Live Coverage – Alex Honnold Attempts to Free Solo the Taipei 101 Skyscraper » Explorersweb
9:44 pm ET
Alex Honnold has just made history by free soloing the Taipei 101 building!
Alex Honnold at the top of the 508 meter, 101 story (plus a spire) Taipei 101 building. Photo: Netflix
9:39 pm ET
With just over 80 minutes on the clock, Alex has started the final section of Taipei 101: the spire. This section, so high up the tower, involves contending with high winds as well as overhead sections that require a massive exertion of upper body strength. On microphone, Honnold admits that he’s tired.
Nevertheless he forges on, beginning to tackle the ledges by “campusing,” climbing without his feet. He’s just now reached the 101st floor, where Sanni and Alex have another reunion before he sets off on the final stage.
9:25 pm ET
Honnold has now passed the final bamboo box. As he approaches the latter stages of the climb, he and his team are focused on monitoring his level of exhaustion, especially as the air, and the building surface, heats up. For now, he says, he’s tired but still doing good.
If Alex Honnold was unable to continue during his free solo climb of the Taipei 101 building, his option would depend on the specific point at which he tapped out.
The windows of the Taipei 101 building are generally not designed to be opened by occupants. The building is a sealed, energy-efficient structure with a modern glass curtain wall system.
Honnold has mentioned that a potential safety net is the building’s architecture itself. The building has balconies every few floors, particularly after the “bamboo boxes” section. If he were to slip in many places, maybe he could fall onto one of these balconies.
There are safety teams and camera operators positioned inside the building and on ropes nearby. If he gets stuck or needs assistance and is in a position where he can be secured, these teams might be able to help.
The climb is a free solo attempt, meaning he is without ropes or safety gear. In areas where there are no immediate balconies or safe ledges, a fall would be fatal.
Alex and his wife Sanni waving on the 60th floor. Photo: Netflix
9:16 pm ET
Another dragon and bamboo box down as Alex passes the one hour mark. On the ledge, he stopped to clean the building’s cumulative grease off his shoes and hands, and switched out his dead headset for a working one. Now, Honnold has thrown himself back into the climb.
9:09 pm ET
After stopping to wave to his wife Sanni on the 60th floor, Alex is continuing up Taipei 101. He has now defeated five of the ten dragons, halfway through the “bamboo boxes.”
Unlike rock climbing, where a single “crux” or hardest move might be the primary concern, the difficulty of the building climb is the cumulative fatigue from performing the same moves repeatedly over a long duration. The glass and steel surfaces can also be slippery, requiring immense trust in the grip of his climbing shoes and precise, calculated movements.
While the technical moves may be “easier” than his hardest rock solos, the mental concentration required for hours on end, knowing any mistake would be fatal, presents an extreme psychological challenge.
Alex’s climb from a distance. Photo: Taipei live stream
Honnold has compared the physical effort to completing two classic Yosemite crack climbs back-to-back, such as the Rostrum and Astroman. These routes are rated around 5.11+ or 5.12- (on the Yosemite Decimal System). By comparison, his El Capitan free solo was a much harder 5.13a/b grade.
French “Spiderman” Alain Robert, who climbed the building with a top rope in 2004, rates Taipei 101 as a 5.5 or 6 on his own 1-to-10 building difficulty scale. He considers it easier than other buildings with less generous handholds, such as the Sydney Opera House (rated 7) or the Paris Framatome (rated 10), according to Climbing Magazine.
8:50 pm ET
Alex has passed almost 60 of the 101 floors, conquering four “dragons” and moving with speed and confidence. On the balcony, he stops to wave to the crowd and check in on his team below. So far, all is well. But as we noted earlier, this is an endurance game.
Honnold making progress. Photo: Netflix
8:28 pm ET
With a collective exclamation of relief from the crowd, Alex has successfully passed the first of ten “dragon” features. He has now reached the start of the “bamboo boxes.”
The so called “bamboo boxes” of Taipei 101 are Alex Honnold’s term for the eight distinct, eight-story segments that make up the middle section of the building.
There are eight identical segments, each spanning eight floors, totaling 64 floors in the building’s central section.
Honnold describes these sections as the most physically demanding part of the climb because they have a slight overhang, about 10 to 15 degrees, requiring significant upper body strength to navigate. Each “bamboo box” section is followed by a balcony, which serves as a natural rest point or “pitch” for climbers, similar to how climbers differentiate segments on a rock face.
The presence of these balconies means that in many places, a climber could potentially fall a relatively short distance onto a ledge, a feature Honnold noted makes it safer than a lot of rock-climbing objectives in some respects.
Alex tackling the first dragon. Photo: Netflix
8:26 pm ET
With ten minutes on the clock, Alex has reached a cloud-shaped corner piece whose smooth, irregular surface is difficult to navigate. He’s already far above the rapt crowd, having completed two slab sections. He now approaches the first “dragon,” steel corner pieces which hang far over the edge.
8:14 pm ET
Alex Honnold has just started his attempt to free solo the Taipei 101 skyscraper. Starting on a corner, he pulled himself up onto the building to the sound of a cheering crowd.
Arriving at the building, and said farewell to his wife, Sanni. With a smile for the crowd, he laced up the climbing shoes which were custom made for this attempt. A moment later, he’d started off.
Photo: Netflix
Taipei 101 is a 508-meter supertall skyscraper that served as the world’s tallest building from its opening in 2004 until 2010. It is located in the Xinyi District of Taipei, in the heart of the city’s financial district.
The building was designed by the local architectural firm C.Y. Lee & Partners (led by architects C.Y. Lee and C.P. Wang). Its postmodern design is intended to resemble a stalk of bamboo or a traditional East Asian pagoda.
Photo: Taipei Live Cam
7:50 pm ET
We are now ten minutes out from the scheduled start of Honnold’s climb. The weather on the ground is cooperating, with partial cloud cover but no rain yet.
Alex Honnold (40) is famous for his 2017 free solo ascent of El Capitan in Yosemite Valley, without any ropes or safety equipment — a climb that captured in the Oscar-winning documentary Free Solo.
Primarily known for natural rock faces, Honnold aims to apply his skills to urban structures. In 2018, he attempted a ropeless climb of the Urby in Jersey City, but bailed halfway at the 24th floor due to wet conditions. A maintenance worker eventually opened a window to let him in.
Alain Robert, known as The French Spiderman, climbed Taipei 101 on Christmas Day in 2004. Unlike on most of his urban stunts, Robert climbed this building top-roped, not in free solo. This was the condition that local authorities imposed that day to allow the climb and prevent Robert from ending it in handcuffs.
Now, Honnold will attempt to carry out the first free solo ascent of 508m Taipei 101 skyscraper, located in Taipei’s city center, in Taiwan.
No ropes — just him, a pair of climbing shoes, and a chalk bag.
Honnold has rehearsed every move up the building and practiced with rope earlier this week; he will not be climbing on sight. Yet when he asked Robert for advice, the French climber replied to be careful with the weather. When he climbed the tower, he did so in heavy rain. Without a rope, it would be impossible to climb that building in the rain, because climbing glass and aluminium just doesn’t work when soaked.
The climb will proceed on schedule. Photo: Netflix
7:30 pm ET
For the duration of the climb, we’ll update every few minutes or whenever there is news.
Good morning, Taipei. U.S. climber Alex Honnold, who yesterday had to postpone his free solo attempt on Taipei 101 skyscraper due to rain, will start the climb in 30 minutes. Netflix is live streaming the event as Skyscraper Live, and we will cover the ascent here, step by step.
The livestream is being followed worldwide, and expectations are high. The streets surrounding the skyscraper are restricted. Yesterday rain showers halted Honnold, but today, it seems, clouds are not too “dangerous”. At the moment, according to the Central Weather Forecast of Taiwan (CWA), there is an approximately 20% of chance of rain. The live cam of Taipei offers beautiful views of the city, showing the 508m Taipei 101, that Honnold aims to climb without rope and security equipment.
We’re currently awaiting official confirmation of the start.
Taipei 101 skyscraper and city center. Frame of Taipei Live Cam
