Ueli Steck Reclaims his Eiger Speed Record
What did you get up to in the first 2 and a half hours of work on Monday morning? Productive? Well Ueli Steck obviously wasn't suffering from the 'Monday morning blues' because he was up to the summit of the infamous Eiger in 2 hours 22 minutes 50 seconds! Using the standard 1938 route which involves almost 4000 meters of terrain as it weaves its way up the north face, Steck soloed back into history reclaiming the record from Dani Arnold by just 7 minutes.
The difference between this ascent and the record set 7 years ago is that in 2008 Steck climbed free solo. Not clipping into any fixed lines on the Hinterstoisser traverse and not using any protection, fixed or otherwise. This time he decided to climb as Arnold did and most others do, using fixed protection such as lines and pegs to pull on. The difference obviously amounting to 25 minutes faster although Ueli did say that he didn't push himself physically as hard this time as he did back in 2008.
The following is a list of historical speed ascents of the Heckmair route on the North Face of the Eiger -
18:00 Leo Forstenlechner, Erich Wascak, 1950
10:00 Peter Habeler, Reinhold Messner, 1974
8:30 Ueli Bühler, 1981 6:00 Franc Knez, 1982
4:50 Thomas Bubendorfer, 1983
4:30 Christoph Hainz, 2003
3:54 Ueli Steck, 2007
2:47 Ueli Steck, 2008
2:28 Dani Arnold, 2011
2:22 Ueli Steck, 2015