Anyone looking from afar holds their breath, in agony. A man climbs the most dangerous walls in Brazil, those that would demand a lot from any experienced climber equipped with meters of ropes and kilos of carabiners, using nothing more than his hands, feet, a small bag of magnesium and a discipline trained over years in martial arts. This man is Anderson Lima, 43, from São Paulo, creator of the Free Solo Brasil project. He is dedicated to collecting achievements such as climbing the route called K2 on Corcovado, in Rio de Janeiro, with 150 meters, in an astonishing 12 minutes and 43 seconds. Or the first free climb of Chaminé Gallotti, one of the most difficult routes in Brazil, on the south face of Sugarloaf Mountain, 280 meters long and with a history that includes, among other curiosities, the finding of a mummified body — and never identified — of a man in 1952.
Lima says that he started climbing much later than usual among mountaineers, after the age of 30. A nurse by profession and with a typical schedule for the profession, he could not find partners who could accompany him to the mountains on weekdays. He then began to climb on his own, still using ropes, carabiners and everything that traditional mountaineering manuals say.
“I started going to the mountains of Teresópolis, mainly alone,” he tells Folha. “And, during the solitary climbs, I started to make some movements without the confidence I should have, but realizing that I had a very great capacity for concentration.”
From the realization that he could, as he says, “change the key and start doing some sections without the strings”, came the certainty that he could do it for real, from start to finish. “Mountaineering is my religion, with meditation and experience I increased my performance in what is not merely a sport, but a lifestyle”, he philosophizes.
For ten years, Lima climbed without recording his climbs. “Generally, those who free solo don’t show this, it’s a very private moment between you and the mountain”, he says. But, in 2021, a friend insisted that he show his technique to the world. Thus was born the embryo of the Free Solo Brasil channel.
To the inevitable question about how and why he faces the fear of death always being so close, Lima responds that, as an emergency cardiology nurse, he saw a lot of people die. “Most of the people I saw die believed they were safe and death just happened, maybe that left me a little detached”, he says. And he adds: “I understand very well that my time will come at any moment, like everyone else’s, but when my time comes, I want to be there, on the mountain.”
Lima’s preparation for each free climb begins with a strong routine of weight training, martial arts training, and often a strict diet. “My body type is not very favorable for climbing, I’m very big, almost all climbers are small, I’ve participated in competitions where my opponent weighed 50 kilos and I weighed 80!”, he says, amused.
Lima, who is preparing the launch of his book “Between Fear and the Mountain”, is now celebrating the achievement that he defines as “the most difficult climb” of his career, on the route (or rock climbing route, in mountaineering jargon) Cruz Credo da Pedreira do Dib, in the São Paulo city of Mairiporã. The route is 80 meters high and has different degrees of difficulty that include negative sections — when the climber is literally hanging from the rock that projects horizontally over his head and needs to climb to the top using the strength of his arms, as in the photo that accompanies this text. But he is already preparing for another great challenge: the Soma de Todos os Medos route, an 810 meter high wall on the Cantagalo mountain, located in the Itaipava district, in the city of Petrópolis, in the mountainous region of Rio de Janeiro. Your inspiration?
“Actually, there are two climbers,” he says. “The American Alex Honnold, one of the first to record free solo climbing in images, and the Frenchman Alain Robert, who currently only climbs tall buildings, are both people I admire a lot”, he summarizes.
Concluding the conversation, Lima makes a warning: “When you are going to promote free soloing to other people, it is important to understand that it is a strictly personal decision, it is something that should never be done to challenge someone or break records, it is a very intimate deep conversation between each person and the mountain, and each climber has their own personal reason for doing it. And this reason has to be so great that it is worth their own life.”
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