Climber scales high-rise building unsecured When he falls, he dies - and the world watches in real time

On January 23, the climber Alex Honnold will climb Taipei 101 in Taiwan unsecured - live in front of an audience of millions. The questions arise: How much risk is a person allowed to take? And who decides?

For most people, Taipei 101 in Taiwan is an office building. For French climber Alain Robert, it became a 508-metre-high wall that had to be conquered.

When the world's tallest building at the time was opened in 2004, Robert - aka "Spider-Man" - climbed up the building's façade. It took him four hours.

Today, Taipei 101 is no longer the tallest building in the world, but it remains a wall to be conquered. US climber Alex Honnold will climb the 101 floors on 23 January. He wants to be the first person to climb the building "free solo". In other words: unsecured. Without ropes to catch him if he falls. And millions will be watching. The ascent will be streamed live on Netflix under the title "Skyscraper Live".

When asked why he wanted to do this in a recent interview, he replied : "Why not?"

The 40-year-old climber is known for free solo climbing. He got into climbing as a child when his parents sent him to a climbing gym because he was constantly swinging around on trees and rocks. He later dropped out of university to focus entirely on climbing. For ten years, he lived in a van and toured from climbing location to climbing location, scaling the rocks there.

Honnold became famous outside the climbing scene in 2017 when he climbed El Capitan, a rock in Yosemite National Park in the US state of California, unsecured and was filmed doing so. The film "Free Solo" won the Oscar for best documentary in 2019. It's a movie that's hard to watch without getting sweaty palms. Without getting nervous about whether it will actually make it - even if you already know that it will.

And now a skyscraper. Climbing up a skyscraper has always been a dream for Honnold, he says in the trailer for "Skyscraper Live". But without a permit, such things are difficult. Now, with Netflix behind him, the permit has been granted - and nothing stands in the way of the climb.

"It sounds like a very bad idea"

However, Honnold has not only received support for the campaign on social media since it was announced. "That sounds like a very bad idea," someone wrote in the comments. And someone else: "Why is this being broadcast live? So that everyone can watch with bated breath to find out if his daughters will have a father that night?"

The discussion can be reduced to three questions: 1. how high is the risk of this action really? 2) Even if Honnold can make it to the top, does he still bear a certain responsibility - not only for himself, but also for his wife and children? And 3. is this allowed to be filmed and streamed live?

«Free solo climbers are often portrayed as insane or tired of life. But they are not.»

Stephan Siegrist

Swiss climber and alpinist

You need to know about question 1: Alex Honnold does not act without reflection or recklessly. He knows what he can and cannot do. He doesn't push himself to the limit when free solo climbing. "It's not as if I push myself and push myself until something bad happens," he says in the documentary. The risk of falling is very low - even if the consequences are very high. "It's one of the attractions of free soloing: making something that seems difficult and dangerous feel safe."

For Honnold, this has to do with an ideal. "If you're looking for perfection, free soloing is the closest you can get to it," he says. By this he means a state of total concentration and control.

"Honnold is a top athlete," confirms Swiss climber and alpinist Stephan Siegrist. He explains: "Free soloing requires a lot of preparation. You first climb the route x times with a rope, then you tap all the holds to see if they are stable. Only then do you climb up unsecured." That's why the risk of free soloing is not as immense as you might think at first.

"Free solo climbers are often portrayed as crazy or tired of life. But they're not," says Siegrist. They are very considered and serious. And especially with such a media-staged action, Honnold will be very sure that he will succeed in the ascent.

Honnold can practise the ascent at home

Even Alain Robert, who climbed the high-rise in 2004, believes Honnold is capable of the ascent. The French climber is a pioneer of free soloing on high-rise buildings. To this day, he climbs skyscrapers without a safety device. At Taipei 101, however, he was roped up. Because it was raining and windy, he partially pulled himself up by the ropes. On a scale of 1 to 10, the skyscraper has a difficulty of 5.5 to 6 for him. "I don't think it will be a big challenge for Alex," he wrote on Instagram.

Taipei 101 will be Honnold's first high-rise. He normally climbs rocks. In contrast, climbing up a building façade is much more monotonous. Whereas in nature, the rock face and therefore the holds you have to use change again and again, you repeat the same hold over and over again on a building wall. "That can be tiring, but Honnold will be able to assess very well what to expect," says Siegrist. Honnold can even practise the grip size at home in order to optimally adjust his body to it.

But mistakes can happen. Alex Honnold knows that too. Although there are no official statistics, there is one thing you can rely on when free soloing: if you fall, you die. 1913 Paul Preuss, 1987 Jimmy Jewell, 1993 Derek Hersey, 2009 John Bachar - names that have shaped free soloing have also died in the process.

And because he might fall one day, he only climbs high walls, as Honnold himself says. "You have to make sure you die if you fall." His greatest fear is not to die in a fall, but to injure his body so badly that he can no longer climb.

The presence of death is part and parcel of climbing and mountaineering. "We go where we could die in order not to die," said mountaineering legend Reinhold Messner in a recent interview in 2024. It is the risk that makes mountaineering and climbing a mountain sport in the first place, not tourism.

He will always put climbing above a woman

Messner's attitude is shared by many in the scene: the risk is there - it's even part of the appeal - and at the same time part of a decision. And this is where the second question comes in: Even if Honnold can climb like no other, and will probably even scale Taipei 101 pretty easily, doesn't he carry a responsibility that goes beyond himself? In contrast to 2017, when he climbed El Capitan free solo, he is now married and the father of two children.

But not doing it for that reason is out of the question for Honnold. He would always put climbing above a woman, he says in "Free Solo". There is a scene in the film in which he says that he would stop free soloing if he wanted to maximize his lifespan. When his wife - then still his girlfriend - asks him if he feels no obligation to do so out of consideration for her, he replies in the negative.

For Honnold, one thing is clear: anyone who is with him must expect to die on a wall. His wife knows this, who simply says in the trailer for "Skyscraper Live": "That's the way Alex is."

This brings us to the third question: the fact that Honnold climbs free solo is nothing new - what is new is that you can watch it live. And what happens when a personal borderline experience like free soloing becomes a global live event?

The filmmakers of "Free Solo" already wrestled with this dilemma. "I was always torn about making a movie about free soloing, simply because it's so dangerous," says filmmaker Jimmy Chin in the movie. "It's hard not to imagine your friend climbing something extremely dangerous, and he could fall out of the frame and fall to his death. And you make another movie about what might have put him under unnecessary pressure."

The question of the boundary cannot be solved easily

As Siegrist explains, filming can actually create additional mental pressure: "Alex doesn't want to look like a loser, it has to work."

But therein lies the logic of this action as a business. Climbers like Alex Honnold live from public campaigns: There are companies that reward athletes for taking risks and putting themselves in the media spotlight in return for money. In return, they need attention and publicity. So they film themselves, take risks and ensure coverage.

"Every climber has to assess this: How much risk do I want to take to get more attention?" says Siegrist. The limits are then drawn either by the climbers themselves, the audience or the sponsors.

This became apparent with Honnold in 2014, for example, when bar manufacturer Clif Bar ended its collaboration with Honnold because he was taking risks that were too unpleasant for the company. "I think it's completely fair that they draw the line. It's a very personal decision," replied Honnold.

Honnold now has his biggest sponsorship contract with The North Face. According to his own statement, he receives a six-figure sum from the outdoor company every year. Netflix also seems to reward risk. "The campaign will certainly have a good financial aspect for Honnold," Siegrist speculates.

Netflix did not wish to comment further on the campaign when asked by blue News.

The three questions surrounding the project cannot be answered definitively. You can weigh up the pros and cons, talk about preparation, difficulty and probabilities - and yet there is still an unease that cannot be calculated away: the question of the border. Somewhere in all of this there is a line, without being able to say exactly where. In the end, it is not drawn in the commentaries, nor in Alex Honnold's own assessment or that of experts.

And whether it will be crossed by Alex Honnold and Netflix on this day in January will probably only become clear when Honnold has completed the 508 meters and arrives at the top of Taipei 101. Or not.

"Skyscaper Live" airs in Switzerland on the night of January 24 at 2.00 a.m. on Netflix.

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