Alex Honnold is currently sitting in Taipei, likely eating a plain bell pepper like an apple, while the rest of the world waits to see if he’ll die on live TV. It’s early 2026. On January 23rd, he is scheduled to scale the Taipei 101 skyscraper—1,667 feet of glass and steel—without a single rope. This isn't just another stunt. It’s a 101-story reminder that for some people, the "safety net" is a psychological construct they simply don't need.
Free solo climbing Alex Honnold has become a bit of a household phrase since the 2018 documentary Free Solo took home an Oscar, but most people still get the fundamental appeal wrong. They think he’s a daredevil. An adrenaline junkie. Someone who "doesn't value his life."
Honestly? It's the opposite.
The Myth of the Adrenaline Junkie
If you watch Honnold’s face while he’s 2,000 feet up the Freerider route on El Capitan, he doesn't look like he’s having the time of his life. He looks like a guy trying to remember where he parked his car. There’s no screaming, no heavy breathing, no frantic movements. Adrenaline is actually the enemy in high-stakes climbing. If your heart rate spikes, your muscles tighten. If your muscles tighten, you "pump out" and lose your grip.
To survive free solo climbing Alex Honnold has had to systematically dismantle his own fear response.
Researchers actually put him in an fMRI machine at the Medical University of South Carolina to see what was going on in his head. They showed him "high-arousal" images—stuff that would make most of us flinch or feel sick. The results were weird. His amygdala, the brain's fear center, basically stayed dark. It didn't "fire" the way a normal person's does.
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Is he a biological freak? Maybe. But he argues it’s mostly just "desensitization." If you spend twenty years staring into the abyss, the abyss starts to look like a pretty chill place to hang out.
Why El Capitan Changed Everything
Before June 3, 2017, the idea of free soloing El Capitan was considered "impossible" by the elite climbing community. It’s 3,000 feet of sheer granite.
The Freerider route isn't even the hardest path up the mountain, but it has sections that are nightmare fuel for anyone with a pulse:
- The Freeblast Slab: Friction climbing where you rely on the rubber of your shoes sticking to smooth rock. No handholds. Just balance.
- The Boulder Problem: A 5.13a sequence (very hard) that requires a "karate kick" move to a tiny edge.
- The Enduro Corner: A grueling stretch that drains every ounce of strength from your forearms.
He did it in 3 hours and 56 minutes. To put that in perspective, most elite roped teams take two to three days to climb the same distance. Honnold didn't just climb it; he sprinted it because he had memorized every single crystal and divot in the rock.
The Boring Reality of Being "No-Big-Deal" Alex
People love the drama, but Honnold’s life is mostly just... work. For years, he lived in a Ford Econoline (and later a Ram ProMaster) because it was the most efficient way to follow the good weather. He's a guy who tracks every single workout in a detailed journal. He isn't winging it.
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The preparation is boring. It involves climbing the same route 50 times with a rope, scrubbing dirt off specific footholds with a toothbrush, and rehearsing the "beta"—the sequence of moves—until it’s muscle memory.
"There is no redundancy," Honnold often says. "If you fall, you die."
That sounds grim, but for him, it’s just a data point. He minimizes the "uncertainty" until the risk, in his mind, is close to zero. If there's a 1% chance he might fall, he doesn't do the climb. He only goes when he knows he won't slip.
2026: From Granite to Glass
Now, the focus has shifted to "Skyscraper Live." This Netflix special in Taipei is a different beast. Urban climbing, or "buildering," is usually the domain of Alain Robert, the "French Spiderman." But while Robert often uses a mix of styles, Honnold is bringing the pure free solo ethos to the 11th tallest building in the world.
Buildings are actually "easier" in terms of technical difficulty—the holds are predictable, machine-made, and usually quite large. But the stakes are weird. Wind gusts at 1,500 feet can be unpredictable. Glass can be slippery if there's even a hint of humidity.
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He’s 40 now. He has a wife, Sanni McCandless, and two young daughters, June and Alice. Critics often wonder if "Dad Alex" will finally lose his nerve. But if you've followed his career, you know he doesn't operate on "nerve." He operates on a checklist.
How to Apply the "Honnold Mindset" (Without Dying)
You don't need to climb a wall to use the logic behind free solo climbing Alex Honnold has perfected. It’s basically a masterclass in risk management.
- Differentiate between Risk and Consequence: A "high consequence" activity (like soloing) can be "low risk" if you are overqualified for the task.
- Master the "Pre-Mortem": Honnold visualizes every way he could die on a route before he starts. By imagining the failure, he can plan the solution.
- Expansion of the Comfort Zone: He didn't start with El Cap. He started in a gym in Sacramento. Then small rocks. Then bigger rocks. It took 20 years to become an "overnight" sensation.
- Ruthless Self-Honesty: In 2016, he actually started a solo of El Cap and turned around because it "didn't feel right." Knowing when to quit is as important as knowing when to push.
The world will be watching the Taipei 101 climb later this month, waiting for a heartbeat of hesitation. They probably won't find one. For Alex, it's just another day at the office, even if that office is hanging off the side of a skyscraper.
To really dig into the mechanics of this, you should check out the actual topo maps for Freerider or read Honnold's book Alone on the Wall. It strips away the "superhero" narrative and shows the actual, gritty math of how he stays alive. If you're interested in the solar work he does when he's not hanging off cliffs, the Honnold Foundation is where he puts about a third of his income to help bring sustainable power to off-grid communities. It's a reminder that even for someone who spends his time in the clouds, he's surprisingly grounded.