Here’s the deal: If you want visual stimulation and alpine drama, look elsewhere in a climbing documentary. But if you want a dense mountain report from an ambivalent veteran, immune to travails that could force lesser souls to the brink, keep watching.
Colin Haley’s 2023 solo bid on the Supercanaleta, a Fitz Roy masterpiece that loosens the bowels of even the staunchest climbers, is as simple as that. Haley doesn’t feel sorry for himself, wears the anachronistic facial sun shades, and executes a laborious and impressive ascent.
While filming himself.
Here’s a tidbit from one of the alpine world’s most stoic customers in the high alpine:
“I’m kinda just physically and mentally fried a bit. I kind of think this super-intense, stressful stuff is not for me anymore. [But] even just bailing from here is definitely going to be a very long journey. It’s something like 4,000 feet of rappelling from here to the ‘schrund.”
Stick around for an incisive self-inventory in the meadow below. Spoiler alert: don’t bet against my guy.
