Alex Honnold Is Free Soloing a Skyscraper Live. The Climber Who Did It First Has Some Beta.

Last week, the world learned that Alex Honnold will free solo Taipei 101 live on Netflix in “early 2026.” So we reached out to the one person on earth with the beta: Alain Robert, aka the French Spiderman.

“I’ve always felt a certain connection to Alain Robert,” Honnold recently remarked in a foreword he penned for the new memoir Spider-Man, Alain Robert, Free and Unattached. Honnold went on to write, “Alain’s urban climbs are sometimes derided as a mere stunt—a gimmick done for publicity. And in some ways, that’s a fair critique … but behind the seeming ‘stunts’ lies an unmatched skill as a climber.”

The same might soon be said of Honnold, as he embarks on the first live-broadcasted free soloing event on U.S. television (Robert has previously free soloed on live broadcasts in Venezuela, Brazil, and Montreal).

Before we get into Robert’s insights for Honnold, we must call attention to one key difference between their climbs: Honnold’s will be ropeless, unlike Robert’s first free ascent of Taipei 101 over two decades ago. The French free soloist departed from his preferred climbing style and scaled Taipei 101 on toprope. This came as a requirement from the Taiwanese government, which hired Robert to climb as part of a PR stunt to bring attention to their newly constructed tower.

A little historical context on Alex Honnold and Taipei 101

When Alain Robert first climbed the Taiwan tower on Christmas Day in 2004, it was the world’s tallest building at 1,667 feet. Today, however, Taipei 101 is the 11th tallest building on earth. (The tallest is now the 2,722-foot Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which Robert also climbed in 2011).

So why now? And why Taipei 101? As it turns out, Honnold has been angling to free solo Taipei 101 for over a decade. He had plans to climb it live on the National Geographic Channel in 2012, back when Taipei 101 was the world’s second tallest building. Then the live event was rescheduled for 2014, but ultimately fell through. In Outside’s interview with Honnold over a decade ago leading up to that event, he noted that he wouldn’t want to free solo Burj Khalifa. He called the Dubai tower “too hardcore” and “the El Capitan of buildings.”

Even if free soloing the Burj Khalifa feels too hardcore for Honnold, why return to his Taipei 101 objective? Perhaps he feels pulled to complete this unfinished project first imagined in 2012. Maybe it’s because a new location of The North Face—Honnold’s longtime sponsor—opened inside Taipei 101 last spring. The building also aligns with Honnold’s commitment to cleaner energy, with its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Platinum certification. And after all, Taipei 101 is “magnificent,” as Robert wrote in his first memoir With Bare Hands. 

Whatever the reason, what exactly is Honnold getting himself into? According to Robert, in keeping with Honnold’s nickname, it’s no big deal.

A 6/10 on the Alain Robert scale

When we asked Robert where Taipei 101 would rank in terms of climbing grades, he explained the 1-10 scale he’d invented for assessing buildings. For example, Barcelona’s Torre Glories, which he climbed with his son a few years ago, is a 1. The Holiday Inn in Johannesburg gets a grade 9 (Robert also commented at one point that the Holiday Inn might get a rock grade of 5.13a/b, for reference). And the Paris Framatome—with its wicked, narrowing, shallow crack—earns a 10 on the French Spiderman’s scale.

“Taipei 101 would be like 5.5 or 6,” Robert said. According to Robert, Honnold has previously climbed at least up to a level 5 on the building scale.

Pitch-by-pitch breakdown

Eight sections—or pitches, if you will—comprise the 1,667-foot climb up Taipei 101. The building is designed with eight sections because the number is considered lucky in Taiwan. But no beta-finding or unexpected cruxes ought to plague Honnold. Each section is identical, culminating in an overhang. Between each of the eight sections there is a ledge, where Honnold can rest.

In With Bare Hands, Robert wrote, “Being not quite vertical, the first section is a nice warm-up. I adapt to the dimensions and materials of each floor and start to find a sensible pace.”

“There is no crux,” Robert told Climbing. “What makes it complicated is to repeat the same move over and over again. But otherwise, you just take it one move at a time.” In other words, the primary challenge lies in endurance, not strength or technique.

The one unknown? The very top of the tower, following the rooftop area above the eight sections. “The very end is climbable,” Robert explains, “but there is a section maybe of 10 or 15 meters where there is nothing.” Since he climbed Taipei 101 on toprope, Robert jumared up this blank section to reach the very top of the tower. We reached out to Netflix to determine whether Honnold would be climbing to the tippy top or not, but they could not confirm any details of the climb.

Will the odds be in Honnold’s favor?

They certainly were not for Robert. Twelve days before his scheduled Taipei 101 climb, he scaled a traffic light during an editorial interview in France, fell, and injured his left elbow. “I couldn’t feel my forearm or my left hand anymore,” Robert recalled. Desperate to keep his Taipei 101 ascent on the books, he scheduled a last-minute surgery. “I didn’t tell anyone,” he remembered. “At the end of the day, I was supposed to climb with a rope.” While climbing proved painful, he could do the moves by the time his planned climb day on Christmas rolled around.

The next curveball? “On the day of the climb, it was raining cats and dogs,” Robert said. He remembered near gale force winds and a cold downpour by the time he reached the top. The weather ended up foiling his planned route. Originally, he had intended to climb the corner, but because it was more exposed, it became too wet to climb. Instead, Robert opted to climb up the slightly less slick face. Honnold plans to climb the corner as well, which Robert calls ‘the best option.” Netflix has not confirmed with Climbing whether the live free solo will go forward in the event of bad weather.

The superstitious say bad things come in threes, and Robert’s third trial ended up being the unfinished state of the building. Construction wasn’t officially completed until a week after Robert’s climb, on December 31, 2004. “On all those aluminum frames, there was vinyl and some oil and grease,” Robert recalled. “That was really hard.” Luckily, this is an obstacle Honnold will not have to face.

Ultimately, the climb proved a major struggle for Robert, and he said he wouldn’t have done it—given the conditions—unroped. “It’s out of the question to do it free solo with the vinyl and the rain and the oil,” he said.

Can Honnold pull it off? And how long will it take?

When we asked Robert if he thinks Honnold will be able to successfully climb Taipei 101, he immediately responded, “Oh yean, I’m sure he’ll do it very easily.” Basically, Robert summed up the climb as straightforward, totally doable, and “quite easy.”

Originally, Robert noted in With Bare Hands that he thought it would take him just over two hours to complete the climb. But with the vinyl- and oil-covered buildings and weather conditions, not to mention his injury, it took him nearly four. That said, the mental strain of climbing ropeless vs. roped might mean Honnold requires longer rest periods between building sections—during which, Netflix will probably serve up ads to its millions of anxious viewers.

Of course, Robert will be watching, too. Ultimately, he is excited—and a little surprised—to see this high-profile development occur in the niche of free soloing urban structures that he’s played such an instrumental role in carving. “If I can be there commenting on the send, that would be better,” he added.