BURSTThe man behind a record-breaking onsight free solo double-lap of the CN Tower is sharing his life story in his newly-published memoir, Untethered.
“Spider Dan” Goodwin, whose climb made the Guinness World Records in 1986, drew headlines as an accomplished free soloist on the rock who took that craft to urban structures.
The feat remains a landmark in urban free soloing and set up Goodwin as a pioneer in this genre of climbing, predating the major documented ascents of other big-name urban soloists like Alain Robert.
Goodwin has 10 major urban ascents, which includes a mix of onsight free solo, aid and roped climbs. Some well-known landmarks that he ascended were Chicago’s Sears Tower in 1981 and the World Trade Center in 1983.
While he was tackling urban climbs, Goodwin took the opportunity to promote a proposed bill known as the Skyscraper Defense Act, which would create highly-trained teams to rescue people from high-rise buildings during disasters.
His talent and mission garnered him praise from Marvel legend Stan Lee.
He also ticked off six notable rock climbing free solos in the early 1980s, ranging up to 5.12b.
In 1984, he also put up the first ascent of Maniac, 5.13d, in Maine, a cutting edge route at the time. It has seen few repeats.
More recently, Goodwin weighed in on the ethics of urban free soloing with respect to Alex Honnold’s Taipei 101 ascent.
His book details some of the harrowing challenges that he battled throughout the years. This included a near-fatal car crash, a public attempt on his life, financial ruin, and a terrifying battle with Stage Four cancer.
Gripped recently caught up with Goodwin, who is now 70, to discuss some key takeaways from his very eventful life.
Gripped: Stan Lee passed away some time ago. How did he wind up making a foreword for your book?
Goodwin: As readers of Untethered will discover, my connection to Stan began in 1981 when I scaled the Sears Tower in a Spider-Man suit, but we didn’t officially cross paths until after 9/11. We became fast friends during a joint television appearance. Hearing about the Skyscraper Defense Act, my battle with Stage Four cancer, and my memoir, he said I reminded him of his comic book characters wrestling with the weight of the world. He was so moved by my will to live that he offered to write the foreword. The irony of our relationship is undeniable: in 1981, people accused him of orchestrating my Sears Tower climb as a desperate publicity stunt to save his company from bankruptcy. Three decades later, he was the one actively securing a building for me to scale for his TV show, Stan Lee’s Superhumans.
Gripped: What drove you to write this book?
Goodwin: The true catalyst occurred twenty-five years ago on the Golden Gate Bridge. I had experienced a miraculous divine intervention while battling a terminal illness that was on the verge of ending my time on this planet. That life-altering moment compelled me to share a message of hope—to prove to others that they, too, can survive the unsurvivable. I never imagined the writing process would take twenty-five years. But the timing couldn’t be better. Launching this book as I turn 70, exactly on the 45th anniversary of my Sears Tower climb, proves that everything happens for a reason. Ultimately, Untethered is my gift to the climbing community and to anyone who believes they are destined for something greater.
Gripped: What do you hope people will take away from your story?
Goodwin: If there’s one takeaway, it’s that resilience is a choice. Whether you view yourself as a victim or the recipient of a priceless gift, your attitude dictates your altitude. Life will inevitably try to knock you off the wall—whether you’re facing a route you just can’t send, a terminal illness, financial destitution, or a crushing heartbreak. But if you shift your mindset, choosing gratitude over resentment, viewing setbacks as setups for something greater, and learning to become like water—a philosophy I discuss throughout the book—you will be amazed at how spectacular your life can become. Furthermore, I want readers to recognize that my story belongs to the history of climbing. I didn’t reach those summits alone; I stand on the shoulders of the mentors and pioneers who forged the path before me. Climbing trains us to look beyond our own egos and fight for something larger than ourselves. The climbing community gave me the tools to survive, and I wrote this to pass those exact tools on to the reader.
Gripped: You call your book a manifesto for survival. What does that mean for a reader?
Goodwin: When I call Untethered a manifesto for survival, I mean it is a literal blueprint for a bulletproof mind. It’s about being entirely “untethered” from panic, from other people’s opinions, and from the internal voices telling you it can’t be done. For the reader, it’s a realization that when success is your only option, you uncover a reservoir of strength you never knew existed. It’s about taking the principles of a free-soloist—where every move must be intentional, and failure means death—and applying that same hyper-focused mindfulness to whatever life-altering crux you are facing.
Gripped: One key moment: you made a bargain with the universe in that moment between life and death after a car crash. Do you believe that bargain is what kept you alive, or is that something you only made sense of in hindsight?
Goodwin: Belief is a profoundly powerful, invisible force. If you believe your feet will stick when pressed against a smooth granite face, they likely will. But if you believe the opposite—that your feet will slip—you will likely achieve that as well, as a self-fulfilling prophecy. After all, we are a byproduct of the rule: ‘what we think about, we bring about.’ That was the essence of my bargain. It was that unbreakable belief that kept me alive as I clung to the 63rd floor when my suction cups refused to stick. And as readers will discover, I struck a very similar deal when I was nearly taken out by Stage Four cancer.
Gripped: Another highlight is your 200-show run as a performer in Las Vegas at the Tropicana Hotel. You walked away from a doubling of your salary and a promising career in show business to climb a skyscraper. What was going through your head?
Goodwin: It came down to a single realization: I refused to lose my soul. Doubling my salary was tempting, but if I stayed under those neon lights, I feared I would become the character in The Picture of Dorian Gray—trading my true identity for hollow success. That was one gamble I wasn’t willing to take, especially when compared to the absolute purity of the risk I was about to undertake: scaling the world’s tallest building with nothing but a pair of suction cups and skyhooks.
Gripped: The Skyscraper Defense Act is the stated purpose behind the climbs, but as far as I can tell, nothing has been passed in Congress. How do you measure whether any of this actually worked?
Goodwin: Another great question. It’s true the Skyscraper Defense Act remains a proposed bill. However, it has been championed by major figures who truly understand the life-and-death stakes, including Stan Lee, former Vice President Dan Quayle, and Vincent Dunn, the legendary fire commander who wrote The Best Kept Secret. Yet, despite that heavy backing, not a single member of Congress has been willing to risk their political capital to pass it. I dive into the eye-opening reasons why later in the book. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but the tragic reality is it may take another catastrophic high-rise fire, with massive loss of life, to finally force our political leaders to act.
Gripped: Anything else you want to add?
Goodwin: If there is one thing I want Gripped readers to know, it’s that Untethered isn’t just about scaling the World Trade Center or throwing a human flag while free-soloing for national TV. It’s a survival manual for navigating the most tumultuous moments of your life. Since none of us gets out of this alive, the only question that matters is how fiercely we choose to live while we are here. The rules of survival are universal: You must become like water, adapting to the obstacles and finding the current that makes your heart sing. Releasing this book on Memorial Day—exactly 45 years after my Sears Tower ascent and just after turning 70—isn’t about reliving my past. It’s about handing you the exact blueprint I used to survive, empowering you to conquer whatever wall of challenges stands in your way.
Untethered is out now. Details on how to order it can be found on Dan Goodwin’s site.
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