He was able to practice El Capitan over and over, though. Was he able to in Tapei?

Yes, this past week he was doing a lot of practice with a rope. This building isn't new to him. He's also climbed it in previous years I believe.

I'd assume - unlike El Capitan - the pitches here are all pretty much identical, so by the time he got to the third or fourth floor he had it figured out

If you watch the climb you'll see that the skyscraper definitely wasn't quite so straightforward - there were some interesting challenges along the way.

Of course, no question El Cap was technically far more challenging.

He must have. My impression from the documentary is that he practice the climb route many times with safety gear first.

Yes. You can see him here climb with ropes: https://edition.cnn.com/2026/01/24/world/video/alex-honnold-...

It would be insanely reckless to free solo without practicing first.

In the rain! Here's another video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljtXTBenYlc

Yes, Freerider (the route he climbed on El Capitan) is much harder than the climbing on Taipei 101. The style of climbing is also very important, some of the moves on Freerider are very insecure and hard to climb in a reliable way, whereas on Taipei the difficulty largely comes from doing the same moves over and over again which means your body gets tired in a specific ways.

The climbing on Taipei was way more chill for him than the climbing on Freerider.

I was surprised to see him take breaks and wave at the crowd. Very different vibe.

>Climbing star, 23, dies after falling from Yosemite's El Capitan [this past Wednesday]

>Balin Miller, 23, was live-streamed on TikTok ascending and subsequently falling from the monolith on Wednesday.

>Details of what caused the incident are not clear, but Miller's brother Dylan told AFP he was lead rope soloing - a technique that enables climbing alone while still protected by a rope - on a 2,400ft (730m) route named Sea of Dreams.

>He had finished the climb and was hauling up equipment when he likely rappelled off the end of his rope, Dylan said.

>Tom Evans, a Yosemite-based photographer who witnessed Miller fall, told Climbing magazine he called 911 after Miller tried to free his bag, which was stuck on a rock.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz08jp4xv2jo

https://archive.ph/vjETS

Not sure what your point is here. He died rappelling when his bag got stuck. He didn't die free soloing. And it's unrelated to Yosemite. It was an avoidable accident and very sad. Climbers tend to die from Rappelling more than anything else. And, it's completely incomparable to Honnold's recent climb.

It was a response to this comment:

>I'm wondering if this is because El Capitan is a much more technically difficult climb and thus posing much more risk than Taipei 101.