In 2017, Alex Honnold became famous for becoming the first person to complete a free solo ascent of Yosemite National Park’s El Capitan rock formation. His incredible feat, which he accomplished in just under four hours, was captured in the 2018 documentary Free Solo. If you aren’t familiar with climbing vernacular, “free solo” is the term for a rock climb made without the assistance of any safety equipment like ropes or harnesses. Basically, if you fall, you’re free-falling.
Since then, Honnold has completed other difficult climbs. He scrambled 35-miles through Red Rock Canyon in 2022 and climbed across the peaks of Greenland in the National Geographic’s 2024 docuseries Arctic Ascent. This evening, Jan. 23, Honnold will be at it again. He’s going to attempt to free solo the Taipei 101 building in Taiwan, a 101-story skyscraper. It will be broadcast live on Netflix for everyone to follow along. Skyscraper Live will air on Friday, January 23 at 8:00 p.m. ET/5:00 p.m. PT.
An American climber will soon attempt one of the most daring feats on live television: climbing a 101-story skyscraper in front of what could be millions of viewers. Alex Honnold, who has been climbing for 30 years and was featured in the Oscar-winning 2018 documentary Free Solo, will attempt to scale Taiwan’s Taipei 101, one of the tallest buildings in the world, in a special airing live on Netflix on Friday, Jan. 23, known as Skyscraper Live.
The climb, which will stream globally, will be attempted under spine-tingling circumstances — with no ropes or safety nets to potentially break Honnold’s fall, according to Netflix’s Tudum.
Honnold, who shares two young daughters with wife Sanni McCandless, recently told CNN that accomplishing this feat is his “lifelong dream” while telling Tudum that he has “always had curiosity about what it would feel like to climb a building this big.”
“It’s just rare to get this kind of opportunity, so you gotta jump when you can,” he said.
In 2017, Honnold became the first person to climb El Capitan in Yosemite National Park without safety ropes, which was chronicled in Free Solo.
But this is a different challenge, as Honnold told Tudum that “buildings are steeper than most rock faces” that he climbs.
Still, he said the goal remains the same: Don’t fall off.
“I’m sure I’ll feel a little nervous at the bottom, just because it’s something totally new and I don’t know how it’s going to feel,” he admitted. “I’ve spent 30 years climbing rock faces; this is going to be my first big handmade structure, so I’m sure it’ll feel a little different.”
Honnold said he first saw Taipei 101 “more than 10 years ago” and has “hoped to have the opportunity to climb it” ever since, according to Tudum.
Completing the climb in public does not have Honnold fazed, either.
“My life is on the line — I don’t really care who’s watching,” he told Tudum. “I care about doing what I’m doing and doing it well.”
But he will not determine the climb’s success simply based on whether or not he completes it. His main focus, aside from not falling, is enjoying the experience.
“I’m very confident that I can climb the building, which is why I’m doing this,” he told Tudum, “but I want to have a good time, I want to smile and enjoy myself, I want to have a good experience.”
While I’m rooting for Honnold and plan to follow the updates online in real time, I don’t think I can actually watch it. My anxiety would be through the roof. I’ve been terribly afraid of heights since my mid-20s. I can’t even climb to the top step of an eight-foot ladder without feeling like I want to cry. If my kids want me to watch them try to climb a tree, I get a guttural feeling of panic. I have no idea how Alex’s wife can handle it, but I guess she’s used to it by now.
According to the Internet, Taipei 101 is 1,667 feet/508 meters tall. When talking about how fatal a fall could be, Hannold also told CNN, “[O]n this particular building…there are balconies every few floors. The geometry of the building is such that you actually could fall in tons of places and not actually die, which makes it in some ways safer than a lot of rock-climbing objectives.” Even if Netflix was offering me one billion dollars with the assurance of complete safety, I would never attempt to do this. People like Honnold are definitely cut from a completely different cloth.
Alex Honnold is one of the greatest climbers the world has ever seen — famously free soloing El Capitan, nearly 3,000 feet, without a rope. What's his home life like?
SKYSCRAPER LIVE. January 23 @ 8 PM ET | 5 PM PT pic.twitter.com/a83V7kwRWJ
— Netflix (@netflix) January 21, 2026
Photos credit Getty and Corey Rich/Netflix via Netflix Press
No thank you. I don’t have Netflix, but I wouldn’t consider watching until after the event has successfully happened. And even then I don’t need the anxiety.
I guess the benefit of doing something this risky, is if you fail, you’ll never know.