not at all.

I hate failure.

Well, I always say

there is no excuses.

And then somebody replies,

"Oh, no, I mean, you

could have probably climbed

it in better conditions."

I say, "True, but I could have as well climbed it if I would

have been stronger.

You have to change

negative thoughts

into positive thoughts

and think, "Okay, well, I've got a chance to improve."

DICKI: I always try

to help him to deal

with all these ups and downs

to come back on track.

My philosophy: look good,

feel good, climb good.

This is probably a good

contender for the

strongest shirt right now.

I climbed Fight Club in that

one, I climbed Lucid

Dreaming in that one.

So, I like the color yellow

and I like carrots.

And these ones...

Those two were

actually the ones with...

which I started having

yellow shirts, because

I saw these ones online,

and I really liked them,

so I ordered three of those.

Each one of them,

in each one of them,

I've probably climbed a thousand

8a's and harder.

I mean, I've got

them since 2013.

Then in this one I climbed, um,

the 9a onsight, Estado Critico.

Why do I like to combine

all my patterns?

Why? Because everybody

says you can't

combine different patterns,

so I said, "Well, I can

combine different patterns,"

and there we go.

So normally I can combine

every shorts with every shirt.

I just really don't give a shit,to be honest,

whether it matches or not.

Oh, my God!

I look good!

[CHUCKLES]

More is always more.

More flowers, more colors.

Less legs.

[CHATTERING]

ALEX: I always invited

everybody over

to the Frankenjura

to come and climb with me.

NORBERT:Like we have

been before, he's really open.

He invites a lot, a lot

of guests from everywhere

to share his climbs.

[LAUGHING]

[GRUNTS]

Are you okay?

Totally normal.

ALEX: Yeah, it was my dad who introduced me to the sport.

Did a course,

a climbing course,

with Wolfgang Guüllich

and Norbert Sandner

back in the day.

Kurt infected the whole family with climbing

and took us all out.

DICKI: One day,

this little guy came in...

directly with his

climbing shoes on.

Huge ones.

We said, "Come on,

Alex, try this one."

"Yeah, Okay, Dicki", he tried.

He was not trying,

he climbed it.

This was the beginning.

Yeah. Step by step, he,

he climbed harder

and harder and harder,

and yeah,

pretty fast, we saw

that it's not normal

what he is able to do.

Compared to the other kids,

they were all good.

And he was Megos.

Usually he climbed 10 or 12 days, and then a half day off.

This is the difference also

between other climbers.

After a hard climbing day,

or two hard climbing days,

they need a rest.

Alex, no. No rest.

MAN: Alex!

[PEOPLE SHOUTING]

From the day he began

with national competitions,

he won nearly everything.

When he was 14,

up till he was 18,

he was really unstoppable.

In 2009 and 2010,

Alex won nine out of ten

international youth

competitions.

Alex expected from

himself always 100%.

And, when it comes to the days when it didn't work out,

it was, "It's not okay."

There was one competition

where one guy

was a bit better than him.

It was the first time

ever that someone

could hold something

where he couldn't

hold something.

He was mentally wrecked.

Every day we talked

on the phone, and, "Dicki, what should I do?

Dicki, what happened? Dicki..."

He always filled up his energy

with climbing outdoors.

And, uh, now

you see in his eyes

that he also needed, again,

to go climbing outdoors.

ALEX: My psych level

was ten out of ten,

I would say.

I mean, as a teenager,

I was 13, 14, 15,

all I wanted to do is go out

on rock every day.

Straight away after school,

I would ride my bike

to the train station,

take a train,

and then we would

go out climbing

and I would be back

by 11:00 p.m.

I think when I did the 9a

onsight, everything

changed when that happened.

I was in Spain

with a couple of mates.

Second day, I didn't know

what to do, and then I had

a look in the guidebook,

and I saw Estado Critico,

that 9a.

I was really pumped,

and really at my limit.

Got to the last bolt

and looked up

and saw the anchor,

still not realizing

what I've done.

And as soon as I got back

from the campground,

like it was all

over the Internet.

And then suddenly

I found myself

answering emails at 3 a.m.

I think that was probably

then the moment

where I thought, okay,

I could become

a professional climber.

I remember hearing

about him in the magazines,

and then he went from being

pretty good climber

to being possibly

the world's best climber,

in the span of like a year.

He was just breaking records

left, right and center

in terms of his,

how fast, how quickly

he was repeating

these cutting-edge routes.

When you watch somebody

who is stronger

than anyone you've ever

seen before, in real life,

you almost can't believe

that that's possible.

[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

If you're going to accomplish

something hard,

it's a road

littered with failures.

It's really easy

to get involved

with a project

and have failure

define the project.

That's what makes

the great climbers.

Failure is part of the process, and they don't get

downtrodden by it,

it just spurs them on to,

"How do I do better?"

We are in the original

fitness center called

Campus in Nuürnberg.

The thing behind me is

the legendary campus board,

and we built it '88

in the Campus Fitness Center

to have a special tool

for climbing,

training and workout.

You hang, you pull,

you traverse,

go up and down,

and have different edges here.

We have the round slopers,

we have small ones,

we have big ones.

I think the holds,

after so many years,

they are getting

smaller and smaller.

[CHUCKLES]

For Wolfgang Guüllich,

this campus board was the

key to the Action Directe.

If he wouldn't train here

on the campus board,

it would have taken him

much, much longer to do

the first ascent, or never.

RUSS: The Frankenjura's gonna

be a cruel place for you

if you're not prepared for it.

A campus board

in a place like the Frankenjura,

where you have

so many small holds

and small pockets,

it would train you

how to basically

latch onto these holds.

My idea was to build the campus

board, but Wolfgang Guüllich

made it really famous

because he did his special

one-finger pull-up workout

for the Action Directe.

[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

Wolfgang brought

this training for climbing

on a kind of

science-based level.

DICKI: Now I feel good

and now I start

climbing the route.

And Alex is

a little bit like this.

It was a milestone for training.

He was not touching the rock,

he was spending time training,

and then start to get

in the route when

he felt strong enough.

RUSS: First of all,

when he did it,

nobody knew what it was.

I can't remember what he even

said about the grade.

Whether he was the one who

first proposed 9a,

I can't even recall.

And the last week I remember,

I never saw him before,

almost crazy.

It was like feverish

in his eyes.

That really was

a completely new grade,

Action Directe.

And it lasted for...

it's still a legend.

NORBERT: Was the first 9a.

ALEX: So, since I've started

climbing and since

I've climbed my first 8a,

I've started writing

down every route,

8a and harder,

that I've ever done in my life.

Each of these books has got

approximately 700.

And if I've got three full ones

and one half a one,

that makes 700...

1,400...

2,100 and...

2,500 routes.

Yeah, since I could climb,

I never wished to climb

a route more than this one.

If you grow up

in the Frankenjura as a kid,

everybody tells you

about Action Directe.

I mean, I knew

about Action Directe,

you know, the moment when

I started climbing.

I said, I waited a long time,

and I was standing

underneath it

many, many times.

Then I climbed it

and it was all

within two hours.

Even if it was not my most meaningful performance,

for me it was the best

and the most moving feeling

to ever top out a route.

The history about

Wolfgang Guüllich

and Action Directe

is fundamental for

our climbing world

and that's why Action Directe always was this mythical route,

and will always

remain what it is.

Some of the draws

are 30 years old, so...

could be that they're hanging

here since then.

Oh, that's from the top

of Ghettoblaster.

Look at that. Cliffhanger.

And Action Directe.

How old was he when he climbed

Action Directe?

Well, he died 31st

of August, '92,

and he climbed it on the 24th

of September, '91.

Just before his 31st birthday.

RUSS: My time in the

Frankenjura ended

with Wolfgang's death.

I had contacted Wolfgang, said,

"Hey, we're gonna

arrive at this time.

We'll meet you up at the house

and go climb."

So we drove up to his house, the house was locked, and I go,

"That's kind of weird,"

but I knew where the key was,

so we let ourselves in,

and the phone was ringing

and the phone was ringing

and the phone was ringing,

and finally I picked it up

and it was Norbert,

and I was like,

"Hey, how's it going?"

He goes, "Russ, did you hear?" I said, "No, what?"

He goes, "Wolfgang had

a car accident this morning."

I said, "What do you mean?"

He goes, "Well, he was driving back from Munich

and he had an accident."

And I said, "How bad?"

He goes, "Very bad.

He was, uh...

he was badly hurt."

[CRYING]

Wolfgang... well,

he became

the legend he is.

ALEX: We're here for two weeks,

trying this route

that Chris Sharma

bolted nine years ago,

called Perfecto Mundo,

located in, I think,

one of the coolest

sectors in Margalef.

It's called

Racó de la Finestra.

One of the main walls,

that's this wall

that Perfecto Mundo is on,

is a 45-degree-steep wall,

which is about 20 meters long,

and the easiest route

on that wall

is 14c, so 8c+.

It's kind of all flat,

steep rock

on small holes, and

since I climbed Lucid Dreaming

three years ago,

I've never really tried

anything really hard.

The crux move, the move

from the mono to the pinch.

As an individual move,

coming from the Frankenjura

and being used to monos,

I could pretty much

do that move

straight away.

It kind of does not feel

as hard when you just do

it as an individual move.

But then just climbing in

a few moves before

made you realize

that move actually is hard

and that will be

very most likely the

crux of the route,

getting past that move.

Grande catastrophe.

Knew that Stefano wanted

to come down as well to Margalef to try the routes,

since he's been trying it

a couple of weeks ago.

So I was curious to see how

he was doing on the route.

I think like he'd have to go

and train on that side...

ALEX: And then Chris heard,

as well, that we're both

trying Perfecto Mundo,

so he decided to drive

out from Barcelona

a couple of days.

[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

ALEX: The route starts

with a few jugs up to the second or third bolt,

and from there the hard part

of the climbing starts.

[GRUNTING] Fuck!

So after you do the move,

after the pinch move,

you still have to climb

approximately 14b to the top.

The actual pullover

above the lip

is really hard too.

There is a super-shallow

right-hand sloper.

The edge of the roof

is right where your chest is,

so you feel like

you're almost hitting.

So it's definitely not over.

You've got a few

more hard moves.

[GRUNTS LOUDLY]

MAN: Nice. Come on.

[GRUNTS LOUDLY]

ALEX: Fuck.

[GRUNTING]

[GRUNTING]

ALEX: Then you start

reworking each move.

You're making sure

that you've got

the perfect beta,

micro-beta for each move,

where all the fingers

have to go,

what you have to do to make it just a tiny bit easier.

Okay, climbing, Stefano.

I was jumping to the pinch,

and as soon as

I would catch the pinch

and kick my foot back on,

I was readjusting the pinch.

And what I was always doing is

I was splitting

my fingers like that.

I would have two fingers on top

and two fingers at bottom,

on that pinch,

but to actually pull

and do the next move,

you kind of only wanted

one finger on top

and three fingers on the bottom.

You kick your left foot back

onto the left-hand

crimp that you had before.

You readjust the pinch.

And from there you pull through to the next shallow pinch.

But I figured out

a more detailed

beta for the top.

-Yeah?

-Which is good.

Which is very good.

Which means I'm not

gonna fall anymore.

I think.

That's good.

Well... unless this happens.

No bad conditions.

There's no bad conditions.

There's only weakness.

And we take the cheese.

-The cheese.

-Okay.

And we still take the meat?

-Yeah.

-Yes.

-I have more than

this one, okay?

-Okay. Later.

Yeah.

-Just for us, okay?

-Thank you so much.

Okay.

-For good climbing tomorrow.

-Yes, thank you.

Butt out. No core tension.

And then...

[MUSIC PLAYING]

[ALL LAUGHING]

Got it!

He's got it!

[GRUNTS]

Fuck.

Come on.

Fuck.

Fuck.

-Come on!

-Come on, man.

Do you see how I've got

my fingers fucked up

on the hole?

And I can't fuckin' move.

I can't move. Take!

I had it well with four fingers,but I was not able

to readjust the pinch,

and I felt like I could

stay there forever,

but I was not able

to move anymore.

Feel free to use it.

[THUNDER RUMBLING]

I've never really tried

anything that took me

longer than ten days.

Maybe it's better

like this, just wait.

This now is my longest project

and I think that's just

because in the past,

I was never ready

to actually project.

The pressure of trying

one route, I would

always stress out too much.

I think that was the reason

why I was never actually

trying something hard.

I slowly realized

that it will take time

if I want to climb my limit.

Perfecto Mundo now is the first

real project,

I would say, I have.

-Come on, Alex.

-Come on!

[ALEX GRUNTING]

ALEX: Fuck!

I think everybody

gets impatient

when they're trying hard routes for themselves, or projects.

I mean, I was actually planning to stay in Spain for two weeks.

After those two weeks,

I stayed two more weeks.

From the moment when

I knew that every next

try could be the try,

I was thinking

24/7 about the route.

It felt like I was on the edge.

I felt like I was not fun

to hang out with anymore,

just because I am just

so much on the edge

that I almost can't cope

with people anymore.

I kind of wanna be for myself,

and I think that's a hard time to be around.

[ALEX SCREAMING]

Dealing with failure or not succeeding all the time

for a long period of time

kind of gets you.

The biggest

challenge probably...

to not lose your

mind on the way.

I recently learned

to accept failure

more than I did in the past,

'cause I realized

that climbing hard

is probably, more than 99%

of the time, failing...

just to succeed one time.

How many sequences of me taping did you film already?

MAN: Over the years? Millions.

-Of taping I did?

-Yeah.

-Come on!

-Come on!

[BREATHING HEAVILY]

[BREATHING HEAVILY]

MAN: Come on, Alex!

[PEOPLE CHEERING]

MAN: Yes.

ALEX: Yes!

[PEOPLE CHEERING]

Yes!

ALEX: I would say that is

my greatest first ascent.

For sure the hardest

that I've climbed,

and for sure the greatest

first ascent I've done.

Nice.

I mean, I knew, obviously,

at the beginning

that I was capable

of climbing it,

but knowing that you're capable of climbing it

and actually climbing it

are two totally

different things.

[INDISTINCT]

DICKI: The art of climbing

lies in the rotpunkt.

RUSS: Alex embodies

the philosophy

that Wolfgang began.

THOMAS: He's like an artist

being creative.

Doing your thing, not what the others are doing.

Being a creator,

it's the most beautiful thing

you can do in life, I think.

RUSS: I wanna know what

he's working towards.

Is he gonna be the first one

to climb 16a?

ALEX: I don't think that

Perfecto Mundo

is at my limit.

I'm trying to find the right

way for me to get to the

limit of human potential.

RUSS: The idea of a human

overcoming an obstacle,

something that is

seemingly impossible,

is inspiring.

It inspires us to be better

at whatever it is we do.

We'd like to see

something impossible

and make it possible.

Climbing's no different

than anything else.

ALEX: I've already spent

more than 40 days

on the project,

and I don't even know

how close I am to sending.

I'll never be satisfied.

Which is all right.

[INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC PLAYING]