Breathe out now. Alex Honnold successfully climbed to the top of Taipei 101 in a live Netflix special. “I’m sick!” he shouted at the top of the tower, which had taken him an hour and 35 minutes to climb. “I’m so excited!” and he took a selfie.
The Skyscraper Live climb, which began just after 8 p.m. ET (9 a.m. Sunday Taipei time), was pretty much a piece of cake for Honnold, but there were a few hiccups. Most of the time, he seemed to lose audio communication with his team at some point, and most importantly, his in-ear music soundtrack. (Fortunately, he eventually got it back.)
And at one point near the end, Honnold admitted, “You know, I’m kind of tired.” Later, he also noticed that the wind was getting stronger as he approached the top.
Thousands of Taipei residents watched on the ground, and hundreds of others took selfies and waved inside Taipei 101, cheering and gasping as Mr. Honnold passed step by step through the world’s 11th tallest skyscraper, at 1,667 feet tall.
It was a different kind of climbing for Honnold, who usually accomplishes his feat in solitude, climbing Yosemite’s El Capitan in the Oscar-winning documentary “Free Solo.” Honnold’s wife, Sanni McCandless, was also with him, but she said she doesn’t usually join him on his climbs. At the end of the climb, McCandless was waiting for Honnold, and the two shared a long hug.
Given the complexity of climbing a major skyscraper without ropes or safety nets, Netflix and producer Plimsoll Prods, Ltd. worked closely with Honnold and risk management company Secret Compass to plan elaborate safety protocols. “Skyscraper Live” was originally scheduled to take place the day before (Saturday morning in Taipei, Friday night in the United States), but weather forced Honnold and his production team to postpone it by a day.
“As you can imagine, every scenario has been carefully planned,” Plimsoll CEO Grant Mansfield told Variety in an article published earlier this week. “The main focus was on keeping Alex safe. This is a building he knows well. It’s a very good building to climb. If we decide he’s too tired when he’s on top of the building, we can also take him down from there. But Alex really knows what he’s doing. He’s an extraordinary kind of athlete.”
In the same article, Jeff Gaspin, Netflix’s vice president of unscripted series, said that Netflix has contingency plans in place for worst-case scenarios. “That’s obviously a conversation that everyone is having,” Gaspin said. “Imagine what we would do. It’s no big deal. We disconnect. There’s a 10-second delay. No one expects something like that to happen, no one wants to see it. But we disconnect. It’s that simple.”
Honnold has spent a lot of time over the past few months preparing for the summit of Taipei 101, including practicing for the summit. The climb to Taipei 101 began with Honnold trotting up the tower’s slab base. From there, he climbed onto the middle section of the eight-story “bamboo box” design of the building, which required a steep climb up these overhangs. In the corners of those boxes were dragon figurines, which Honnold attached to advance to the next level. There was an overhang at the top of Taipei 101, so Honnold’s legs dangled and he used his upper body strength to scale up. He climbed a shaky ladder with a small platform four feet high (moving in strong winds) to the top, making him literally the tallest man in all of Taiwan.
Elle Duncan hosted the special, with commentary and contributions from WWE’s Seth Rollins, YouTube star Mark Rober, and mountaineers Pete Woods and Emily Harrington. Al Berman is the showrunner and executive producer of Skyscraper Live, which also includes EPs by Honnold, Grant Mansfield, James Smith, Alan Ayers and Jonathan Retzek. Directed by Joe DeMaio.
Watch Honnold make his way to the top of Taipei 101 below.
