It was the morning of January 25, 2026, in Taipei, Taiwan—a day after the originally planned date of the event, delayed due to poor weather. For the average rock climber, a little rain wouldn’t be enough to stop a good run. But for 40-year-old Alex Honnold, a change in even the smallest variable could make this climb his last. As excited fans began to gather, he stared up at the beast he would be attempting to conquer: Taipei 101, a nearly 1,700-foot-tall building and the first skyscraper he’d ever try summiting. He smiled, chalked up his hands, shook out his shoulders, and began his ascent.

For the first 25 stories, the climb was predictable. Hand, foot, hand, foot—like climbing a ladder. Then came the “bamboo boxes,” a series of eight pagoda-like structures stacked vertically along the building’s midsection. Each box spans eight floors and angles roughly 10 to 15 degrees outward, so that its top overhangs the base, forcing Honnold to reach up and out to continue his ascent. He knew they’d pose a threat long before he ever laid a hand on the wall; despite being the most technically challenging segment, the boxes are most similar to the style of climbing that Honnold is famous for.

“In a lot of ways, it actually feels like a climbing pitch, which is the way climbers differentiate segments of a climb,” he explained in a pre-event interview with Netflix, which livestreamed the nail-biting performance. “This means you do quite a hard effort for almost 100 feet and then there’s a balcony, and then you do [another] hard effort for 100 feet and there’s a balcony. So, in a lot of ways, that’s what rock climbing feels like.”

More than eight years earlier, on June 3, 2017, Honnold had become the first person to climb El Capitan, a notorious near-vertical cliff in Yosemite National Park, without ropes or a harness—a feat known in the climbing community as free soloing. Fast-forward to 2026: He was attempting to set another free soloing record in Taipei. In theory, this climb should have been easier—no crumbling terrain and every foothold set at a consistent angle. Still, climbing buildings presents its own unique challenges.

“The movement is a little different in that buildings are much more repetitive; it’s just the same movement patterns over and over,” Honnold explained in the interview. “You know how to climb it, but it’s physically more taxing because you’re doing the same thing over and over, so your muscles get tired.”

If climbing El Capitan was a game of chess, Taipei 101 would be a game of checkers—one that goes on for hours. Difficult in its own right. As Honnold navigated the bamboo boxes, hundreds of onlookers inside the tower pressed against the windows, phones out, hoping to catch a glimpse of him as he passed by. On the other side of the glass, Honnold had to maintain his focus amid the waving, cheering fans.

After nearly 92 tense minutes, Honnold summited Taipei 101.

Standing on the silver dome atop the tower, the climber waved his arms above his head, now the only person in history to ever free solo the skyscraper. The crowd cheered, perhaps as much in relief that the spectacle was over as in celebration that Honnold had completed the challenge. It was, as Honnold described it, “the biggest urban free solo ever.”

Still, the stunt came with controversy. People both within and outside the climbing community have criticized Honnold and Netflix for publicizing something so inherently dangerous. While Free Solo, the 2018 documentary on Honnold’s gearless ascent of El Capitan, is often credited with (and blamed for) popularizing free soloing, the sport has roots dating back to the 1800s, when it became a regular part of mountaineering. Rock climbing—and, in turn, free soloing—became its own sport in the late 19th century in Germany, Italy, England, and France. In other words, free soloing has existed since the birth of climbing, and using the approach to scale a building does nothing to change that.

Free solo accidents, which are almost always fatal, happen not because climbers are unskilled but because they lose their focus. In Colorado, the Flatirons of Boulder alone have seen 33 free solo accidents since the 1950s, according to experts from the American Alpine Club, a nonprofit group focused on climbing education and safety.

Within the climbing community, free soloing is a rare practice: Some dabble, few commit. For those who do commit, it’s an art form, a way of life. For some, it helps them connect with nature. For others, it’s a way to challenge their own fear, grapple with their mental health. Even so, the sport has claimed some of its heroes—though their legacy endures. These are some of their stories.

Austin Howell: The Professor

Free soloing is “the single best therapy I’ve ever found for calming my tumultuous mind,” Austin Howell, a revered free soloist, wrote in an April 2019 Instagram post. In it, Howell is pictured casually dangling from an overhang, one arm loose by his side. Below him, hundreds of feet of open air.

“I’m not going to die climbing. I’d be far too pissed off if my epitaph read ‘we told you so,’” Howell added. Two months later, he suffered a fatal fall.

Howell discovered climbing not on the rocky cliff faces he would later conquer but in climbing gyms as a freshman at the University of Houston in 2006. Even in the early days of his career, Howell saw climbing routes as puzzles to be solved, according to an interview with Blue Ridge Outdoors magazine. His inquisitive nature eventually earned him the nickname “The Professor.”

Howell got stronger and learned how to maneuver routes more efficiently. He quickly progressed, moving up through difficulty levels with ease. But just two years into his career—even before his free soloing adventures began—he suffered his first major fall.

Around 35 feet up the climbing wall at his university, Howell attempted a difficult maneuver but couldn’t hold on. Ordinarily, this would’ve been perfectly safe; he was attached to a rope-and-harness system, so his belayer—the person on the ground controlling the friction of the ropes—should have been able to catch him. However, at the same time that Howell lost his grip, the belayer mistakenly released the brake strand on the rope, so it whizzed through the belayer’s safety device until Howell landed on his back on the floor. He broke several vertebrae and bones in his feet.

As soon as his injuries healed, Howell was back on the wall. He shifted into free soloing, a style that would become the keystone of many of his later achievements.

Then, in 2015, Howell had another major fall. He and a climbing partner were using ropes to scale The Nose, one of the routes on El Capitan, when a piece of gear he was using to support his weight pulled out from the rock. “Then, an additional piece probably pulled out as well,” Howell told Blue Ridge Outdoors. He hit a ledge, plummeted 20 feet, and landed on his head. All told, Howell fractured his wrist, skull, shoulder blade, and some vertebrae and ended up with hearing loss in his left ear. But once again, he returned to the rock.

Howell’s final climb took place on June 30, 2019, when he was 31. He was free soloing Shortoff Mountain at Linville Gorge in North Carolina, a bald rock face that abruptly juts out from the lush greenery at its base. The cliff face reportedly held some of Howell’s favorite routes. County officials also described the stretch as one of the hardest in the gorge.

Howell had gone climbing with photographer Ben Wu. After they had finished shooting, Howell continued soloing on his own.

Later, two climbers watched as Howell missed a tricky maneuver, yelled a solitary “No,” and plummeted to the ground. Because of the remote location, emergency responders were unable to reach Howell’s body for several hours.

Howell’s family memorialized his love of the outdoors on his headstone, which is cut to resemble the jagged peaks he once scaled. Inscribed across the bottom is the famous John Muir quote, “The mountains are calling and I must go.”

Martin Feistl: The Alpinist

Martin Feistl is largely considered one of the greatest alpinists—high-altitude, specialized mountain climbers—of his generation. His sort of free soloing was different from the one that Honnold used to climb Taipei 101. Whereas that technique (called crimping) requires climbers to use their fingertips to move along small, narrow holds, Feistl traversed snow, ice, and boulders on unforgiving mountains, often with a pair of ice picks and without safety gear.

Between 2016 and 2018, Feistl was a member of the German Alpine Club’s expedition team, the world’s largest climbing association. Later in his professional career, Feistl began to pioneer numerous routes, notably across several places in Europe. In January 2024, he solo ascended a route just outside of Innsbruck, Austria, which he famously named “Daily Dose of Luck.”

“Somehow the idea of rope-solo climbing in winter doesn’t appeal to me at all. Everything takes too long and anyways, on ice you just don’t fall,” Feistl wrote in a climbing blog, recounting the January ascent. “In general, on the vast majority of routes that I solo, I try to do without everything that can provide more security than my belief in my own abilities.”

Within the climbing community, Feistl was known as a dedicated, hardworking climber. He wasn’t concerned with the fame or the sponsorships that came with being a professional alpinist; he was more interested in improving his skills.

On May 18, 2024, Feistl was soloing the Spitzenstätter–Baldauf Route, located on the border between Austria and Germany. According to reports, he lost his footing on a steep incline section and fell more than 130 feet into a snow field, where he then slid another 164 feet. Although a rescue team was immediately present, they were unable to save the mountaineer. Feistl was 27.

Earl Prunty: The Upside-Down Free Soloist

For the average person, the thought of climbing without safety gear is daunting enough—let alone descending a cliff face upside down in a handstand. But for Earl Prunty, that was simply the best way to enjoy the view.

“I downclimb almost everything first, before I climb it, there’s little beauty downclimbing feet first with your eyes and nose smashed up against the rock,” Prunty wrote in a celebratory Instagram post on March 10, 2025. “What a difference it makes to be able to take in all the movement and beauty where I climb!”

In the post, Prunty—a well-respected climber who had a passion for protecting the environment—is shown off in the distance, near a picturesque waterfall, slowly making his way across the rock face in his signature upside-down style, each move more calculated than the last. He is surrounded by slick rocks and moss, terrain that most climbers would turn away from. However, this was an average climb for Prunty. In fact, Prunty’s daughter, Natalie Greisen, told Climbing magazine that he often called the area his “gym” or “sanctuary,” since he spent so much time there.

Incredibly, Prunty’s deep understanding of boulders didn’t stop with the cliff faces he traversed. He was also a stonemason by trade. “Dad loves rocks,” Greisen remarked, recalling their running family joke in an interview with a local paper.

The day of his celebratory post, Prunty had completed a longtime goal of his: downclimbing one of his favorite spots, a route at Nooksack Falls in Whatcom County, Washington. It took him 2 hours and 47 minutes.

Nooksack Falls would also be the last free solo attempt Prunty would complete. Just a week later, the 68-year-old suffered a fatal fall during another free solo climb. Volunteers found Prunty’s phone fastened to a stake with a recording running for more than three hours. It clearly showed him falling from higher up on the wall, though it is unclear where he fell from and what exactly caused the accident. A single set of footprints led to the cliff’s edge.