Mar 12, 2015 · Fifteen miles outside Yosemite Valley, a beeping iPhone alarm awakened Alex Honnold at 4 a.m. in the white Ford Econoline van that he has called home for the last seven years. Honnold, who is 29 and one of the two or three best rock climbers on earth, sat up on his cheap foam mattress and switched on his headlamp in the darkness.