Ueli Steck has set a new solo speed for the Eiger north face, reaching the summit on Tuesday in two hours, 22 minutes and 50 seconds. He beat the previous record held by compatriot Dani Arnold by over five minutes.
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“Good conditions on the Eiger. So cool morning climbing the Heckmair Route,” the 39-year-old alpinist stated on Movescount, the online community hosted by electronics company Suunto.
Steck’s climbExternal link involved a vertical ascent of almost 1,600 m at an average speed of 1.1 km/h. At his fastest he managed speeds of up to 4.7 km/h.
His 2008 Eiger speed record of two hours and 47 minutes was broken by fellow Swiss Arnold in 2011 who managed to scramble to the top in two hours and 28 minutes. However, Arnold still holds the speed record for the Matterhorn beating Steck’s record by ten minutes in April.
This has been an eventful year for Steck. In August he succeeded in his quest to climb 82 Alpine peaks over 4,000 m in 62 days. The feat was achieved without the use of any motorised transport. His team travelled by bike or foot between the base camps, and tried to paraglide back down from the summits into the valleys where possible.
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Climber Ueli Steck summits 82 peaks in 62 days
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The mountaineer nicknamed the “Swiss machine” ended the 82 summits campaign by reaching the top of the 4,102m Barre des Écrins mountain in the French Alps on Tuesday. Steck and Wohlleben travelled by bike or foot between the base camps, and tried to paraglide back down from the summits into the valleys where possible. “For…
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Arnold’s record-setting climb was completed on April 22 – made public on Thursday – and beat the existing record by fellow Swiss Ueli Steck by ten minutes, according to Arnold’s sponsor Mammut. “I didn’t feel well at all initially,” Arnold said after the climb, in a press release. “I almost felt sick and thought about…
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The climb is already being hailed as one of the greatest achievements in modern Himalayan history. “Ueli Steck is an amazing climber and it’s no surprise that he managed to become the first person to solo the south face of Annapurna 1 in an unprecedented time of 28 hours,” said the Himalayan chronicler, Elizabeth Hawley. …
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At Everest Base Camp, swissinfo.ch spoke to the 36-year-old, who has made a name for himself among the world’s climbing elite for his solo speed ascents on some of the world’s toughest mountain faces, in both the Alps and Himalaya. There is a lot of pressure on him to attempt a new or difficult Everest…
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