Alex Honnold has never seemed particularly interested in staying alive the normal way, but even by his standards, this one’s cooked.
Over the weekend, the professional free climber casually scaled a 101 storey skyscraper with no ropes, no safety gear, and no visible fear, all while listening to what he described as “mostly Tool”.
The climb took place just after 8 p.m. ET on Saturday as part of a Netflix live event titled Skyscraper Live. Honnold tackled Taipei 101 in Taiwan, a 1,667-foot monster that ranks as the 11th tallest building in the world, and made it to the top in just over an hour and a half.
This all done without a harness, or a backup plan, just vibes, grip strength, and progressive metal.
Check out some of the highlights below:
Speaking to Variety an hour after completing the climb, Honnold said music played a key role in keeping him locked in.
“It was mostly Tool. It’s a random playlist that I made, that I shared with production. I made it months ago while I was driving. I’ve been training to it a bunch.”
Without ropes or timing equipment, Honnold relied on the music itself to regulate his pace while moving between the building’s structural sections.
“Each bamboo box had been taking me about five to six and a half minutes. I just know how long the songs are. So it gives you a sense of if you’re going fast or slow. But in this case, it all kept cutting out anyway, and I couldn’t really hear and I was kind of like, ‘Whatever. I’m just doing my thing.’”
That level of shrug it off calm is hard to comprehend, one slip, misjudged reach or bad move, and it’s game over.
Instead, Honnold calmly worked his way up one of the tallest buildings on the planet like he was out for a late night stroll, occasionally soundtracked by Tool’s spiralling time signatures.
There’s something darkly fitting about Tool being the music of choice here, it’s the kind of soundtrack that makes sense when you’re hanging thousands of feet above the ground with nothing but concrete under your fingers.
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