Alex Honnold, Amygdalas, and Fear in the Outdoors

In the infamous climbing documentary Free Solo following Alex Honnold’s ropeless attempt to climb El Capitan, a slab of granite in Yosemite National Park reaching over 7,500 feet, producers cited Honnold’s abnormally underfiring amygdala as a reason behind his ability to make such an attempt. Honnold seems to think otherwise. “With enough exposure to a certain stimulus you desensitize yourself to it. And so, it’s not that my amygdala doesn’t fire, it’s that my amygdala wasn’t firing for that level of stimulus,” he said on the Rich Roll podcast on October 14. “People always like to see someone doing something outlandish or different and they’re like ‘well that must be because they’re just fundamentally different’...but they could do that too if they worked hard at it for a very long time.” Our amygdala is an almond-sized structure in our brains that helps with things like decision-making, learning, and most notably, our fear response. What Honnold is suggesting is that his amygdala at birth was no less active than the average person, but his body’s perception of risk changed over time as he became a more experienced climber and spent more time on big walls. In short, experience is linked to fear. When working in the guiding space among clients with a wide range of experience and subsequent comfort-levels in the outdoors, we get to see this come to life firsthand. Science, and Alex Honnold, would agree that fear around your firsts while climbing, hiking, rafting, or spending extended time in the backcountry is a completely natural biological response. Few people have unlimited and consistent access to wild spaces to build such a tolerance, which is where the value of an adventure guide comes into play. A guide gives you the opportunity to experience a sport or wilderness area fully, and removes some of that fear by removing a large measure of risk. Although, our fear responses aren’t always logical. In our Corporate & Teams events, we often find a short wall for participants to scramble up while tied into a rope and anchor system. This is an activity where we talk about fear and vulnerability among co-workers because it is often a time when fear and the need for vulnerability arise. Some participants have never touched a rock wall or tied into a rope system, while others are locals to the area and scramble up the wall with ease. The purpose of this event, aside from having fun and touching some rocks, is to demonstrate that our emotional responses are not ubiquitous among our teams. Everyone starts from a different place, and having empathy for our unique responses, emotions, and behaviors is an important lesson for our corporate and private clients alike. Fear doesn’t have to hold you back from trying new experiences, but it can be important to listen to. There are always ways to mitigate risk for your time in the outdoors, such as a guide or proper education prior to an excursion. In fact, hundreds of climbers make attempts to ascend El Cap every year, many of which make use of guide services. Because the simple truth of this story is: you deserve to experience wild places even if you have a perfectly normal-sized amygdala and fear response.