Welcome to the Newschoolers forums! You may read the forums as a guest, however you must be a registered member to post. Register to become a member today!
The definition of irony: That you posted a really old, really popular video as breaking news on the exact day that said video becomes irrelevant. The record was broken today:
http://www.climbing.com/news/hotflashes/swiss_climber_breaks_eiger_speed_record/
However, Uli is the man, and I own the film that part is taken from. Uli this past week took his game of ultra-light, super-fast alpinism to the Himalaya and summitted one of the tallest mountains in the world, solo, in under 24 hours
I hope he goes back and breaks the record on the Eiger again. It seems that the Eiger record is the Alpinist's ultimate speed goal, just as the Nose on El Capitan is the rock climber's ultimate speed record. The record on the Nose has been going back and forth quite a lot recently, and the last record was only broken by a few seconds. It is very finely honed. As an aside, Uli Steck and Alex Honnold teamed up to make a go at the Nose speed record this past year, but Honnold called it off after a few tries as Uli "goes for it too much." A massive whip (fall) was taken while simul-climbing, and Honnold had the mental fortitude to see that something terrible was going to happen if they kept after the record.
