The Ueli Sanction: World Record Solo Speed Ascent of the Famous Eiger (Hardwear Sessions)

By Ueli Steck

As an old birthday gift to my girlfriend Nicole, I told her, "Together we'll climb the Eiger." For her it was an amazing experience. What a really good time we had up there together. We slept in two very warm Phantom sleeping bags on the Bivouac of Death. Ok, so maybe that's not such a nice name for a bivy with your girlfriend, but it's the best spot in the whole Eiger Face and is pretty much in the middle.

We reached the summit on the second day around 3:30 p.m. February 18th, 2007.

The conditions were very good during the whole ascent. I knew that these were the conditions I had been waiting for for years. Climbing the Eiger in a new record time has been an old project of mine. The bar was already set high; Christoph Hainz summited in 4 hours 30 minutes. Now my cards were pretty good. I had been training really hard in the last six months from the Annapurna Project. I knew that each attempt I made was faster than the last. The Eiger was ready for me! I rested for two days. It was beautiful weather but I stayed home and didn't go climbing or running… just getting ready to go up again. On Wednesday I went up on the first train to Eiger glacier. It's pretty nice to take the train.

At 7:25 a.m. I stepped forward to climb the Eiger and said to myself, "You will be back for dinner."

As I looked up at the first rock pitch, I remembered the death of two Italian climbers. I started to run, it was not walking or climbing, it was running. My heart rate went up to 180.

The first 500 meters is more or less snow at 45 to 60 degrees and some small mixed pitches. After ten minutes I found a crampon in the snow. It was a brand new crampon and I knew somebody dropped it so I clipped it to my harness. A couple minutes later I found two English climbers who were sleeping.

My watch read 16 minutes. I gave the guys their crampon back and told them, "I am in a hurry and have to be back in town this afternoon." They looked at me like I was not serious.

Climbing was going very well and I arrived at the Difficult Crack. Now was the time to use my new belay system. This was the key point of the whole ascent. I climbed to the third piton and clipped my rope in with a leaver biner. I had a loop about 15 meters long, it was just a back up for the worst case scenario. If I were to take a fall it would be thirty meters…

The climbing was going straight forward and I was very focused. My mind was just on climbing.

I climbed both rock pitches in seven minutes. Now it was time for the endurance part of the Ramp. My watch read 1 hour 46 minutes when I arrived at the Bivy of Death where my girlfriend and I slept three days ago. I drank some water and quickly ate a Powerbar to keep climbing. In the Ramp there was a second key pitch and again I used the same self belay system. It was just like an everyday occurrence. I was exactly prepared and it took me just a few minutes to finish the Waterfall Chimney. I unclipped the rope and climbed ropeless again with a thirty meter tail behind me. The traverse was just like walking. As I ascended the Exit Crack I again used my fifteen meter loop belay system. The Worse Case Belay System was very efficient. I was going as fast I could in the summit snowfield and on the arete to the summit. I hadn't checked my watch since I left the Bivy of Death. The first thing I did when I reached the summit was press the stop button on my watch. It took a few minutes to be able to check the time; it read 3 hours 54 minutes. I was just very very happy. I couldn't believe it. The descent on the Eiger glacier took only one hour and the snow was great. I was just sitting in the snow and sliding almost the whole 1800 meters straight down to the train station. I could day climb the Eiger and the best thing was I still had enough time to go to the bouldering gym in the late afternoon…

See more photos of Ueli Steck's climb of the Eiger on Flickr.com