Named after the Nordic god of Thunder, Mount Thor is the world’s tallest vertical rockface, which also makes it one of the most difficult rock formations to climb.

A part of the Auyuittuq National Park, on northern Canada’s remote Baffin Island, Mount Thor isn’t the park’s tallest peak, but it is definitely the most intimidating, especially when viewed from the west. It’s a 4,101-foot rock face, which makes it the longest vertical drop on the planet. But really, Mount Thor is steeper than vertical, as it is 105 degrees, making it more of an overhang. Many have tried scaling this monster overt he years, but dozens of rock climbers failed, until an American finally reached the summit in 1985, at the end of a grueling 33-day climb.

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Alex Honnold, a 31-year-old mountain climber from Northern California, recently became the first person ever to climb the 3,000-foot high El Capitan granite wall in Yosemite National Park, without any ropes or other safety equipment.

Hannold pulled-off the historic, death-defying “free solo” climb on Saturday, June 4th, reaching the top of El Capitan in just 3 hours and 56 minutes. All he used as gear was a bag of chalk powder to improve his grip on the slippery granite. To make his job a little easier, the young climber climbed the wall several times before, using ropes, and marked every toe and finger-hold he would use during his free climb, with chalk. Even so, the challenge was monumental, and his success prompted Alpinist Magazine to write “This is indisputably the greatest free solo of all time.”

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Justin Salas was only 14 when he lost his sight almost completely and was declared legally blind. Now 22, the ambitious young man is a living example that nothing is impossible – even though he can’t see, Justin is a professional photographer and skilled rock climber.

Justin’s blindness wasn’t the result of an unfortunate accident or a sudden occurrence where he woke up one morning to find that he couldn’t see anymore. His eyesight had always been poor and he started wearing glasses when he was 5-years-old. But it wasn’t until his freshman year of high-school that his vision started deteriorating at a rapid pace. His glasses no longer helped and tests revealed that his optic nerves were dying, although the cause was a mystery for all the doctors he’d seen.

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Up until a century ago, the Svolværgeita or Goat’s Horns rock tower had never been conquered, but these days not only has it become one of the most popular climbing pinnacles in Norway, but thrill-seeking mountaineers defy death by jumping between its granite horns.

Goat’s Horns peak was first climbed in 1910 by Carl Rubenson, Alf B. Bryn, and Ferdinand Schjelderup, a fantastic trio who managed to conquer two other virgin summits (Trakta and Stetind) on the very same trip. Climbers can go up Svolværgeita on the original route of its first climbers, just to see how good these three pioneers were in their time. There are several routes up the Goat’s Horns, but once at the top, many members of the mountaineering community follow the decades-old traditions of jumping from Storhorn (big horn) to the Lillehorn (little horn), over a 1.5 meter gap. It’s considered the perfect mountain climbing stunt, because it’s possible to pull off, but hard enough to get your heart pumping. Jumping 1.5 meters across may not seem like a very difficult task, but one wrong move and you’ll have to rely on the safety harnesses to save you from a 150-meter fall to the foot of Goat’s Horns pillar.

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