Timothy Kang, 24, is in some ways an unusual free soloist: He has spent most of his climbing life as a quintessential gym rat, his days structured around training (he’s now a coach) and competitions (he’s done some World Cups) and hard climbs (he’s sent V14 and 5.14+). But Kang also grew up making annual pilgrimages to Bishop, and after his first sight of the Peabodies, at age 14, he found himself repeatedly “taunted,” he says, by the tallest, proudest lines. His coach—a chaperone on his first few trips—kept him off the hard ones, but once Kang was 17 and able to visit Bishop on his own, he began taking a break from the pursuit of pure difficulty to tick off airy classics like Footprints (V9 X, 50 feet), Evilution Direct (V11, 55 feet), This Side of Paradise (V10, 33 feet), Ambrosia (V11 X, 55 feet), and—gulp—Alex Honnold’s Too Big to Flail (V10 X, 55 feet), which features hard, sustained, and nauseatingly insecure climbing high above a terrible landing.

Yet when Kang topped out Too Big to Flail in December 2020, he thought he was done with danger. “Dude, never again,” he told a friend who’d been taking pictures. “I’m never doing anything like that again.”

“Oh, thank God,” his friend replied.

But then, just a week later, Kang approached that same friend with a new idea.

“Dude, but wouldn’t it be cool to do them all in a day?” he said. 

The idea of doing multiple hard, long, and dangerous climbs in a single 24-hour period is not particularly new. John Bachar was famous for linking up dozens of 5.10-5.12 free solos in Yosemite and Joshua Tree (and for daring others to keep up with him, as John Long nearly fatally attempted to do). Peter Croft upped the intensity ante in 1987 when he soloed both Astroman (5.11c 10 pitches) and the Rostrum (5.11c 8 pitches) in the same day—a feat only Alex Honnold has since matched.

Yet no one, as far as Kang knew, had brought the same approach to Bishop’s proudest boulders. 

Off and on for the next two years Kang prepared himself for this project, rehearsing moves, figuring out which order to do the climbs, thinking through pad logistics, and—most importantly—trying to figure out how to regulate his emotions while trying to do what are essentially five hard free solos back to back. (When you translate the boulders to route grades, the breakdown looks something like 5.13c, 5.14a, 5.13d, 5.13d, 5.14a—all without a rope.)

“Anybody who’s ever done one of these highballs knows you get this crazy euphoric rush at the top,” Kang told Climbing. “But that rush inherently has to come down, right? It has a ramp on both sides. After you’re done, you don’t want to climb, you don’t want to risk your life anymore, you don’t want to do crazy stuff. And I was like, Man, could you deal with that? Could you deal with that same intensity and then go from one boulder to another to another and try to send?”

In early December, Kang went out to Bishop to work the climbs one more time before making an attempt in January. But he felt so good that he decided to just go for it—and he did so (because what could go wrong?) on a day with intensely questionable conditions.

When Climbing caught up with Kang shortly after his send, he spoke about his roots as a comp climber and the attraction of highballs; he also gave a vivid blow-by-blow account of what it was actually like to link all these climbs in a day. Our interview has been edited for length and clarity.  You can also find an excellent Black Diamond video about Kang’s day—and featuring the climbs—below.

THE INTERVIEW

Climbing: So how did this project come about for you? Have you always been attracted to highballs?

Kang: It was kind of a six year process—or maybe longer. I went to Bishop for the first time 10 years ago, when I was 14, with my coach, and I always wanted to do a highball. The first boulders you see when you pull up to the Buttermilks are the biggest ones, the Peabodys. And I remember once talking to my coach, and I was like, “What is that?” and he was like, “That’s Footprints, it’s a cool V9, super historic.” And I was like, “Would you let me do it?” And he was like, “No, dude. You’re not doing nothing like that when I’m chaperoning you. But you can do them one day, and I hope you do.”

Then when I was 17 I started going on trips without a chaperone. And one trip there was a rope on Footprints. It turned out to be Kenny Barker’s rope, and my friend Manny, who also wanted to do it, was like, “Dude I know Kenny, we can use it,” so we hopped on Kenny’s rope, and we were pretty surprised at how easy the climbing was on the slab. It was still pretty scary, but I think five of us ended up doing it that day, which is pretty crazy. There aren’t many days where Footprints sees five ascents. But I was hooked from that day on. I was like, Oh my God, this is sick. It was a completely different climbing experience than I’d had before.

Climbing: What did your climbing look like before that?

Kang: I was on a competitive climbing team, doing competitions. That was what climbing was for me: it was one specific thing and it mostly happened at the gym. And if I did climb outside, I was trying hard projects, which was king of the norm for my generation. That’s what we did. So Footprints was a really big eye-opening experience for me. It showed me that what I wanted to do in climbing was to execute at a high level while also having at least a small factor of consequence.

Climbing: There’s a pretty big difference between Footprints and Too Big to Flail. What was that progression like?

Kang: After Footprints, I tried Evilution Direct, and I did that in a session, so I checked out Ambrosia, which is far more serious. My send of that was actually a total accident. I did it on a rest day, my first day ever trying all the moves. I rapped down in the middle of the day, then came back at night because my friends were trying Evilution, which is around the corner. They had a bunch of pads, so I was like, “Hey, can I pull some pads to try the bottom of Ambrosia?” And I ended up doing the bottom boulder, a V11 crimp thing, on my fourth try. My friends came over and they were like, “Oh, dude, are you stoked?” And I was like, “Yeah, I’m actually pretty stoked, maybe I’ll do it this trip.” And they’re like, “Oh, dude, Timmy says he’s stoked,” so they grabbed the rest of the pads and came over, and they’re like, “Dude, no pressure, just go when you’re ready.” And I was like, “Dude! I didn’t even know I was gonna climb today! I gotta take my time.” So I walked off and meditated for a little while. And then I didn’t tell anybody; I just put my phone in my shoe to record it, put my shoes on, and started climbing.

Climbing: Please tell me you didn’t do Too Big to Flail in a day.

Kang: No, no. But I do remember watching Honnold’s video of Too Big to Flail and telling myself that one day I was gonna do it. [Of course, when I first saw it] I was like, “Oh, no frickin’ way. This is insane.” But then I went down and looked more closely at it from the bottom, and I was like, OK, actually, I’ve got to do this thing.

The year [after I sent Ambrosia], I spent a month in Bishop, and my one objective was to do Too Big to Flail. It took me three sessions to send it on toprope. It’s pretty hard. It’s like a dead vertical 5.13d, and it’s a pretty messed up style of climbing, a different kind of highball compared to the others. The texture of the rock is super glassy, and it’s very insecure, and it’s very sustained in the insecurity that it has. So it takes a different approach to feeling safe enough to take the rope off. 

Climbing: And after that you decided to do the linkup? 

Kang: Yeah, I was just interested in the fact that no one has ever really linked up hard highballs. People have done volume free solo days, and they’ve done big wall linkups, and they’ve done hard boulder days, but no one had done multiple Bishop highballs in a day. But it’s just so obvious. 

Climbing: It feels like such a logical extension of practices that are already pretty common in places like Yosemite and Joshua Tree. But doing it on highball boulders is quite interesting because there’s a whole different layer of logistics. How do you get the pads from problem to problem? Who’s carrying them? And how does that influence the order you climb them in? 

Kang:  It makes it super hard. Both Ambrosia and Too Big to Flail are sheer and sustained. But even Ambrosia compared to Too Big to Flail—there’s just a huge difference. I first did Too Big to Flail with 19 pads, and that was a record low at the time. I think Honnold did it with more than 30. When you look at the landing zone, it’s atrocious. You don’t want to fall. Yet if my foot pics, I’m going down to the ground, and I have no control over that whatsoever: feet pick on that style of rock. People have fallen from the crux on Too big to Flail and hurt themselves really badly. And that’s at 30 feet. But it’s not easy after that. It’s a wonky insecure 5.12+ to the top. So you need pads. And because you need pads you need people. I didn’t want people there, but I needed them. So they needed to be the right people.

And that brings up other, deeper parts of the process, like “Are we gonna film it?” I remember watching Free Solo and seeing Honnold go through that conversation: It’s hard to have people around. It’s hard to have the energy change thanks to the filming. It almost makes it inauthentic for your own experience, which is a problem because first and foremost this is something that I want to do for my climbing. It’s about discovery for me, you know? It’s about pushing it in order to have a cool experience. That’s what it’s been since that very first time on Footprints. But then people are like, “This is a dope project, we have to film it,” and I’m like, “Okay, so what’s this gonna be like now? Is it gonna bother me? Is it gonna be too much?” We actually went on a couple of trips to test that out, and sometimes it was too much, man. Because I’m trying to keep myself stoked, but I’m also terrified. So that brought an interesting thing into the conversation. 

Climbing: So what did you end up doing about that?

Kang: The night before I had a conversation with the boys and we went over the rules. I was like, “Hey, don’t celebrate after I send because it’s a whole day. Each send is great, but if I get too stoked on one it’s gonna really mess up my mood for the day and make it harder to get back into it.” I said, “No questions. Don’t ask me how I’m feeling. I don’t want to talk about it.” And I said, “Hey, you know, just be ready for stuff.” Makayla brought up the fact that we needed to find a phone number for an emergency evac, just in case. I wanted to get everything sorted out beforehand so I wasn’t thinking about anything other than climbing that day. But that conversation with the boys, it was weird. These are my friends, right, and I think psychologically for them it must have been hard on a number of levels. But eventually I was just like, “You guys deal with your emotions; I’m dealing with mine. Good luck. I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

Climbing: Walk me through the day. You had some pretty ugly weather, right?

Kang: Yeah, the weather was grim. When you’re driving up to the Buttermilks, usually you can see all the mountains, but I couldn’t see Mount Tom at all. It was just gloomy. And then when we got there, it started snowing like crazy. And I was like “Oh, God.” And everyone’s like, “Dude, I mean, it’s up to you, man. Cameras are ready to roll,” and I was like, “Okay, let me just take a second. I’ll make up my mind after I do Footprints.” I had a little buddy heater, and when the snow finally stopped, I warmed up on the sunshine slabs, then went up Footprints. I numbed out the entire way, it was terrible. But I still rapped down Ambrosia to brush and tick the holds. But before Ambrosia was a scary moment. Basically, I knew if I did it, I would feel committed to the entire day. Because I’m not going to do Ambrosia and then bail after that. So I had to think about it. The rock felt pretty sticky, but not great. You could tell the humidity was high. But eventually I was like, I think it’s good enough. 

And that became the question of the day: Is it good enough? With every highball that I’d done previously, the question was always, Is it perfect? Because if it’s not perfect, it’s not worth it to go. But that day I had this huge shift in mindset where I was like, if the conditions are only good enough instead of perfect, it might not feel comfortable, but I can do it. 

Climbing: How were you maintaining psych in those moments of doubt?

Kang: Makayla was around. She was what made everything feel normal. At first she was kind of leaving me alone, but I was like, “No, come chill with me.” I wanted every minute of my day that wasn’t climbing to be normal, to spend time with my friends, spend time with my girlfriend. I wanted to be fully aware of how I was feeling and try to enjoy it. Because the climbing itself was not enjoyable. It’s what I want to do—that high level pursuit of climbing—but it’s not chill. It’s scary, it’s intense, it’s super stressful. 

Climbing: So how did Ambrosia feel?

Kang: To be honest, I don’t remember much of the climbing that day. It was just pure flow. I just pulled on and was at the top. I remember only one moment from Ambrosia: After the jug at three quarters height I grabbed this sloper and it felt wet, and I was like, Oh shit. But then I put in the drop knee and grabbed the next holds and that’s all I remember. Of course when I topped out, I was pretty stoked. I know I’d made a rule to not celebrate but I was psyched. I rapped down and we drove over to Too Big to Flail and rallied the pads up there and it was instantly clear that this was possibly the worst condition I’d seen the boulder in. It was so humid it looked wet—it just looked terrible.

Climbing: But good enough?

Kang: So Chris [Cosser] rapped down and chalked up the boulder. And I was like, “How do the holds feel?” And he was like, “You know, it feels alright,” but Zach [Galla] and I were touching the holds at the bottom and we were like, “It feels wet, it doesn’t feel sticky at all.” The crux of Too Big to Flail involves locking down this slopy crimp with your right foot on this pebble that’s pretty far away from you—and that’s the foot that picks for me, or has on a rope quite a few times. But if that foot picks on you without the rope, you’re spinning to the ground from 30 feet, which is not a good fall. That was the hold I was really worried about—that foot—so I threw my shoe to Chris, and I was like “Hey, just squeak it in there. Tell me what you feel.” And Chris was like, “It feels good. Feels sticky.” And I was like, “Alright, that’s good enough.”

I was still tired from doing Ambrosia—actually I was still kind of pumped—so I went over to where Makayla was sitting and it started snowing again. Which was insane. Like, was I going to be forced to bail on the day after having done Ambrosia? Luckily the snow blew over, but I was cold and everything was damp. I put my shoes by my heater to warm them up, and I was just sitting there, and everyone was kind of quiet, and I started freaking out. I took my beanie off, took my glasses off, I held my face. I was like, When are you gonna be ready to go for this? When are you pulling the trigger? Then I looked up at the boulder, and I was like, That’s a frickin’ epic boulder, dude. Go do that Boulder. And I put my shoes on and pulled on and did it. 

Climbing: And it felt good?

Kang: The one thing I remember was right after the crux where there are these three flake crimps, like 10mm incuts. They’re really pretty good for the angle and you get this kind of rest, but your right foot is on this pebble, and I remember feeling like the pebble was sliding off. And if it slid off, I was going to the ground. I looked down and I was like, That’s not a fall I can take. So I just took two more quick shakeouts and made peace with it. I was like, If you fall, you fall. And if you don’t fall, then you send this rig. That was a profound moment for me where I felt comfortable with the consequences. I was like, Falling would suck, but it might happen, so let’s be okay with that if it does. 

Climbing: Did you manage to maintain the no-celebration rule?

Kang: I mean, I was stoked. All the cruxes of the day were done. So I rapped out of there and went to This Side of Paradise. But at that point I started to feel super nauseous. I started feeling the pressure. Like, having done Ambrosia and Too Big to Flail I now absolutely had to do This Side of Paradise and Evilution Direct. And that was a really weird experience. But by the time we went over there, the weather had started clearing up, and it turned into a beautiful day. Chris had bailed on This Side of Paradise the previous session and he wanted to do it, so he rapped down and he was like, “Dude, it feels pretty good, but I want you to do it first, I want you to do your thing. If you do it quickly, I’d be stoked to do it if we have time.” And that really helped change the day for me. Suddenly I was just having a session with friends. 

I took a couple of minutes, just thinking and chilling, then I pulled on and fired it, and Chris fired it first try right after that, and it was an amazing feeling. We packed up quickly, got out of there and drove over to the Peabodies. It took like 30 minutes for Chris to chalk the holds and for Bobby to get set up with the camera, and it was getting cold, but I was so focused, just in my zone with the buddy heater. As soon as someone said, “All right, ready to go,” I got up and just fired it. And then I just screamed. It wasn’t happiness. It was just pure relief that the day was done. It was the worst weather but it was the perfect day. No falls.

Climbing: You mentioned earlier that you meditate a bit. Is that something you do often?

Kang: I did a lot when I was younger. I would meditate pretty much every day, and I found it really helpful. For me meditation was about acknowledging where I was and how I was feeling—and that helps you be happier, which is always a good thing. But on the project day, I was encountering this experience for the first time, and I wanted to live through it, and experience it, whether it was scary or fun or sad or frustrating; whatever it was, I wanted it, I wanted all of it. And I think meditation is the best way to start having that process. I don’t do it as regularly anymore—only really in the high intensity moments. But every part of your day can be a kind of meditation.

Climbing: Your project here reminds me of the headpointing approach endemic to the gritstone areas in England. Do you see yourself doing more of that? Or are you like, Okay, I did it, now, I don’t have to do it again?

Kang: I saw this project as working in a lineage. There’s highball bouldering, headpointing, and free soloing—all of those are about having what it takes to perform despite epic exposure. And that’s a type of climbing that I want to do for the rest of my life. But I don’t think I want to gamble quite as much as I did on this project, to be honest. I walked away with a strong sense of gratefulness for my life—happiness about what I already have. So I don’t necessarily want to gamble too much. We’ll see. 

Climbing: So what’s next?

Kang: So my previous climbing was mostly in the gym—getting stronger, doing competitions. And outdoors, most of my harder climbing has either been in Bishop, Red Rock, or Rifle. I spent four years on Bad Girls Club (5.14c), which was a mental battle, and I finally did that shortly before starting this Bishop project. So I’d like to spend some time doing hard routes. And I’d like to do some development too. Because with this project I’ve just been following in the footsteps; taking a previously executed vision, then doing a new execution of it. Now I have my eye on some new boulders.