‘Alex was on vacation in Greece – but even on vacation, he still climbs. Fortunately, unlike in the film Free Solo, he’s on a rope here’
When you’re climbing, things can go from fun to serious pretty quick. The worst fall I ever had happened while I was in Aspen, Colorado, in 2002. I broke my neck, my pelvic bone and four ribs. I collapsed my right lung, too, and had kidney and liver damage. I didn’t think about anything as I fell. I was just waiting for my equipment to catch me, but it didn’t. It all came away from the wall and I hit the ground 11 metres below. I don’t remember the impact so there was no trauma associated with that. I just remember waking up pretty disorientated, with about eight heads looking down at me. “Oh my God, you just fell,” I thought.
It shook me up and I swore I was finished with climbing. But I was 22 and my photography career was just starting to be a thing. So three months later, when a magazine asked me to go on a rock shoot, I agreed and I’ve been climbing ever since. I’ve had close friends who died base-jumping, ice-climber friends who died on big mountains, and one friend who died “free-soloing”. That’s climbing without a rope. It’s one of the most dangerous things you can do because there’s no room for any error at all.
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