How Rock Climbing Helped Dierdre Wolownick Soar to New Heights

Dierdre Wolownick, 72, is the mother of Alex Honnold, who became a global celebrity when he was featured in the Oscar-winning 2018 documentary Free Solo. The film chronicled the first-ever free-solo climb up the face of Yosemite National Park's El Capitan. Wolownick began climbing in her 60s, and at age 66 she became the oldest woman to climb El Capitan. She's now the subject of her own documentary, 2023's Climbing Into Life.

I was hanging 200 feet above a rocky canyon floor when fear took over. Halfway up Lover’s Leap, a 400-foot rock face in the Sierra Nevada, I was paralyzed, totally focused on my fear. This was my first big climb, and could have been my last. Someone handed me a rope, but I couldn’t grab it.

Let me start at the beginning, at ground level. For years, I’d see news photos and videos of my son, Alex Honnold, a world-renowned climber, and I’d tell myself, That can’t be right. That can’t be what he’s doing. I was terrified of heights — for myself and for him.

Dierdre Wolownick and her son, Alex Honnold. In 2017, Honnold became the first person to complete a free-solo climb up El Capitan in California's Yosemite National Park.

Courtesy Dierdre Wolownick

Finally, at age 60, I decided I needed to understand what he was doing. So I asked him to take me to a local climbing gym. That’s how I started doing it myself.

At the gym, I was usually the oldest climber. I lacked the body strength the younger climbers had. But once I learned the skills, 90 percent of my fears for Alex disappeared, because now I understood how careful climbers are and what they do to protect themselves.

That day on Lover’s Leap, I had to figure out whether my fear was a rational one I should listen to or a false perception I should talk myself out of. I knew if my climbing partners weren’t afraid, I needn’t be. So I talked myself through my fear and grabbed the rope.

I made it to the top, and since then, I have gone on many more climbs. At 66, I became the oldest woman to scale El Capitan, the iconic cliff that towers more than 3,000 feet above Yosemite’s valley floor. On my 70th birthday, I did it again, celebrating with cake atop the monster granite wall.

As we age, we have reasonable concerns about falling and breaking a bone. Our bodies are different, as are our minds. But some things stay the same. There’s a battle with fear you have to win if you’re going to do anything worthwhile.