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By Lydia Patrick
Life & Trends Reporter
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One of the world’s biggest daredevils is preparing to take on a palpitation-inducing challenge: climbing one of the tallest buildings on Earth—without any safety gear or ropes.
Alex Honnold is set to climb Taipei 101, the iconic 1,667ft skyscraper that dominates the skyline of Taiwan’s capital city.
“I’m sure viewers will probably be on edge watching this,” Honnold told Tudum. “I assume that most people will be sort of uncomfortable watching the whole thing. But I hope that viewers 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. It’s not just extreme sports—it’s more.”
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Who Is Alex Honnold?
Alex Honnold, 40, is an American rock climber best known as a master of “free soloing”—a discipline that involves climbing without ropes or protective equipment.
He rose to global fame in 2017 after becoming the first climber to free solo El Capitan, a 3,000-foot granite monolith in Yosemite National Park, California—a feat widely regarded as one of the greatest athletic achievements in modern history.
Born in Sacramento, California, Honnold began climbing at just five years old and went on to compete in youth climbing championships as a teenager. He later dropped out of the University of California, Berkeley, to dedicate himself fully to climbing.
Hannold married Sanni McCandless Honnold in 2020, she is a life coach and cofounder of Outwild, an outdoor events company.
What Was Alex Honnold’s Longest and Highest Climb?
Honnold’s highest climb to date was the Ingmikortilaq Sea Cliff in Greenland, which stands at 3,750 feet. That ascent, however, was completed with protection and was not free soloed.
El Capitan remains his most famous climb, and the worldwide acclaim it generated allowed Honnold to pursue climbing full-time while living a nomadic, road-based lifestyle.
However, this marks the first time Honnold has attempted to scale a skyscraper.
“One of the big differences between climbing a building and rock climbing is that there really isn’t a hardest single move,” Honnold told Newsweek. “In some ways, it’s less intimidating than the big free solos [on rocks] that I’ve done. The challenge comes from the overall physicality of it. The fatigue that [sets in] over the course of the building is slightly harder to anticipate. I don’t know how it’s gonna feel.”
He said the biggest challenge will be an architectural feature Honnold calls “bamboo boxers," eight pagodalike modules which mimic bamboo stalks.
“Each one is eight floors,” Honnold told Tudum. “There’s a balcony every eight floors, so in a lot of ways it feels like a climbing pitch, which is the way most climbers differentiate [the] segments of a climb. This means hard effort for almost 100 feet, then there’s a balcony. Hard effort for almost 100 feet, then [another] balcony. In a lot of ways, that’s what rock climbing feels like. Climb for a certain rope length, then stop.”
How to Watch Alex Honnold Climb Taipei 101
The climb will air live on Netflix on Friday, 23 January.
What Time Is Alex Honnold Climbing Taipei 101?
He is making the brave ascent at 5 p.m. PT and 8 p.m. ET today.
What Is the Tallest Building in the World?
The tallest building in the world is the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which stands at 2,717 feet (828 meters). While Taipei 101 held the title of the world’s tallest building when it opened in 2004, it has since been surpassed—though it remains one of the most recognizable skyscrapers globally.
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