Riccardo Savi/Getty Images for Concordia Summit
Audio By Carbonatix
Alex Honnold, 40, shimmied up the Taipei 101, 1,667-foot skyscraper like a boss on January 24 — a day past the scheduled event due to a weather delay — while hordes of live fans and couch supporters watched, knuckles as white as the chalk covering his hands.
While the buds in his ears let him communicate with folks on the ground, they also let him rock his climb with a playlist of his choice. Tool, led by Arizona-based musician Maynard James Keenan, was among the roster of bands that kept him rising upward, and at a pretty rapid pace.
His playlist was “mostly Tool,” Honnold told Variety in a post-climb live interview, but didn’t get into song specifics. He added that his Tool-heavy soundtrack was “rock music that I’ve liked my whole life,” and that “part of the appeal of music is that actually it helps me with pacing.” Sounds like at times, the people he was communicating with and the music would cut in and out, but as we now know, none of that seemed to slow him down and certainly didn’t stop him.
When he reached the top of the tower, he stood up tall, looked around, and said, “Sick!” and threw his arms up in the air. Viewers were beyond excited for him and, at the same time, wanted him to get down immediately.
Comments across social media echoed that latter sentiment of wanting him to enjoy his accomplishment from a less precarious spot. He rappelled down to a platform on the 60th floor, where he joined his wife, Sanni, and they celebrated and took photos for their kids.
Jim Louvau
Honnold became a household name after the 2018 documentary “Free Solo” was released. The extremely compelling flick followed Honnold as he pursued his lifelong dream of free-climbing El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. 3,000 feet with no rope, no gear, nothing.
It was a fascinating look at the climb, of course, which had viewers breathless and weak in the knees, but also at Honnold the human. How he deals with emotions, relationships, training, and what his brain scans show in relation to how he approaches fear, it’s all wholly engaging.
