Stay present for each move at a time, over and over. That’s how Alex Honnold describes the challenge of ascending one of the world's tallest buildings without any ropes or nets.
“I kind of lost track of space and time to some extent,” Honnold, the American rock climber, told NBC News' "TODAY" show in an interview after he climbed the famous Taipei 101 skyscraper in Taiwan.
“It feels infinite,” he said of the tower, which is 1,667 feet tall. “When you look up, all you can see is building as far as you go, and so it just keeps going forever.”
Honnold gained world-wide fame when he ascended Yosemite National Park’s 3,000-foot El Capitan without safety equipment or rope in 2017.
He said that far from strain as he got closer to the top of the Taipei skyscraper, climbing the final section felt like a “victory lap.”
It gets a little easier toward the very top, he said, “where you can really savor the view and appreciate the position.”
And what a view it was.
Taipei 101 towers over the capital of Taiwan, its steel-and-glass stature having become synonymous with the city.
It was the tallest building in the world from 2004 to 2010, a title currently held by the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.
Thousands of nervous fans and members of the media were watching Honnold’s “free solo” climb and cheering him on late Saturday as his red-shirt silhouette got smaller and smaller on his way up.
Some fans cheered him on from inside the building, holding up motivational banners in the windows to keep Honnold going. He had to postpone his climb Saturday because of rainy conditions.
“Sick,” Honnold said as he stood at the top spire of the building and waved his arms to those watching below. The event was livestreamed on Netflix with a 10-second delay so the public could closely follow his daring leaps and no-hands holds. The live broadcast of a potentially life-threatening stunt has drawn both excitement and concerns over its ethical implications.
It took Honnold just over 1½ hours to complete his 101-story climb. Reaching the summit of the building and standing at the top was not scary, he said.
“That was a lot less scary to stand on the top of the building than it is to climb the side of the building,” he said. He even had time to take a historic selfie at the summit.
Honnold had the extra challenge of windy conditions on the corner he was climbing.
He also had to scale the building’s overhanging structures that resemble “bamboo boxes” on his way up. “Because it overhangs, it’s more physically demanding. It’s just a little bit tiring. And it’s just, yes, the hardest moves on the climb,” Honnold said.
But he never felt he had to stop for any reason. His arms and legs got more fatigued as he went on, Honnold said, but that’s expected for a climb of such scale.
“It’s kind of like a happy tired, you know, like if you’re running a race or something, by the end of the race, you’re like, OK, I’m getting tired, but I know I’m gonna cross the finish line, and I feel great,” he said.
Honnold is not the first man to scale Taipei 101. In 2004, French climber Alain Robert, known as “Spiderman” for his ropeless ascents of some of the world’s highest buildings, climbed the tower in four hours. Unlike Honnold, though, he used a safety rope.
Taipei 101 and the local government authorized Honnold’s stunt. He said he was grateful for the support and “confidence” the authorities gave him to even attempt the climb.
“I mean, it was so perfect and so beautiful,” he said. “It was quite an experience.”
