At 73, the mother of famed climber Alex Honnold scales great heights of her own

LAS VEGAS - At age 73, Dierdre Wolownick is continuing to defy gravity, nature, and society’s stereotypes. She’s often referred to as the mother of famed "Free Solo," rock climber Alex Honnold, but Wolownick has scaled astounding feats of her own with her accomplishments continuing to mount.

Back on Sept. 23, on the day she turned 73, she climbed the storied Eichorn Pinnacle in Yosemite National Park, a decade-long dream in the making. 

What they're saying:

"I had wanted to…tried to get to do it for many years. Each year, something got in the way — rain, or snow, or illness or some other disaster," Wolownick shared with KTVU, but the stars aligned for an opportunity to do a birthday climb, and despite the many challenges that could have stopped her, she went for it.

"Since I hadn’t been doing much climbing (or anything physical) for quite a while (a few years of unrelenting life), I wasn’t exactly sure I could do it," she told KTVU, adding, "I never really had time to train for Eichorn Pinnacle." 

Plus, she had undergone foot surgery in recent years and was dealing with other physical challenges. 

"I had lots of metal — titanium — from the recent surgery on my left foot, which stopped it from being able to point downward," Wolownick said. "Two toes on that foot no longer bend (very important for rock climbing!) Both knees had bursae trauma, very painful. I have terrible trouble breathing at elevation (lung damage from my childhood). So many reasons not to even go up there!"

Yet, she didn’t let those ailments get in the way, even when doubt crept in and almost derailed her from making it to the top of the signature needle-pointed summit of the 10,800-foot rock. 

"Until the last few feet of the climb, I wasn’t totally sure I’d finish it. That’s never happened before, on any climb," Wolownick recalled. "The last few feet of Eichorn are pretty much straight up. Almost dead vertical. My head was filled with images of what would happen if my foot slipped or popped out of the crack, if my grip gave out, if…I did a lot of talking to myself!"

The talking and her undaunted determination got her to the end. 

Both mentally and physically, she said, "It was a hell of a day!" 

After roughly 10 plus hours – four hours hiking up Eichorn, a couple of hours climbing, a half an hour rapping down, and another four more hours hiking down – Wolownick added one more item on her long list of remarkable accomplishments.

While it's yet unverified, she said there's a good chance she's the oldest woman to climb Eichorn Pinnacle. 

The backstory:

At age 66, Wolownick became the oldest woman ever to climb Yosemite’s El Capitan, widely considered the "Holy Grail" of climbing.

She did it in one day, with her climbing pioneer son Alex Honnold, known for his free solo ascents, including his historic 2017 feat to become the first person to climb El Cap's 2,900-foot Freerider route without using rope or protective gear.

"With Alex, we went up and down in one day, which is very, very unusual. I didn't realize that then. I had no idea. He said, 'Yeah we can do it. We'll do it in a day,' So I just said, ‘OK,'" the mother recounted, adding, "Most climbers who do that route take four or five days, but my son doesn't waste time, so we did it in 13 hours up and six down. So total 19."

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Wolownick broke her own record when she returned to the granite monolith, to mark her 70th birthday. 

On that journey, she went to the summit in six hours and then slept overnight and returned in six hours. 

While not reaching the summit every time, Wolownick has climbed the storied landmark at least a half-dozen times, saying, "El Cap is addictive."

Accomplishments beyond climbing 

When Wolownick is not scaling rocks, she’s hitting pinnacles in other areas of her life.

This week, her newest book, "Success in 7 Steps," had its initial release this week. She’s penned seven books.

Her latest manuscript seeks to share her recipes for success, detailing her "method for accomplishing anything, at any age."

And she’s also the subject of three documentaries, including an indie film called "Climbing into Life: The Dierdre Wolownick Story." 

The film has been making the rounds at film festivals, picking up awards along the way. It nabbed its seventh award earlier this month.

Honnold appears in the documentary, in which he praises his mother for her accomplishments. "I'm very pleasantly surprised by what mom has done in the second half of her life," he is seen saying in the documentary’s trailer. 

What the mother of two has done exceeds what she’s accomplished in recent years. 

"It might just be genetic. Born that way. My son clearly inherited that gene from me. Go go go! Do things other people don’t even think of," Wolownick said. "Ever since I was little, I’ve always wanted to be doing something, making something, creating something." 

Her life has clearly demonstrated that, marked with a wide and varied list of achievements. 

The longtime Northern California resident, who recently moved to Las Vegas, has excelled in many realms, including being a painter, a professor of five languages, a marathon runner, a musician, an orchestra conductor, a publisher, and an inspirational speaker.

Most prized feats

When asked what she deems her biggest accomplishment, she identified climbing El Cap as her most crowning physical feat.

"When you say the record was broken, there was no record to break because no older women had ever done it," Wolownick noted, "I was the first, really."

As for her number one overall achievement, both physical and intellectual, her answer may be an unexpected one, an accomplishment from earlier in life when she established and assembled the West Sacramento Community Orchestra. 

"I created that orchestra out of nothing," Wolownick reflected. "I went out in the community and just created this orchestra, and it's still going, and they still perform." 

She said she had no experience and no training, only her skills as a musician and her exposure to going to concerts in New York City, where she's from. And, of course, she went in with that challenge with her grit, determination, and vision. 

It was in the early 1990s, during a time when West Sacramento was all homes, barren of any entertainment outlets, theaters, or even stores, she said. 

"That was my chance, chance of a lifetime," she recalled. "I mean, how many times do you have the opportunity to just, you know, create your lifelong dream? And it was a lot of work, a boatload of work, but so gratifying, and I conducted that for four-and-a-half years," she said.

Wolownick wrote her book as a way to demonstrate that anyone can accomplish what they set out to do.

"Everybody can do anything," she said, "You have to have the right method and the right approach."

Not slowing down 

Now in her 70s, Wolownick has no plans to slow down. In the coming weeks and months, it will be pretty hectic as she promotes her new book. 

And beyond that, "There's so much on the planet that I wanna do," the writer and climber said.

She would love a return to conducting and spending more time scaling rocks in different parts of the world, including in Greece and in the Dolomites, which she got a little taste of during a speaking trip to Italy two years ago.

As she's approached her remarkable life thus far, Wolownick said she will, "Go, go go."

And she won’t be confined by the number of birthdays she’s had.

"Age is entirely in your head," Wolownick said. "The concept of slowing down is not in my vocabulary. It's just not." 

This story was reported from Oakland, Calif. 

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