ROANOKE, Va. — In January 2026, Alex Honnold free-soloed the 1,667-foot Taipei 101 live on Netflix. A few months later, on Honnold’s podcast Climbing Gold, Roanoke filmmaker Chad Heddleston floated an idea of his own: he wanted to climb the Roanoke Star.
He wasn’t entirely joking. In fact, he actually did it.
The result is Star Climb 101, a two-minute short film out today on Catching Pine Cones YouTube Channel and at https://www.catchingpinecones.com/. It’s part playful spoof of Honnold’s skyscraper spectacle, part love letter to Roanoke, the mountain town Heddleston calls home. It opens like a blockbuster trailer, complete with booming voiceover and the promise of “the brightest urban free solo climb ever,” then turns into something considerably sillier: a dawn ride up the greenway, a stop for coffee, a detour onto the jump line, and eventually an 88.5-foot neon star with a filmmaker standing on top of it.
In this short film, Heddleston shares his concern that Honnold may swoop into town and solo The Star before he can, but thinks “Honnold lives in Yosemite, and I live here, so I’m going to get there first.”
Honnold turns up in the film himself, via a recorded segment, remarking, “I feel like you could definitely climb that.”
Heddleston originally appeared on Honnold’s podcast because of another film he worked on called Catching Pinecones. Heddleston directed the award-winning documentary about pioneering climbers and cave explorers Jan and Herb Conn, which has screened at Kendal Mountain Film, Wild and Scenic, and 12 other film festivals in the international mountain film circuit. The podcast episode airs August 21 — where the conversation drifts from Taipei to a certain star on a certain mountain in Roanoke, Virginia.
The Roanoke Star has stood atop Mill Mountain since 1949, and it’s 88.5 feet of steel and neon overlooking Roanoke’s downtown from roughly 1,000 feet above the valley floor. It’s the most photographed landmark in the region and the reason Roanoke is called the Star City of the South. Until now, nobody had climbed it.
Learn more about Roanoke at www.roanokeoutside.com and www.get2knownoke.com.
The climb was conducted with the cooperation of /under permit from the City of Roanoke. The Roanoke Star is not open to climbing.
Watch: www.CatchingPinecones.com
Media contact:
Chad Heddleston, Director Star Climb 101 and Catching Pinecones
heddlestonc@gmail.com
(540) 323-8658
