The post read, “free soloing buildings until I get arrested.”
The building in question: Stearns West Tower in the Williams Village campus at the University of Colorado Boulder. The daunting structure consists of smooth tan brick walls that lack any of the necessary holds of a traditional climbing route. So he’d have to chimney climb for 15 stories.
“It was like a leg extension. A 500-rep leg extension,” said Lincoln Knowles, the 21-year-old climber crazy enough to do it.
The July video ended with a view of Boulder from the roof and no arrest.
Knowle’s Instagram account exploded in popularity this summer thanks to his controversial free soloing videos, complete with captions and antics that embrace absurdity and rage bait. His rise to stardom started with a series in June titled “Free Soloing, a Harder Route Every Day Until I Fall.” He’s been described in his videos’ comment sections as “suicidal,” “dangerous,” “an idiot” and “insane.”
World-renowned free soloer Alex Honnold, whose ascent of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park was the subject of the Oscar-winning documentary “Free Solo,” might have been his most famous critic.
“This is like everything I hate about influencer culture,” Honnal told Climbing magazine after watching one of Knowles’s videos in August. He’d eventually have a change of heart and appear in Knowles content.
But with 90,000 followers and counting, Knowles has tapped into an audience that has surpassed the climbing community, propelling him into the Gen Z zeitgeist.
While it may appear that he is a maniac with no sense of personal safety, everything’s going to plan. Behind the videos is a calculated content creator, pushing his limits to new heights, with no intention to fall.
Raised in Kansas City, Knowles didn’t have access to the mountains of Utah and Colorado, where many free soloers get exposed to the sport. What he did have was an urban environment and a climbing gym. So he got creative.
“I used to solo buildings and stuff as a kid. Like abandoned buildings, unfinished houses and stuff, just for fun,” Knowles said. “Then eventually I became a free soloist outside.”
When it came time for college, he was faced with a decision: choose a school for the academics or the University of Utah for its access to the outdoors.
“I was just like, f**k it. I’m going to go to Utah and just chill,” he said.
The summer before his junior year, he started a YouTube channel. He began to skip classes, spending time in the library editing videos and climbing on the weekends. While he was making no money and getting an abysmal number of views, he treated his channel as a full-time job.
After getting caught cheating at the end of the school year, he decided to drop out. It was a wake-up call. He abandoned his pursuit of a computer science degree and went all in on his videos.
Then on June 6, as he was brainstorming ideas for the title of his latest free soloing video for Instagram, it came to him: “Day One of Me Free Soloing a Harder Route Until I Fall.” It spread like wildfire.
“I honestly cooked with that one,” Knowles said. “At that point, I was soloing harder by myself, and I had some soloing goals, so it kind of made sense to start that challenge. And then on day two, I was like, ‘This is low-key a fire challenge.’”
While many are convinced that Knowles is reckless and will eventually die in pursuit of the challenge, he’s meticulous. While he pushes his limits, he knows them too.
“The goal is to never have a solo feel like you’re rolling the dice or that this is lowering my chance of living,” Knowles said.
When Knowles was in high school, he struggled with depression and grappled with whether life was worth it. So while others may see Knowles as gambling with death, one of the biggest reasons he continues to push himself is for his own survival. He believes that if you never face real fear and danger, you can’t truly appreciate your existence on Earth.
“It frames life as something that is great and that you have to work towards, and that it’s awesome,” Knowles said. “Life is worth living.”
