>> i'm going to keep on talking to eric cantor. someday, sooner or later, he's going to say, "boy, obama had a good idea." >> stahl: the president is talking about republican house majority leader eric cantor, the person the white house blames more than anybody else for the perpetual gridlock in washington. >> i understand people's frustration, i really do. i mean, there's a lot of people unemployed. a lot of people who have lost hope right now. >> stahl: but they're as frustrated with the congress, that you're playing games, it feels like. >> there's not... there's no games. what we're trying to do is trying to do what's good for this country. >> stewart: do you think you

could pull off this scam today? >> given the same security measures? >> stewart: yeah. >> easily, piece of cake. >> stewart: sam eshaghoff's scam was getting paid thousands of dollars to take the s.a.t. test for other students. he did it at least 16 times, scoring in the 97th percentile of the country. >> i would call him an academic gun for hire. that's what he was. >> stewart: people just needed him to get a job done and he got it done. >> and he was the man. >> right when he pulls into that crack, that's, like, the point of no return. it becomes world class right there. >> logan: i don't even like the sound of that, "the point of no return." alex honnold is 2,600 feet above the yosemite valley floor, trying to haul himself up the slippery granite wall of sentinel without any ropes or safety harnesses. it's just the climber, an impossible angle, and the wind. it's called free soloing, and

the penalty for error is certain death. >> i'm steve kroft. >> i'm lesley stahl. >> i'm morley safer. >> i'm bob simon. >> i'm lara logan. >> i'm scott pelley. those stories tonight on "60 minutes." larry, we just had the carpets cleaned! that was the pizza guy. you said you bought a digiorno. but the pizza came with cheesy breadsticks. [ male announcer ] digiorno pizza and breadsticks. it's not delivery. it's digiorno pizza & breadsticks. she found the box! maybe because you left it right on the counter. she follow the wings. on my, i've learned that when you ask someone in texas if they want "big" savings on car insurance,

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>> stahl: 2011 will be remembered as a year of perpetual gridlock in washington, and open combat between the president and the republicans in congress. there was a litany of standoffs,

from three near government shutdowns to a stalemate over raising the debt ceiling to the latest skirmish over extending the payroll tax cut. there seems to be more finger- pointing than governing, and the public is fed up. president obama's nemesis throughout the year was 48-year- old congressman eric cantor of virginia, the majority leader of the house, who played a major role in the republican strategy. the white house blames eric cantor, more than anyone else, for disrupting the president's first term, especially for scuttling one set of deficit reduction talks after another. we spoke to the majority leader recently, and asked him why everything in washington turns into a fight. >> cantor: i understand people's frustration, i really do. i mean, there's a lot of people unemployed, a lot of people who've lost hope right now. >> stahl: but they're frustrated with the congress, that you're playing games, it feels like. >> cantor: there's not... there's no games. what we're trying to do is

trying to do what's good for this country. >> stahl: why go through this brinksmanship, gamesmanship, one-upsmanship? explain it. maybe there's a real good answer. >> cantor: but ultimately, this is part of the legislative process that... i know it's frustrating. i live it. >> stahl: well, what do you say to the democrats who charge that all you're really trying to do is deprive the president of a win. >> cantor: that, to me, is... that's just political rhetoric and... and i dismiss that. because i really do believe that most, if not all, people who are elected to congress really want to do what's right with this country. >> stahl: you've got a 9%... congress has a 9% approval rating. what do you think this conveys about confidence in our government? don't you think this is shredding that? >> cantor: well, i think that, ultimately, the confidence comes from good results. and you know, somehow that saying goes, "the harder you work, the sweeter the reward." and we're certainly being put to

that test right now. >> president barack obama: i'm going to keep on talking to eric cantor. someday, sooner or later, he's going to say, "boy, obama had a good idea." >> stahl: president obama has made eric cantor the face of what he sees as republican inflexibility. cantor has fought the president's policies at every turn, including using his authority as majority leader to prevent a vote on the president's jobs bill. >> obama: i'd like mr. cantor to come down to dallas and explain what exactly in this jobs bill does he not believe in? >> stahl: cantor would say what he doesn't believe in is spending government money to create jobs. but the president's keying on him has taken its toll. he's been picketed and heckled. >> ...eric cantor! >> stahl: he has fallen in the polls, and so has his party as, according to a cbs news poll, the public blames them more for the gridlock in washington.

>> hi, everybody. >> stahl: driving much of the gridlock is the large republican freshmen class in the house. >> a two-month extension for the payroll tax bill and to unemployment is a non-starter. >> stahl: eric cantor was the one who went out in 2010 and recruited most of the freshmen who are conservative and backed by the tea party. >> cantor: continue to stay focused on economic growth and job creation. >> stahl: he meets with them regularly, and several of them told us cantor is their inspirational leader and father figure. but eric cantor does not want to be seen as unreasonable. to prove that he has been accommodating, cantor told us that, during his budget talks last spring with vice president biden, he endorsed over $200 billion in revenue increases. so you were in favor of reducing some of the loopholes. >> cantor: absolutely. i said that in the very beginning. >> stahl: like what, like what? he says he was willing to get

rid of tax breaks for the oil and gas industry, and corporate jets, and increase the special 15% tax rate on partners in private equity firms and some hedge funds. >> cantor: we have a tax code that is littered with preferences. because people who figure it out come to washington with their influence, and go and get provisions in the tax code that favor their industries. >> stahl: but then, he imposed a condition the democrats would not accept. he wanted every dollar of new revenue offset by equal cuts in tax rates. that is the crux of the stalemate hovering over congress on almost every single fiscal issue. >> cantor: let's just make sure we're revenue neutral at the end, okay? >> stahl: so there'd be no benefit from revenues toward the deficit? >> cantor: well, if you want to raise taxes somewhere, we want a corresponding offset for the broader gal of lowering rates for everyone. >> stahl: with both sides dug in, five attempts to get a

deficit reduction deal failed. cantor then proposed that the two sides put off their major disagreements and just vote on what had been agreed to in previous negotiations, which was roughly $10 in spending cuts for every $1 raised through revenues. that set off a testy exchange between cantor and the president at a white house meeting. didn't the president say repeatedly in the meeting that he wasn't going to agree to it without more revenues? >> cantor: who's not compromising there? who's not compromising there? >> stahl: well, they would say you, because you just wanted spending cuts. and i'm just trying to figure out where's the compromise coming from? where's the compromise? >> cantor: again, there's plenty of compromise. we all know that there are ways to reduce spending in washington, okay. everybody... >> stahl: okay, but what about revenues? a compromise. you wanted the spending cuts, they wanted revenues. >> cantor: but my assertion at the white house meeting was,

"look, take the progress now because look where we are now." we didn't take any of that progress, and we are worse off now than we would've been if we had just said incremental progress is a good thing. so let's go ahead and do that. >> stahl: but the president said ten to one was unfair and too imbalanced. we wondered if cantor would apply his idea of "making incremental progress"-- based on what the two sides could agree to-- to the bush tax cuts that expire end of this year. everybody says they want to preserve the tax cuts for the middle class. the disagreement is over the millionaires. so, why not keep the rates down for the middle class and worry about the millionaires later? you keep saying, "let's pocket what we got." pocket what you got. >> cantor: if you're operating in an environment, a context of too much spending, everybody knows pocket those wins because the goal... >> stahl: but not pocket the wins on taxes, what? >> cantor: no, listen, listen, listen, listen-- the goal is to reduce the deficit.

and so if you've got some cuts that you can agree on to reduce the deficit, take them. >> stahl: but revenues reduces the deficit. >> cantor: you can't tax your way out of that, it's so bad. you can't tax your way out of it. >> stahl: do you see the image of congress being part of your concerns, part of your portfolio? >> cantor: absolutely. absolutely. >> stahl: he's worried about the republicans hard-line image, and also his own, which is why he invited us home to see the other side of eric cantor. >> cantor: so we're counting on you to help us get the reality out to address that. >> stahl: as the only jewish republican in congress, he says if ever there was anyone who knows how to go along to get along, it's eric cantor, a guy who grew up in the heavily christian south. >> cantor: i'm sure there were times at which i was very aware of not being like others. >> stahl: at home in richmond, virginia, he kept kosher and studied hebrew. but at his elite private school, as one of only a handful of

jewish students, he just tried to blend in. >> cantor: every morning, we'd go to chapel at the collegiate school and... >> stahl: oh, my goodness. really? >> cantor: oh, yes. typically, the program wasn't always religious, but there was a prayer involved. >> stahl: well, what about christmas? >> cantor: i was in christmas pageants. i sang, i was in the choir, and i would sing the christmas carols and... and... >> stahl: did it make you uncomfortable? >> cantor: no. you're going to be on the camera. >> stahl: cantor wanted to introduce us to his family-- his wife of 22 years, diana, daughter jenna, son evan, and the only child still at home, michael. he told us something that surprised us-- that his button- down dad likes rap music. >> cantor: i do the wiz khalifa stuff and jay-z, li'l wayne. >> stahl: is he cool? >> mikey cantor: he's cool. no one would ever know it, but he's cool. >> stahl: and this is diana's

mother. >> cantor: i call her "mumma b." her name is barbara. >> stahl: your mother-in-law lives with you? >> cantor: absolutely. absolutely. we couldn't do it without her. >> stahl: obama, the president has the same thing. >> diana cantor: yeah. ( laughs ) yes. >> stahl: you actually have a connection. >> cantor: right. >> diana cantor: we do. we talk about that a lot, actually. yeah. >> stahl: have you talked with... does the president know? >> cantor: yeah. >> diana cantor: yes, yes. >> cantor: uh-huh. >> stahl: when they met, diana was working at goldman sachs in new york. she still works in finance as a partner at an investment management firm. >> mumma b: when i met eric, i saw that it's good to be republican, too. >> cantor: there you go. >> stahl: both his mother-in-law and his wife were liberal democrats, and while they have converted to the republican party, their beliefs don't always jibe with the congressman's. so you're pro-choice? >> diana cantor: i am. >> stahl: gay marriage? what does that mean? >> diana cantor: i don't... >> stahl: you disagree with him? >> diana cantor: i do disagree. there's really that respect. if i expect him to respect my views that could be different, i certainly need to respect his. >> stahl: given his upbringing and his marriage, cantor says he's nothing like the

intractable obstructionist the democrats say he is. >> cantor: nobody gets everything they want, and so... >> stahl: that's just exactly your image-- that you want only what you want. >> cantor: but it's just i hope i'm not coming across like that now, because it's just not who i am. i mean, it really is. >> stahl: so are you ready to compromise? >> cantor: so i have always been ready to cooperate. i mean, if you go back to the first... >> stahl: what's the difference between compromise and cooperate? >> cantor: well, i... well, i would say cooperate is let's look to where we can move things forward where we agree. comprising principles, you don't want to ask anybody to do that. that's who they are as their core being. >> stahl: but, you know, your idol, as i've read anyway, was ronald reagan. and he compromised. >> cantor: he never compromised his principles. >> stahl: well, he raised taxes, and it was one of his principles not to raise taxes. >> cantor: well, he... he also cut taxes. >> stahl: but he did compromise... >> cantor: well, i... >> that just isn't true, and i don't want to let that stand. >> stahl: and at that point, cantor's press secretary interrupted, yelling from off

camera that what i was saying wasn't true. >> ronald reagan: my fellow americans... >> stahl: there seemed to be some difficulty accepting the fact that, even though ronald reagan cut taxes, he also pushed through several tax increases, including one in 1982 during a recession. >> reagan: make no mistake about it-- this whole package is a compromise. >> cantor: we, as republicans, are not going to support tax increases. >> stahl: so, we've seen the two sides of eric cantor-- the push and pull between his hard- fighting style on legislation that appeals to his party's conservative wing, and his warm, southern gentleman demeanor. this is a nice big office. >> cantor: well, this is it. >> stahl: in republican circles, he's seen as an ambitious man on the rise whose goal, it seems, is to one day be speaker of the house. for now, he's working on humanizing his image and presenting himself as more reasonable.

as an american, are you proud of the president? >> cantor: you know, he is my commander-in-chief, you know? i respect the man. i like the president. you know, the disagreements that we have are policy based. you know, he's got a lot on his plate. i respect that. and i want to continue to try and work with him. >> stahl: so it's not a personal animosity between the two of you. >> cantor: certainly not. certainly not from my perspective. >> cbs money watch update sponsored by sporivea handy hailer. >> good evening, 55 million americans get a new year's raise. social security benefits are going up 3.6% this year. u.s. savings bonds go paperless as of tomorrow they are sold on-line only. and mission impossible topped the box office at $31 million for its second straight win. i am-- cbs news.

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>> stahl: now, alison stewart on assignment for "60 minutes". >> stewart: this past september, a 19-year-old college student named sam eshaghoff made national news when he was arrested and charged with fraud and criminal impersonation. his crime was taking the s.a.t. and a.c.t. tests for other people. he was so good at it, other students paid him thousands of dollars to take the exams for them. the district attorney who charged him says sam eshaghoff was able to take the s.a.t.s at least 16 times, which has raised questions about the integrity and security surrounding one of the most important tests

millions of high school students ever take. tonight, for the first time, sam eshaghoff tells us how and why he did it. >> sam eshaghoff: i thought that there was an easy way to make money. and just like any other easy way to make money, it's always too good to be true. >> stewart: who told you you were in trouble? >> eshaghoff: my parents got a phone call saying that there was a warrant for my arrest, which was scary and shameful. i felt like my world was going to come crashing down. >> stewart: until he was arrested in september, sam eshaghoff seemed like the perfect kid. at new york's great neck north high school, he was a top student, vice president of the business club, and a varsity athlete. but what may have been his greatest talent was the one that got him in trouble-- his ability to ace standardized tests, which was how he began a double life

as a con man. >> kathleen rice: i would call him an academic gun for hire. that's what he was. >> stewart: people just needed him to get a job done and he got it done. >> rice: and he was the man. >> stewart: nassau county district attorney kathleen rice filed criminal charges against eshaghoff and the students who hired him. >> rice: this was a huge fraud, from my perspective. this was lots of money changing hands. there were high stakes involved, and there was forgery, there was criminal impersonation. that's a fraud on many different levels, but most importantly, against the kids who play by the rules. >> stewart: during the course of your investigation, what did you discover about the process of taking the s.a.t. and the security associated with taking the s.a.t. test? >> rice: how incredibly easy it is to cheat the system. there is absolutely no security in place whatsoever to prevent criminal impersonation like we see here from happening.

>> stewart: so if i went up to any of those kids and i say, "do you know what this guy did?" they'd all know? >> eshaghoff: every single person would know who i am and what i do. >> stewart: eshaghoff says paid test-takers were an open secret among students at great neck north. he became the best known, but he says he was not the first. >> eshaghoff: i had heard of it happening successfully at my own high school. >> stewart: so tell me about taking the mental leap from "well, i heard other kids doing it" to "i think i'm going to do this." >> eshaghoff: well, it all started with some kid approaching me. he's like "yo, you're good on your s.a.t.s and i'm not, and you know this is possible. so, how much is it going to take?" >> stewart: here's how he did it-- it was as simple as making a high school i.d., one of six forms of identification accepted at s.a.t. testing centers >> eshaghoff: a school i.d. is what... like, what is that? it's... like, it's some colors with literally a name and picture on it. so what i would do is took the

template from my high school i.d., pasted my picture on top of it. and whatever the person's name whose test i was taking, i would have their name and date of birth on it. and it was really as easy as that. >> stewart: no social security number? >> eshaghoff: no. >> stewart: no driver's license, no passport? >> eshaghoff: name and date of birth. >> stewart: on a little piece of plastic >> eshaghoff: on a little piece of plastic that got laminated once. >> stewart: fake i.d. in hand, and with a bad case of nerves, eshaghoff began his lucrative career. >> eshaghoff: as soon as i took that first test-- and i went in and i killed it. like, i got my first time ever taking the test for somebody else, i got a perfect score on the math section. it was like, "whoa, that was easy." and that was great. and i'm good at this. >> stewart: it was clockwork from there. over the course of nearly three years, he took the s.a.t. over and over again, consistently scoring in the 97% percentile or higher for the students he called his "clients." >> eshaghoff: i mean, my track record speaks for itself.

like, if you know somebody's so stellar at doing something so flawlessly without one exception, it goes without saying that's a reliable service. >> stewart: were you invested at all in the score you would get? >> eshaghoff: oh, yeah, absolutely. just like any other business person, you want to have a good track record, right? and essentially, like, my whole clientele were based on word of mouth and, like, a referral system. so as soon as... like, as soon as i saved one kid's life... >> stewart: saving his life? >> eshaghoff: saving his life. >> stewart: what do you mean by "saving his life"? >> eshaghoff: i mean a kid who has a horrible grade point average, who, no matter how much he studies, is going to totally bomb this test. by giving him an amazing score, i totally give him this, like, a new lease on life. he's going to go to a totally new college. he's going to be bound for a totally new career and a totally new path in life. >> stewart: but isn't he going to take the place of someone who may have actually worked for it and deserved the position?

>> eshaghoff: you know, i hear that, but i don't care for a complaint like that-- that one kid that i helped get into whatever school, he really wasn't displacing anybody. >> stewart: you sound like you want to defend their right to be in these schools. >> eshaghoff: i don't have to defend them, but i feel confident defending the fact that them getting into the schools that they ended up getting into didn't really affect other people. >> stewart: but it's possible. >> eshaghoff: it's possible. >> stewart: if that sounds outrageous, it's because his high scores and his clients' money trumped right and wrong. at the height of his business, eshaghoff was able to charge as much as $2,500 per test. one very satisfied customer gave him an $1,100 tip. >> eshaghoff: a lot of times, i would actually even induce a bidding war between two potential clients, have them fight against each other for who was going to pay me more. >> stewart: he didn't stop after he left for college; he just added the cost of flying back

home to his fee. the big question for me comes back to "where are kids getting this money to give you?" because we're talking about thousands of dollars, and then if you add airfare... do you know where they were getting the money? >> eshaghoff: i mean, i can't imagine that a high school kid would be able to get this kind of money on his own from working or something. i don't know. maybe it came from their parents. i mean, i wasn't really going to ask them, "okay, so where are you getting the money from?" but come on, lets put two and two together. >> stewart: i've read this, but i want to hear it from you-- you took the s.a.t. for girls? >> eshaghoff: correct. >> stewart: how do you take the s.a.t. for girls? >> eshaghoff: like, if the girl has a foreign name that could be perceived as unisex. like a girl could be named alex. if she needs me to go and take her s.a.t.s under the name alex whatever, it's easy as that. >> stewart: did you ever take the s.a.t. twice in one weekend?

>> eshaghoff: yeah, i have done that. >> stewart: eshaghoff exploited accommodations that the educational testing service provides to make the s.a.t. accessible to everyone. that's why a high school i.d. is an acceptable form of identification. also, students can take the test at any of the 6,000 testing centers nationwide. so eshaghoff would choose testing centers where he knew he wouldn't be recognized. describe the security for me when you, as a student, show up to take your s.a.t. >> eshaghoff: when i go to take the s.a.t., it's as easy as going in, keeping your head down, giving the proctor the flash of the i.d., which is all they need. they just need to match the name on the i.d. to the name on their roster, and then it's find your seat, don't make noise, don't cause trouble. do what you got to do and get out. >> stewart: who were the proctors? do you know who the proctors were at these tests? >> eshaghoff: i realized that the proctors were just, like, junior faculty members and,

like, cafeteria aides and, like, staff that really had no business proctoring a test. >> stewart: so you didn't feel like you had to go past a security gauntlet? >> eshaghoff: oh, not at all. i mean, no, no security gauntlet. i mean, how hard would it be to trick a cafeteria aide into letting you sit in that seat? >> stewart: is it easy to cheat on the s.a.t.s? >> kurt landgraf: no, i don't believe it is. >> stewart: kurt landgraf is president of the educational testing service, which administers the test for the college board and is responsible for s.a.t. test security. >> landgraf: this is not a common occurrence. >> stewart: how many impersonations did e.t.s. discover last year? >> landgraf: about 150. >> stewart: but in reality, that's the 150 you know about. that doesn't mean there were only 150 impersonations. >> landgraf: absolutely. >> stewart: landgraf says, according to their data, of the three million students who take the s.a.t. every year, more than 99% do so honestly. his organization spends $11

million on s.a.t. test security annually. do you know how many times sam eshaghoff took the s.a.t.? >> landgraf: actually, i don't. >> stewart: 16 times. does that surprise you? >> landgraf: no. >> stewart: that he was able to get by your proctors 16 times? >> landgraf: well, if he had an i.d. with his picture on it and a name-- and the registration document had that name on it-- he could get in, sure. no, unfortunately, it doesn't surprise me. >> stewart: does it concern you about the integrity of your test, if one teenage kid can do that 16 times, and that's all that we know about, from him alone? >> landgraf: yeah, so the integrity of the test, the validity of the test score is the primary concern of e.t.s. and the college board. since i believe that almost all the students take the test honestly, with integrity, and the score is valid, it's very important that we not overreact

to this case or any future cases, and do things that would be onerous and detrimental to the actual long-term security or access for the administration. >> rice: sam eshaghoff is a smart kid. but you don't have to be a brainiac to cheat the system the way it exists at this present time. there's absolutely no security procedures in place. any review is done after the fact, which prevents any level of accountability once cheaters are caught. and that system has to change. we now know that the security vulnerabilities we exposed in september are a systemic problem. >> stewart: since eshaghoff's arrest, the investigation has grown. more than 50 students have been implicated in what district attorney rice calls "well-run cheating operations" in four different new york counties. rice says she discovered a sophisticated system of brokers, who would match buyers and sellers based on their ability

to pay and their ability to score. >> rice: we know there are students who met with someone who acted as a middleman, who said, "tell me what you want, tell me what you need. how much money do you have? okay, i'll set up the test-taker and they'll take the test for you." i mean, this is big business. and it didn't just start in 2011. this has been going on, this criminal impersonation has been going on for years, decades, all across this country. >> stewart: sam eshaghoff was caught after several of his clients, students with suspiciously high scores, were questioned and confessed. six weeks ago, eshaghoff's legal team accepted a plea deal, which includes community service-- tutoring low-income students on how to take the s.a.t. was there ever a point when you were taking these tests that you had a conversation with yourself that went like this-- "sam, i know i'm doing the wrong thing. i'm lying here. this is not right.

i got to stop this". did you ever have that conversation with yourself? >> eshaghoff: yeah, i did. it was tough. i knew i was doing the wrong thing. i fully acknowledge that this was the wrong move. and i got to stop this. but i was low on cash, and i just told myself, "one last time, one last time, one last time." >> stewart: you feel bad about what you did? >> eshaghoff: if i could start over, i never would have done it. >> stewart: eshaghoff is back at college now, and if you're wondering what happened to the kids he helped get into school, their colleges will never be notified about what they did. because it is e.t.s. policy not to tell schools about cases of suspected or confirmed cheating. >> rice: we know that there are kids in college right now who got where they are because of tests that someone else took, and there's nothing that we can do about it. if that doesn't tell you that the system has to change, i don't know what does.

and welcome to the cbs sports update. i'm james brown with a look at the nfl play-off picture. new england is the number one seed, baltimore number two. both have a first round buy. third seed houston will host cincinnati. denver faces pittsburgh. nfc, green bay top seed, san francisco number two. both have first round buys. atlanta will visit the winner of the dallas giant's game. detroit plays at new orleans. for most sports news and information go to cbs ports.com.

>> logan: from time to time, we come across someone who can do something so remarkable that it defies belief, and, in this case, seems to defy gravity. it's the story of alex honnold. he's a 26-year-old rock climber from sacramento, california, but not just any rock climber. honnold scales walls higher than the empire state building, and he does it without any ropes or protection. it's a kind of climbing called "free soloing," and the penalty for error is certain death.

we first heard about him in a movie called "alone on the wall," a harrowing account of one of his most extraordinary feats-- the first free-solo climb up the northwest face of half dome, a towering 2,000-foot wall in yosemite national park. this past summer, we met up with alex at yosemite to watch what he does firsthand. and after we first aired the story in october, we got such a huge response, we wanted to show it again tonight. what you're about to see is someone holding onto a wall, thousands of feet above the ground, with nothing to stop him if he falls. here, alex honnold is 2,600 feet above the yosemite valley floor, trying to haul himself up the slippery granite wall of sentinel. he's so high, he disappears into the mountain.

alex moves seamlessly across a section of flaky, unstable rock, pausing to dry a sweaty hand in his bag of chalk. there's nothing but him, the wall, and the wind. he's is up here without ropes or a safety harness. all he has is a pair of rubber climbing shoes. this is what climbers call free soloing, and it's so dangerous that less than 1% of people who climb attempt it. do you feel the adrenaline at all? >> alex honnold: there is no adrenaline rush, you know? like, if i get a rush, it means that something has gone horribly wrong, you know? because the whole thing should be pretty slow and controlled and like... i mean, it's mellow. >> logan: does the challenge appeal to you? >> honnold: yeah, for sure. or like, always being able to push yourself. like, always having something bigger to do or harder to do. anytime you finish a climb, there's always the next thing that you can try. >> logan: this is alex in the film, "alone on the wall." he's done more than 1,000 free-

solo climbs, but none were tougher than this one. here he is, just a speck on the northwest face of half dome. you can barely make out the yosemite valley floor below, as he pauses to rest. he's the only person known to have free-soloed the northwest face of half dome. what do you consider alex's greatest achievements to date? >> john long: that he's still alive. if you look at the past, people who have made a real habit of soloing, you know, at least half of them are dead. >> logan: in the '70s, john long was one of the best rock climbers in the world. today, he's an elder statesman in the climbing community. >> long: it's indescribable what it's like to be up real high, because, you know... but you can get some kind of idea about it just by walking to the edge of a cliff or edge of a building. you look over and your body has... you have a visceral sort of effect. you know, you can dial it off with a lot of experience, but not all the way off. >> logan: well, you just lose your stomach. >> long: yeah, and the... the

real challenge about climbing without rope is the fact is that feeling can come up full bore in a split second. >> logan: and you have to control that? >> long: yeah, you're going to have... you're going to have to dial that one back really quickly. >> logan: or else? >> long: your diaphragm is going to close, you're not going to be able to breath. you have no chance. you're going to die. >> logan: alex learned how to control his fear at this climbing gym near his home in sacramento, california, when he was just a boy. >> honnold: it's kind of funny coming back. i remember it being like a big cave. >> logan: for seven years, this is where he came three hours a day, six days a week. he would climb until he was exhausted, then read old climbing magazines. >> honnold: that's all i was ever interested in, really. >> logan: your whole life? >> honnold: yeah. from when i started climbing, from when i was maybe ten or 11. i don't even remember when, it was so long ago. but, i mean, that's all i ever was into, really. >> logan: back then, he was a shy, skinny kid with big ears. today, he's still skinny, but his five-foot, 11-inch frame is

160 pounds of muscle. for someone his size, he has big hands. they have to carry his whole body weight when he's hanging off the rock. >> honnold: yeah, i have pretty big fingers, so it's hard to get it into a thin crack. >> logan: show me. >> honnold: well... >> logan: were they like this before you started climbing? >> honnold: i don't think they were quite this big before i started climbing. i honestly think my connective tissue and stuff is, like, gone. >> logan: bigger? >> honnold: like, they just all gotten beefier, you know? i think it's all the crack climbing, like torquing your finger in different ways. >> logan: ales has acquired something akin to rock star status in the climbing world, where he always draws a crowd. he made the cover of "national geographic." he's also in a nationwide ad campaign for the company the north face. but the kid who dropped out of college and stole the family minivan to go climbing has been slow to cash in on his success. so, this is really your home? >> honnold: yeah, this is. when i'm in the u.s., this is mostly my... my home.

you know, it's pretty comfortable. it's pretty cozy. you know, it's easy to move around. >> logan: do you just park on the side of the road? >> honnold: yeah. >> logan: and go days without showering. >> honnold: yeah, of course. >> logan: almost everything alex owns is in this van. he survives on less than $1,000 a month. >> honnold: you can go anywhere. you know, tomorrow morning, i could wake up and drive to the east coast, and then climb there for the next two months. >> logan: he doesn't like to admit he's any good, which is why he's known to his friends as "alex no big deal." >> honnold: i'm not a very powerful climber. i'm more of an endurance climber. like, i climb these big, long routes. >> logan: is there anyone else in the world, right now, who can do what alex honnold can do? >> long: i think there's probably a handful of people who possibly could get close to what he's doing, but he's probably unquestionably the best guy alive today. >> logan: to capture alex free- soloing sentinel, we assembled a six-man team of experienced climbers who would film at different positions along the route.

we attached four more cameras to the wall, and two "60 minutes" teams set up on the valley floor. but as the climb got closer, alex got restless. so the day before, he snuck off with his friend peter mortimer, an adventure filmmaker, to do something that would calm his nerves. he climbed an impossible vertical wall called the phoenix. >> honnold: i never would have agreed to go out there with, like, a bunch of people. it just would be craziness. and honestly, you guys wouldn't want to see it. like, it would be weird. >> logan: why? what about it would be weird? >> honnold: i don't know. i think it would blow your mind. it'd be weird. like, just the position is outrageous. >> logan: this is what he means by "weird." look at the angle of this wall. it's more than 90 degrees, and covered with mist from a nearby waterfall. the route itself is only around 115 feet long, but the cracks are so thin, his fingertips could barely fit inside them.

towards the top of the climb, the angle of the wall pushed him backwards. it only took him eight minutes, but when alex reached the top, he was the first to free-solo this route in the 34 years since it was established. >> long: there's only a handful of people that can actually do that with a rope. and the idea that he's doing that without a rope, you know, that's... that's an amazing thing to even consider. >> logan: the next day, he was ready to tackle sentinel's 1,600-foot face, and showed us his plan for the route. over the past few weeks, he'd climbed sentinel with ropes and climbing gear twice to prepare, scouting out the best places for his hands and feet. then, he hiked for nearly two hours, just to reach the base of the climb. we watched him on a video monitor from half a mile away. how tough is this, as a climb? >> long: very. nobody's ever soloed the north face of sentinel before. nobody's ever thought about doing it before.

>> honnold: i'm going rock climbing. >> long: so he's on... >> logan: look at that-- he's... he's started. >> long: now, he's off. spectacular. >> logan: so you almost have to, like, just stop and remind yourself-- i mean, he is up there with nothing. >> long: yeah, no rope. >> logan: nothing. >> long: nothing. right when he pulls into that crack, that's like the point of no return. it becomes world class right there. and he's... he's in it now. >> logan: i don't even like the sound of that, "the point of no return." >> long: well, you don't... you're not going to reverse it. it's too hard. that's the... that's the one thing you got to understand on these things. once it gets to this level, the only way off is up. you're not... you're not going back down. it's just too difficult. >> honnold: i like to think that i know what i can and can't do. >> logan: sometimes, when other climbers hear what you've been doing, they say it's "unsustainable," which really is their code for, you know, you can't keep doing this and stay alive. >> honnold: it's not like i'm just pushing and pushing and pushing until... until something terrible happens, i mean. i don't know, i just... i don't look at it, like, without perspective. but maybe that's why it's dangerous for me.

you know, maybe i'm, like, too close to it and i can't tell that i'm, like, speeding towards a cliff. but i don't think that i'll continue to do this forever. but i don't think that i'll stop because of all the risk and all that. i think i'll stop because i'll just lose the love for it. >> logan: as he approached one of our fixed cameras, alex grabbed a tiny piece of rock and pulled himself up. in this position, most of his weight is on just four fingers. >> long: here's another one of the really difficult parts right here. you can see him... like, the... his fingertips are only going in to the first digit. like, the line on your hand. >> logan: literally that's what he's clinging with, his fingertips? >> long: only... only to there. >> logan: one thing every free- solo climber fears is water. it seeps out of cracks in the mountain, and that's what alex ran into, halfway up sentinel. >> long: yeah, see how he's wiping his feet off like that on his legs? >> logan: yes. >> long: it's wet.

>> logan: that's not good at all. >> long: that's the worst of all thing... possible things. >> logan: it looked like your shoes did get wet. >> honnold: yeah, my shoes did get wet. so the big fear would be that, like, you step on... or you, like, climb through wet rock and then, without knowing it, you put your foot onto something, you know, and then you just slip right off it. that would be, like, the worst case scenario, like, thinking that you're going to step onto some foothold and then just having your foot blow off. >> logan: his wet shoes didn't seem to bother him. take a look at him as he climbed up to another one of our fixed cameras. he's so relaxed, even at this height. from up here, 80-foot pine trees below look like grass. >> honnold: ( whistling ) >> logan: and yes, he is whistling. then came the toughest 50 feet on sentinel and the hardest sequence of moves he had to make. if he moved too slowly, his arms would give out. but if he rushed, he could slip and fall. it's a position alex says he lives for.

>> long: where he is right now, that... this is the crux of the biscuit, as they say-- the hardest part, and... >> logan: because, look at what he's holding on to. >> long: yeah, well, there isn't anything. it's also really steep right there. you can't... nobody... even alex honnold can't... can't hang indefinitely on his arms. they're going to give out. >> logan: and then, he's got to have the strength to pull himself up. >> long: yeah. and he's got to have... the footholds aren't that good. so he's got to basically paste his feet on, you know, over the ceiling and hope they stick. >> logan: alex somehow clings to the wall. as the camera moves away, you can see the river half a mile below him. he's through the worst of it, and from here, it's 400 feet of what he calls "easy climbing." >> honnold: should i go to the tippy top? >> logan: all the way to the top in just an hour and a half. the first thing he did before talking to us was take off his

shoes. hey, alex. >> honnold: yes? >> logan: how's the view up there? >> honnold: the view is awesome, actually. i'm way psyched about the view. and the light right now is awesome, and all of these other... >> logan: alex honnold had just set another record, but for him, there'd be no celebration, just a two-hour hike down the easy side of the mountain. go to 60minutesovertime.com to see how 14 cameras captured alex honnold's ascent. [ ron orsini ] osteo bi-flex has been incredible for me, and i swear by it. [ male announcer ] osteo bi-flex with 5-loxin advanced™. shows improvement in joint comfort within 7 days. osteo bi-flex. the #1 doctor and pharmacist recommended brand. i took some steep risks in my teens. i'd never ride without one now. and since my doctor prescribed lipitor, i won't go without it for my high cholesterol

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>> pelley: i'm scott pelley. we'll be back next week with another edition of "60 minutes," and i'll see you tomorrow on the "cbs evening news."

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