It’s jarring to hear Honnold’s name bandied around at Rubicon especially. You or I would not expect the arching walls of finger-wrecking crimps and glazed footholds, all held in place with industrial epoxies, to really be up Honn Solo’s straße, but soloing speaks to everyone at an elemental level so all such contextual considerations of genre go out of the window. Or maybe the passing walkers are much more knowledgeable on Peak climbing trivia than I give them credit for and are in fact referencing Quentin Fisher’s famous attempts to solo Caviar back in the day? I guess we’ll never know. One thing is clear though; soloing is a great leveller and captures the imagination of climbers and non-climbers in a similar sort of way.