Tools for climbing a skyscraper

An event halfway between extreme sport and entertainment took place over the weekend: American climber Alex Honnold completed the climb of one of the tallest skyscrapers on the planet, Taipei 101 in Taiwan, live (or almost) on Netflix. And he did it while listening to Tool.

Honnold set a record for the solo urban climb by climbing the building without safety equipment, ropes or anything else – and in fact in case of unexpected events Netflix streamed the feat with a 10″ delay. And in an interview with Variety, the climber talked about his playlist and the role of music

“It was almost all Tool stuff. A somewhat random playlist that I had put together and shared with the production. I created it months ago while I was driving and I trained a lot with that music: basically it’s rock that I’ve loved all my life
A big part of it is that it helps me with the rhythm. Each section took me about five or six and a half minutes. By knowing how long the songs are, you immediately know if you’re going faster or slower.”

The climb of the 101-story skyscraper finished in one hour and 31 minutes on Saturday, after being delayed a day by rain. “I definitely noticed the wind and towards the top I was starting to get tired. Not to the point where I thought I was going to fall, but enough to say: ‘Ok, it’s making itself felt’.”