Climber Alex Honnold has completed a free solo ascent of Taipei 101 in Taiwan, not using any ropes to scale the massive 1,667-foot skyscraper — and he did it live, as the world watched on with bated breath and hearts racing.
It took Honnold 1 hour and 31 minutes to climb the 101-floor tower on Sunday. The event was livestreamed on Netflix.
“It’s windy,” Honnold said at the top before taking a selfie. “I’m so psyched … And you know what, pretty tired actually.”
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Honnold’s climb was originally slated for the previous day, Jan. 23, but was postponed due to bad weather, Netflix said. “I suppose climbing is always at the mercy of nature, that’s just how it goes,” Honnold said in a video posted on social media.
Ahead of the climb, Honnold told Netflix’s Tudum fan site he expected viewers to “probably be on edge watching this,” but that he hoped they “get a little bit of my joy from the experience — that they can appreciate the fun of it and the beauty of it, the scenery, just the whole experience.”
Taipei 101 is one of the tallest skyscrapers in the world. The building was designed by C.Y. Lee & Partners and opened in 2004. It’s home to observatories, restaurants, a shopping mall and offices, as well as the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
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Frenchman Alain Robert scaled the tower as part of its opening. Robert used ropes, and it took him more than four hours, Honnold told Tudum. “I think, if I do this, it’ll be the biggest urban free solo ever,” he added.
Honnold also famously climbed El Capitan without any ropes or safety gear in June 2017. El Capitan is a roughly 3,000-foot sheer granite wall — more than twice the height of the Empire State Building — in the northern valley of Yosemite National Park in California. His incredible feat was captured in the Oscar-winning documentary “Free Solo.”
That free solo up the Freerider route took Honnold 3 hours and 56 minutes. The following year, Honnold and fellow climber Tommy Caldwell climbed El Capitan’s Nose route in 1 hour, 58 minutes and 7 seconds, shattering the previous speed record and breaking the two-hour barrier.
In a “Note to Self” on “CBS Mornings” in 2018, Honnold reflected on what it took to climb El Capitan without any ropes, telling his 18-year-old self: “Right now, you’re afraid of so many things: strangers, girls, vegetables, falling to your death. That’s fine; fear is a perfectly natural part of life. You will always feel fear.”
“But over time you will realize that the only way to truly manage your fears is to broaden your comfort zone,” he said. “It’s a long, slow process that requires constantly pushing yourself, but eventually you’ll feel pretty darn good, and you’ll climb big walls just like this.”
Honnold and his wife, Sanni McCandless Honnold, have two daughters together.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
