In just over an hour and a half on Sunday morning, Alex Honnold stood atop Taiwan’s tallest building, Taipei 101, having climbed the 1,667 feet without ropes or gear.
Honnold, a 40-year-old married father of two small children, had dreamed of scaling the skyscraper since before he famously free soloed El Capitan in Yosemite National Park in 2017.
Netflix live streamed the feat across the globe, and millions of viewers tuned in from South America to Asia.
As he began, his wife, Sanni, stood at the base of the building. “I think he’s probably really psyched. He’s doing what he loves,” she told former NASA engineer Mark Rober, who provided commentary for the event. “I’m fine! I’m breezy. I’m just trying to stay calm and be in the moment.”
The skyscraper posed several technical challenges to climb
Taipei 101 stretches 1,667 feet into the air and can be divided into three distinct sections. The bottom section holds 372 vertical feet of sloped steel and glass. This section ends with two 14-feet embellishments called “The Ruyi.”
The second section is made of eight “bamboo boxes” that sit on top of each other like a bamboo stalk. The final section, which is arguably the most dangerous, has three sections of repeated overhangs, a section of rings and the spire.
In an interview conducted with The New York Times before his ascent, Honnold described Taipei 101 as “a perfect climbing objective,” since it has many varying features.
“I think the thing to bear in mind with Taipei 101 is that when it was built in 2001, it was built as a statement. Like this is the freaking building,” Honnold said. He climbed the southwest corner of the skyscraper, which is “the easiest way up the building (and) also the most aesthetic.”
How much did Netflix pay Honnold to do the climb?
When the Times asked how much the “Free Solo” star would make from the ascent, Honnold said he would get paid “an embarrassingly small amount” — likely in the mid-six figure range.
“It’s less than my agent aspired to,” Honnold said, but added, “I mean, I would do it for free.”
Netflix producers aren’t paying Honnold to climb Taipei 101, they’re paying for the drama and the attention, Honnold told the Times. “I’m not getting paid to climb the building. I’m getting paid for the spectacle. I’m climbing the building for free.”
How did they film ‘Skyscraper Live’?
The camera crew tasked with filming Honnold’s ascent has been with him for several years, through a variety of projects. But their feat, Sunday morning, was unlike anything they’d ever coordinated and filmed on a rock face.
Brett Lowell, a cinematographer, who has worked on several renowned outdoor films including “Valley Uprising” and “The Dawn Wall,” was suspended in the air on a cable-cam rig to film Honnold.
Lowell “has got this insane big rig thing where he’s riding a static line for hundreds of feet, basically floating in space with this epic wide shot,” Honnold said on Wednesday.
Other cinematographers will leapfrog each other, taking the elevator up through the skyscraper to catch Honnold as he climbs past.
But as Honnold got higher and reaching him got more difficult, the film crew used remote cameras, drones and a helicopter with a stabilized camera to capture Honnold’s ascent.
How did Alex Honnold train for Taipei 101?
Since the skyscraper’s glass and steel architecture is bulkier and more frictionless than rock, Honnold had to increase his overall strength and rely less on his fingers and grip.
“Building climbing is just more physical than rock climbing in a way. It’s just more big-muscle groups, so I’ve been doing a little more just workout type stuff,” Honnold explained on his podcast Climbing Gold.
Over the past year, he focused on increasing his pull-up, muscle-up and leg lift capacity, along with other full body muscle exercises.
But ultimately, “It really just comes down to feeling confident and feeling like a good rock climber,” Honnold said. “A lot of it has to do with eating well and sleeping enough. Feeling like I’m in a good place.”
“You just sort of show up feeling like you’re prepared and you’ve done your best,” he said.