Alex Honnold has carved out a nice on-camera career by conquering things that would terrify most humans.
He famously was the first person to scale Yosemite National Park’s El Capitan without ropes or safety gear, as chronicled in the Oscar-winning documentary “Free Solo.”
Earlier this year, he did the same thing, live on Netflix, to the skyscraper Taipei 101.
His latest televised scare-fest: visiting The Clown Motel.
The Las Vegas-based climber went to the Tonopah landmark — home to more than 6,500 pieces of clown paraphernalia and dubbed “America’s Scariest Motel” — for “Get a Little Out There With Alex Honnold.”
“It just depends on what you’re afraid of,” Honnold said, chuckling, when asked how its fear factor compared to his two historic climbs.
“It didn’t bother me. I was like, ‘This is weird.’ … It’s so weird, the aesthetic. It’s like, ‘Who wants to see that many clowns?’ ”
‘Doing the thing’
The five-part series, a partnership between Outside and Travel Nevada, sent Honnold across the state to highlight its small towns and natural beauty. (The season finale will be available Thursday, March 26, on the Outside TV app.)
Episodes find Honnold stargazing in Great Basin National Park, climbing in the Wild Granites outside Kingston in Lander County and learning about Basque culture, cowboy poetry and silversmithing.
“I’m kind of like most residents of Vegas, I’d say, where you drive north and you pass through all of these tiny little towns, and you’re kind of like, ‘Why would people live here? What do they do?’ ” Honnold explained. “But then when you actually stop and interact and meet the folks, you’re sort of like, ‘Oh, they all live here for a reason.’ … Many of them are craftspeople with real trades and something they’ve been working on their whole life.”
Honnold unveiled a different side of himself in Taipei. The usually reserved, laser-focused athlete chatted with the special’s hosts midclimb, posed for selfies with onlookers inside the building as he passed them and made sure to wave to the crowds assembled hundreds of feet below.
“I just sort of had to accept that that’s the way it was,” he said, as though that type of showmanship were part of the assignment. “When I was doing the prep, I wasn’t really that into all the people. I didn’t love it. Then I was like, ‘You know what? All the people are here. It’s all part of the experience. You just have to do the thing.’ ”
That’s the same mindset, if not the over-the-top energy, he brought to “Get a Little Out There.”
“Everybody here’s going to the saloon, and there’s a burro in the saloon,” Honnold said of a trip to Goldfield. “It’s like, ‘Cool. Let’s just hang out in the saloon with a burro.’ It’s all about going to the place and doing the thing, doing whatever’s appropriate.”
The series is, in part, an extension of his day job, for which he’ll climb for two days then take a day off. On those rest days, Honnold tries to soak up as much of his surroundings as possible.
“Even if I’m not filming it, that’s the way I want to live my life,” he said. “Getting outside, having experiences, being curious and meeting interesting people and learning about a place. It’s kind of an ideal way to live.” 
Future and family
Honnold’s next project, already filmed but awaiting a release date, will be his biggest yet — literally.
He’s one of five athletes — along with free diver Alenka Artnik, skier Markus Eder, BASE jumper Katie Hansen Lajeunesse and surfer Kai Lenny — featured in “From the Edge,” the movie expected this year at Sphere.
The only thing currently on Honnold’s climbing calendar are some personal goals.
“The building thing,” as he referred to the Netflix “Skyscraper Live” special, “went, I think, better than anybody expected, really. And so I wouldn’t be surprised if something like that comes together again. And if it did, I’d be obviously very excited about it, because it’s just fun.”
The 40-year-old Honnold’s climbing career doesn’t seem to be slowing down, but he’s on the verge of rethinking how and where he schedules big events.
The docuseries “Arctic Ascent With Alex Honnold” and the special “The Devil’s Climb,” both of which aired on National Geographic in 2024, sent him to remote areas of Greenland and Alaska and away from his growing family.
Honnold’s wife, Sanni, was part of the Netflix spectacle. Before long, he’ll need to start planning around their daughters, 4-year-old June and 2-year-old Alice Summer.
“I think within the next couple of years, it will start making more sense to tour with them more. Like, take them cool places, and they’ll get to learn from all these opportunities,” Honnold said. “So, I think that will start to inform my choices around these types of projects a lot more. Like, ‘What’s going to be cool for the kids?’ ” ◆
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