# Alex Honnold can climb a half-mile of sheer vertical rock. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 21, 2019, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alex-honnold-can-climb-a-half-mile-of-sheer-vertical-rock/829974 "2019-02-21T18:20:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2019, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alex-honnold-can-climb-a-half-mile-of-sheer-vertical-rock/829974/61 "2019-03-15T11:58:25Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > I was talking about this with some climber friends the other day. It seems to me that he does now have a possible psychological path to that - his El Cap climb may never be surpassed, so he can justifiably feel that he has reached the pinnacle of human achievement. And there’s a very real sense in which it would be way cooler for his legacy to do what he has done… and then die at 103 of old age. One of the most famous French free climber, [Patrick Edlinger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Edlinger), died aged 52 by slipping in the stairs and falling down…Beware gravity’s revenge. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2026, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alex-honnold-can-climb-a-half-mile-of-sheer-vertical-rock/829974/62 "2026-01-24T01:23:02Z")
If anyone is interested he is going to be climbing a skyscraper in Taiwan January 24. It’s on Netflix. > _Skyscraper Live was originally scheduled to air on January 23. Due to weather conditions, the live event is postponed, and will now stream on Saturday, January 24 at 8 PM ET / 5 PM PT._ > **[The Hardest Part of Alex Honnold’s Live Taipei 101 Climb Isn’t What You’d Think](https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/alex-honnold-hardest-part-taipei-101-climb)** > > Ahead of Skyscraper Live, Honnold explains why endurance — not a single move — could define the climb. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2026, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alex-honnold-can-climb-a-half-mile-of-sheer-vertical-rock/829974/63 "2026-01-24T02:15:53Z")
We saw it, too. But we didn’t think he came off as a sociopath. More like very autistic. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2026, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alex-honnold-can-climb-a-half-mile-of-sheer-vertical-rock/829974/64 "2026-01-24T03:45:54Z")
Yes and autistic people are often mistaken for having a lack of concern or affection when really they just feel and express things differently. This has resulted in some really messed up things, like autistic people being prosecuted for crimes they didn’t commit because law enforcement perceives their different affect as suspicious. I mean, I guess, maybe he’s a sociopath, but I was not under the impression sociopaths don’t feel emotion. I was under the impression they don’t feel _other people_’s emotions. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2026, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alex-honnold-can-climb-a-half-mile-of-sheer-vertical-rock/829974/65 "2026-01-24T19:05:52Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > We saw it, too. But we didn’t think he came off as a sociopath. More like very autistic. Thats valid. I guess what makes me think that is his brain scans show no emotional reaction to things like mutilation, children dying, etc. His amygdala doesn’t respond to gruesome images. > **[The Strange Brain of the World’s Greatest Solo Climber](https://nautil.us/the-strange-brain-of-the-worlds-greatest-solo-climber-236051/)** > > Alex Honnold doesn’t experience fear like the rest of us. > Inside the tube, Honnold is looking at a series of about 200 images that flick past at the speed of channel surfing. The photographs are meant to disturb or excite. “At least in non-Alex people, these would evoke a strong response in the amygdala,” says Joseph. “I can’t bear to look at some of them, to be honest.” The selection includes corpses with their facial features bloodily reorganized; a toilet choked with feces; a woman shaving herself, Brazilian style; and two invigorating mountain-climbing scenes. > > “Maybe his amygdala is not firing—he’s having no internal reactions to these stimuli,” says Joseph. “But it could be the case that he has such a well-honed regulatory system that he can say, ‘OK, I’m feeling all this stuff, my amygdala is going off,’ but his frontal cortex is just so powerful that it can calm him down.” > > There is also a more existential question. “Why does he do this?” she says. “He knows it’s life-threatening—I’m sure people tell him every day. So there may be some kind of really strong reward, like the thrill of it is very rewarding.” > > To find out, Honnold is now running through a second experiment, the “reward task,” in the scanner. He can win or lose small amounts of money (the most he can win is $22) depending on how quickly he clicks a button when signaled. “It’s a task that we know activates the reward circuitry very strongly in the rest of us,” Joseph says. > > In this case, she’s looking most closely at another brain apparatus, the nucleus accumbens, located not far from the amygdala (which is also at play in the reward circuitry) near the top of the brainstem. It is one of the principal processors of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that arouses desire and pleasure. High sensation seekers, Joseph explains, may require more stimulation than other people to get a dopamine hit. > > After about half an hour, Honnold emerges from the scanner looking sleepily doe-eyed. Raised in Sacramento, California, he has a refreshingly frank manner of speaking, and an oddly contradictory demeanor that might be described as intensely laid back—his nickname is No Big Deal, which is his assessment of almost every experience he undergoes. Like most expert climbers, he is leanly muscled, more like a fitness buff than a body builder. The exceptions are his fingers, which permanently look as though they’ve just been slammed in a car door, and his forearms, which bring to mind Popeye. > > “Looking at all those images—does that count as being under stress?” he asks Joseph. > > “Those images that you saw are used pretty widely in the field for inducing fairly strong arousal responses,” Joseph replies. > > “Because, I can’t say for sure, but I was like, _whatever_,” he says. The photographs, even the “gruesome burning children and stuff” struck him as dated and jaded. “It’s like looking through a curio museum.” ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2026, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alex-honnold-can-climb-a-half-mile-of-sheer-vertical-rock/829974/66 "2026-01-24T19:16:12Z")
Yeah, he is also remarkably non-bothered by the fact that he has a wife and two kids and that he’s going to do a risky climb of Taipei 101. I mean, he is getting paid a decent sum of money to climb it so he can say it’s to help financially but still….. Anyhow, the climb itself has been postponed to about 7 PM central USA time tonight, due to rain in Taipei. ---
**Author:** ![chela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chela/32/21582_2.png) [@chela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chela)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2026, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alex-honnold-can-climb-a-half-mile-of-sheer-vertical-rock/829974/67 "2026-01-24T19:33:45Z")
No mention of Alain Roberts (63yo) He’s climbed Tapei 101, and dozens of other skyscrapers, sometimes he gets arrested at the top. Climbed the Burj Khalifa twice, most recently in 2023 with another climber > **[Alain Robert](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alain_Robert)** > > Alain Robert (.mw-parser-output .IPA-label-small{font-size:85%}.mw-parser-output .references .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .infobox .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .navbox .IPA-label-small{font-size:100%}French pronunciation: \[alɛ̃ ʁɔbɛʁ\]; born Robert Alain Philippe; 7 August 1962) is a French rock climber and urban climber. Nicknamed "the French Spider-Man" or "the Human Spider", Robert carries out free solo climbs of skyscrapers using no climbing equipment except for a small bag of ch... ---
**Author:** ![Patx2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/73ab20/32.png) [@Patx2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patx2)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2026, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alex-honnold-can-climb-a-half-mile-of-sheer-vertical-rock/829974/68 "2026-01-25T03:48:52Z")
I just watched this. I held my breath a few times. I asked myself how does someone know at a young age they want to climb a skyscraper? ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2026, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alex-honnold-can-climb-a-half-mile-of-sheer-vertical-rock/829974/69 "2026-01-25T03:53:25Z")
Daughter and I checked in every couple of minutes via Netflix on the Taipei 101 climb. He did it successfully. Good for him. Here is our hypothesis: he chose it because it was doable, and (most importantly) was offered a lot of money. We are guessing he rented a warehouse that had 1:1 scale physical replicas of the things he needed to scale, including the dragon ornaments, and practiced on them over and over. Even then, it is still an impressive feat. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2026, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alex-honnold-can-climb-a-half-mile-of-sheer-vertical-rock/829974/70 "2026-01-25T04:56:29Z")
How long did it take him? ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2026, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alex-honnold-can-climb-a-half-mile-of-sheer-vertical-rock/829974/71 "2026-01-25T05:18:32Z")
Roughly an hour and a half. He took frequent short breaks on the metal overhangs. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2026, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alex-honnold-can-climb-a-half-mile-of-sheer-vertical-rock/829974/72 "2026-01-25T23:35:09Z")
> [@chela](#): > > Climbed the Burj Khalifa twice, most recently in 2023 with another climber My son is obsessed with that building (because it’s the tallest thing.) I’ll have to show him this. He was asked by the teacher where he wanted to travel and he said Burj Khalifa. Some other kid said North America, and of course he said, “This _is_ North America.” And everyone ignored him, so he kept saying it louder and louder. “Excuse me! We are in North America right now!” He’d fit in well here. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2026, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alex-honnold-can-climb-a-half-mile-of-sheer-vertical-rock/829974/73 "2026-01-26T00:52:25Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > My son is obsessed with that building (because it’s the tallest thing.) I’ll have to show him this. I’d be afraid of giving him any ideas. My nephew is big into parkour. Jumps from heights that make me queasy - with broken bones to show for it! ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2026, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alex-honnold-can-climb-a-half-mile-of-sheer-vertical-rock/829974/74 "2026-01-26T01:14:29Z")
> [@needscoffee](#): > > My nephew is big into parkour. Jumps from heights that make me queasy - with broken bones to show for it! What bakes my noodle more than free soloing is ski jumping. I get that when you’re on a slope, falling from dozens or hundreds of feet in the air is not dangerous if you stick the landing at a downward angle – provided that the slope lasts as far as you can jump! That’s why they have to periodically find better ski jump slopes so that as people jump farther and farther, they don’t go so far that the slope levels out and the skiers are essentially falling from hundreds of feet in the air. ---
**Author:** ![Llama\_Llogophile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@Llama\_Llogophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llama_Llogophile)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2026, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alex-honnold-can-climb-a-half-mile-of-sheer-vertical-rock/829974/75 "2026-01-26T03:36:53Z")
A friend mentioned this the other day and asked incredulously, “Why would he climb a building with no safety precautions?” Other friend said, “Oh, it’s to raise money for a good cause.” “What cause?” “People with chronic fear of heights.” That really made me laugh, the idea of a charitable act which would terrify by proxy the very people it would benefit. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2026, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alex-honnold-can-climb-a-half-mile-of-sheer-vertical-rock/829974/76 "2026-01-26T03:52:00Z")
I heard that Netflix was going to live-stream it, with a 10-second delay. I’m glad he got to do it, and tell us about it. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2026, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alex-honnold-can-climb-a-half-mile-of-sheer-vertical-rock/829974/77 "2026-01-28T19:43:14Z")
> [@Llama\_Llogophile](#): > > Other friend said, “Oh, it’s to raise money for a good cause.” > > “What cause?” > > “People with chronic fear of heights.” I wonder when I get my cut 😊 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alex-honnold-can-climb-a-half-mile-of-sheer-vertical-rock/829974.md?page=3)