Do you watch the Oscars (the Academy Awards) each year, glued to the TV to see if your favorite movie won? Did you watch this year??

FREE SOLO, the National Geographic movie about my son’s ropeless climb of El Capitan, in Yosemite, won Best Documentary!

I can’t possibly convey, here, the excitement, the intensity, the other-worldliness of the experience of being there for the Oscars…so I hope these few photos will give you an idea what it was like. Never, in all my dreams, did I ever imagine I’d hold an Oscar! They’re very heavy!

The day before, all the streets around the venue were getting ready….

Me and my team, Michelle and Hannah, at breakfast of Oscar day. I had just had major surgery on my foot and was still using a knee scooter, so if these 2 hadn’t come along, I wouldn’t have been able to go. Yay, team!

Lining up on the red carpet…not THE red carpet, where Alex, Sanni and gang got to walk. This one was at the Hollywood Athletic Club, where Fox/Nat Geo hosted the Oscar-Viewing Party for all those who, although invested in the film, were not Directors or Producers or stars. But there were many stars in the room…

Not an athletic club at all (at least, not the part of the building we were in), it’s an immense, elegant venue, and one wall was this screen:

Five minutes into the Awards, Jason Momoa, actor, announced his buddy’s film! Jason is a climber, and has climbed w/Alex, so he had requested to announce the Documentary award, sure that Free Solo would win.

The rest was noise, celebration, music, color, lights and lots of emotions! A few random photos to share it with you: