NEW Fox News articles can now be heard on audio! Hazel Findlay and Alex Honnold, two of the best climbers in the world, have recently finished an unprecedented rock climb.
Honnold, who was born in Sacramento, and Findlay, who was born in the United Kingdom, took on one of the world’s largest rock faces on a huge sea cliff in eastern Greenland’s Nordvestfjord.
The 3,750-foot rock formation known as Ingmikortilaq, which in Greenlandic means “the isolated one,” was climbed for the first time.
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According to National Geographic, Ingmikortilaq rises up from a lonely peninsula and is made of 3-million-year-old granite and gneiss.
On August 11, 2022, Honnold and Findlay used a dinghy to get to the bottom of the cliff, where they started their initial ascent.
According to an National Geographic report , the couple took a skillful path up the steepest part of the rock face to reach its approximately 4,000-foot pinnacle, which is three times as tall as the Empire State Building.
Honnold described the formation to National Geographic as a “horrendous, death-defying wall,” and the terrain turned out to be more hazardous than expected.
The two ran into hazardous, icy weather conditions, unexpected storms, and loose rock during the five-day journey.
The climbers were able to safely clip themselves into their sleeping bags at night, creating a “shiver bivvy,” which allowed them to camp out for the duration of the journey.
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The climbers discovered it was safe enough to stroll up the summit and complete the journey without ropes after they reached the last 150 feet of the ascent.
Honnold and Findlay finally reached the summit of Ingmikortilaq on Aug. 16, 2022. “It is definitely one of the biggest first ascents Ive ever done and one of the most stressful due to how dangerous the climbing was,” Honnold said via satellite phone, according to NatGeo. Prior to the historic climb, the team was joined by Dr. Hedi Sevestre, a glaciologist working with the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program, who trekked to the Ingmikortilaq location to perform a “health check” on the area’s ice caps. The scientist and team ascended a 1,500-foot monolith known as the Pool Wall to access the edge of the Renland Ice Cap to study ice depth and density. Ingmikortilaq, also considered “ground zero of the climate crisis” by National Geographic, holds essential data for the scientific community to learn more about the rate of polar ice melt and other insight.
