Enter the Dragon: Taipei 101 Recap
2/6/202629 min
In the days after Alex’s successful climb of Taipei 101, Fitz and Alex debrief on the whirlwind week, including ending up in an SNL skit and the joy that comes from doing what you love.
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First 90 secondsFitz Cahall· Host0:00
Alex, you were, you were back in the Valley this fall. You spent some time on the side of El Cap and on the side of Middle Cathedral. What is your sort of go-to comfort piece of clothing?
Alex Honnold· Host0:10
I just spent six days on the wall with Tommy climbing El Cap, and my evening routine that just screamed indulgent comfort, like, "This is beautiful," is I would take off my harness and my climbing pants, and I would change into long johns and down- like, puffy pants, and, and then just put a slinger on my waist.
Fitz Cahall· Host0:26
Yeah.
Alex Honnold· Host0:26
And then, and then I'd put my big puffy on top. It's basically my Antarctic-style puffy. [laughs] And then you just feel like you're wearing a sleeping bag, and you can just sit around on the ledge and just, like, watch the moon rise.
Fitz Cahall· Host0:35
[laughs] You are a California climber through and through.
Alex Honnold· Host0:39
Yeah. It was chilly, though. Basically, I'm just using the Advanced Mountain Kit. I'm... And, and actually, I found that it really made a difference, because we were getting up way before sunrise, because we wanted to be climbing as soon as it was light. And if you're trying to get out of your sleeping bag at 4:30 in the morning, you kinda want the big layers, because [laughs] you just wanna feel totally warm. The North Face has you covered. Discover gear designed to take you to new heights at thenorthface.com.
Fitz Cahall· Host1:02
Alex, you're here. Uh, Taipei 101 went as planned, despite all the Internet's hand-wringing about whether or not you were considering the risks. How'd it go?
Alex Honnold· Host1:12
Yeah, it went, went as well as I could hope, really. It was great. Uh, climbing was fun, and had a good time.
Fitz Cahall· Host1:18
Um, we thought, in the whirlwind of media that you're in right now, we'd do a quick debrief before getting back to our regular scheduled programming. Um, we've got some great episodes coming up. A candid interview with maybe the one climber