On Friday, American rock climber Alex Honnold, the death-defying star of the 2018 Academy Award-winning documentaryFree Solo, will try to scale one of the tallest buildings in the world: Taiwan's Taipei 101 skyscraper. He will tackle all 1,667 feet of Taipei 101 the same way he tackled El Capitan, the sheer granite monolith he summited inFree Solo: without a single rope, harness or safety net.
And he will do it live on Netflix.
No one has ever "free soloed" Taipei 101 before — just as, before Honnold, no one had ever free soloed Yosemite's El Capitan. (Urban climber Alain Robert, better known as the French Spider-Man, scaled the skyscraper when it opened in 2004, but Taiwan's government insisted that he use a rope.)
Nor has anyone ever streamed such a risky endeavor in real time, as it's happening.
So one way or another, history will be made onSkyscraper Live, Friday's two-hour global event. Notoriously, inexplicably fearless, Honnold himself doesn't sound spooked. "I don't think it'll be that extreme," he recently told Robert on the latter's climbing podcast. "We'll see. I think it's the perfect sweet spot where it's hard enough to be engaging for me and obviously an interesting climb."
But the rest of us? We'll be on the edge of our seats. Here's everything you need to know about Honnold and what he's attempting to accomplish.
How hard is it to climb Taipei 101?
It isn't easy. For one thing, buildings go straight up — unlike even the most extreme rocks. "Buildings are steeper than most rock faces," Honnoldtold Netflix's Tudum. "Most rock faces, even the ones that look vertical, aren't actually vertical, or they're not vertical for the whole way — whereas the building is vertical the whole way, so it's cool."
Glass and steel are also slippery. "Those seem to be the morecruxymoments of the medium, just trusting the glass with your climbing shoe," Colorado climber and YouTuber Noah Kanerecently told Slate. "There are a couple clips of Alain Robert slipping on a building. He doesn't fall, but his foot slips off the glass, and his heart flutters for a second."
Finally, buildings are consistent and repetitive in ways no natural formation could ever be — which means Honnold will have to execute the same tiring moves over and over again.
That has its pluses and minuses. "It's not like you're going to forget one of the key footholds or something, whereas on rock faces sometimes it's hard to remember exactly how to climb something," Honnold told Tudum. On a building, you know how to climb it, but it's physically more taxing because you're doing the same thing over and over, so your muscles get tired."
What will the climb actually involve?
Taipei 101 has 101 floors — hence the name. The hardest part will be the 64 floors in the middle, which resemble bamboo boxes. Each "box" is eight stories high, and each one tapers outward, creating a challenging overhang for Honnold to navigate. Once he does, he'll be able to rest on a balcony before tackling the next box.
"They overhang, I don't know, 10 or 15 degrees — it's kind of steep," Honnold told Tudum. "This means you do quite a hard effort for almost 100 feet and then there's a balcony, and then you do hard effort for 100 feet and there's a balcony. … The boxes are definitely the most physically demanding part."
Will there be any safety measures at all?
James Smith of Plimsoll Productionstold the Associated Pressthat he will be able to communicate with Honnold throughout the event. Plus, there will be "cameramen positioned inside the building, various hatches and places to bail during the climb and four high-angle camera operators suspended on ropes," according to the AP.
"These people all know Alex. They trust Alex. They're going to be close to him throughout the whole climb," Smith said. "They're going to get us kind of amazing shots, but they're also there just to keep an eye on him, and if there's any problems, they can kind of help."
If it looks like it's going to rain — as of Thursday evening, the forecast showed a small chance of morning drizzle — the climb could be called off. The weather has to be right.
The climb will also stream with a 10-second delay, in case anything goes wrong.
But again, there won't be any ropes, harnesses or safety nets. Just Honnold's hands, feet, body and brain (along with some climbing gloves and shoes).
Why is Honnold climbing Taipei 101?
"Why not?" he said when Tudum asked the same question.
Among the other reasons Honnold has cited:
Opportunity: "It's really hard to get permission to climb a building and [because] I have permission, I have to take advantage of it and climb the building. Basically, it's just rare to get this kind of opportunity, so you gotta jump when you can." [Tudum]
Novelty: "I think I've always had curiosity about what it would feel like to climb a building this big. I've climbed tons of huge walls in the world but never something man-made like that." [Tudum]
Joy: "My hope is that people watching it will at least see the joy in it. Like when you're a kid and look around and think, It'd be amazing to climb up there. As an adult, that gets hammered out of you. "Why would you do that? That's dangerous. Do you have insurance?" You know, all that type of stuff. But there's something to be said for maintaining that childlike joy of just looking at it, like, 'That is amazing. I want to do that.'" [New York Times]
One reason that doesn't factor in, according to Honnold? Money.
"I would do it for free," he told the Times. "If there was no TV program and the building gave me permission to go do the thing, I would do the thing because I know I can, and it'd be amazing. I mean, just sitting by yourself on the very top of the spire is insane."
Is Honnold getting paid?
Of course. Citing two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement, the Times reports that Honnold will be "paid in the mid-six figures for the climb."
What about Honnold's wife and kids? Are they OK with this?
Not really. In 2020, Honnold married writer and climber Sanni McCandless, who was his girlfriend during the filming ofFree Solo. McCandless's concern for Honnold's safety — her fear that she could lose him — was perhaps the most affecting part of the film.
But that didn't stop Honnold then, and it's not stopping him now.
"Honestly, I don't think the calculus has changed that much," Honnold told the Times. "Because I never wanted to die. Which is why I put so much effort into the preparation and training. I mean, implicit in the question is that I have more to live for, and, yeah, I have more to live for, and I'm still doing my very best to not die."
Honnold and McCandless also have two daughters under 4, Alice and June. What about them?
"I mean, baby Alice wouldn't remember" if he died, Honnold told the Times. "Baby June probably wouldn't remember. She'll be 4 in another month. It'd be felt, and obviously it'd be super hard for Sanni, but they'd be well provided for. I don't feel like I'd be leaving them in the lurch. They wouldn't even necessarily be traumatized their whole lives."
To be fair, though, Honnold said McCandless is less "worried about the actual climbing" of Taipei 101 than "the event side of it, like the spectacle. She's worried about all the public commentary."
What other crazy things has Honnold climbed?
In addition to El Cap, Honnold has free soloed the Phoenix (a notoriously difficult crack climb) and the Regular Northwest Face of Half Dome (another huge wall), both in Yosemite, as well as the long and technically demanding Moonlight Buttress in Zion. He's also climbed Synthetic Happiness in Red Rock, known for its very thin, slippery holds, and completed the first-ever traverse of Fitz Roy massif in Patagonia, which involved seven distinct peaks.
How to watchSkyscraper Live?
Tune in toNetflix on Friday, Jan. 23, at 8 p.m. ET for the two-hour live event.
On Friday, American rock climber Alex Honnold, the death-defying star of the 2018 Academy Award-winning documentaryFree S...
