{"id":249978,"date":"2026-01-24T19:16:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T19:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/249978\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T19:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T19:16:09","slug":"climber-delays-rope-free-skyscraper-ascent-over-rain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/249978\/","title":{"rendered":"Climber delays rope-free skyscraper ascent over rain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1768389368_961_grey-placeholder.png\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 gUePlo hide-when-no-script\" aria-label=\"image unavailable\"\/><img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1df9cd80-f922-11f0-80ef-8925f4fe99a2.png.webp.webp\" loading=\"eager\" alt=\"Getty Images Alex Honnold at Yosemite National Park in California\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 hLdNfA\"\/>Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Alex Honnold was the first climber to perform a rope-free ascent of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">An American climber has postponed scaling the Taipei 101, one of the world&#8217;s tallest buildings, rope-free for another 24 hours due to wet weather.     <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Alex Honnold, who scaled El Capitan in California&#8217;s Yosemite National Park without a rope in 2017, said on Saturday: &#8220;Sadly it&#8217;s raining in Taipei right now so I don&#8217;t get to go climbing.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">The skyscraper in Taiwan&#8217;s capital measures 508m (1,667ft) and is made of steel, glass and concrete. It contains eight sections, each with a slight overhang designed to resemble joints on a bamboo stick.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Netflix &#8211; which will stream the event &#8211; says there will be a delay on the live feed should the worst happen.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;It&#8217;s obviously a conversation that everybody has,&#8221; Netflix executive Jeff Gaspin told Variety magazine. &#8220;We&#8217;ll cut away. We have a 10-second delay. Nobody expects or wants to see anything like that to happen.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">The climb is now due to take place on Sunday.  Announcing the delay, Netflix said: &#8220;Safety remains our top priority, and we appreciate your understanding.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Taipei 101 has been conquered before. In 2004, France&#8217;s Alain Robert, who called himself Spiderman, climbed it in four hours using a safety belt and rope.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Netflix said there will be three stages to Honnold&#8217;s rope-free climb. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">First, there is an initital 113m section of sloping steel and glass followed by the eight &#8220;bamboo&#8221; boxes before reaching the final stage which includes scaling the spire at the very top of the tower. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1768389368_961_grey-placeholder.png\" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 gUePlo hide-when-no-script\" aria-label=\"image unavailable\"\/><img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/808506f0-f935-11f0-814e-71ff186d4f46.jpg.webp.webp\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Getty Images People stand under umbrellas at the bottom of Taipei 101 in Taiwan \" class=\"sc-5340b511-0 hLdNfA\"\/>Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Taipei 101&#8217;s surfaces were deemed too wet for a climb on Saturday <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Honnold, 40, who is married with two children, said it was &#8220;a lifelong dream&#8221; to scale a skyscraper.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">His historic 2017 ascent of El Capitan without a rope was documented in the film Free Solo, which won an Academy Award.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">An enormous sheer granite rock face of approximately 3,000 feet (915m), El Capitan is a major landmark in Yosemite and entices big-wall rock climbers from all over the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty Images Alex Honnold was the first climber to perform a rope-free ascent of El Capitan in Yosemite&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":249979,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[442,498,499,500,501,156,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-249978","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-artsdesign","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-new-zealand","15":"tag-newzealand","16":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249978\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}