Swiss climber Ueli Steck is in Yosemite and planning to make an assault on the speed record on El Capitan. According to the Hardware Sessions, the official blog of Mountain Hardwear gear, is reporting that Ueli is already scouting the lines, and planning his route with climbing partner Alex Honnold.
The current speed record was set last fall by Hans Florine and Yuji Hirayama and sits at 2 hours 37 minutes and 05 seconds. Pretty impressive when you consider that the 3000 foot tall face was fist climbed back in 1958, a feat which took 47 days to complete at the time.
Ueli is amongst the best climbers in the world, and already holds a number of speed records for big faces in the Alps. For example, he bagged the North Face of the Eiger back in February of 2007 in just one hour and 48 minutes, an astounding time for that wall as well.
Below is a video of Ueli and Alex making a traing climb on the Nose from a few days back. Stay tuned for updates on whether or not they can break the record. It should be very interesting!
Alex and Uli speed climbing The Nose on 5.20.10 from Chris Falkenstein on Vimeo.
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Hi Ueli
Du suchtest doch noch vor wenigen Tagen einen Kletterpatrner fuer den Freerider (oder andere schwere Mehrseillaengen). Da mein Partner fuer die Salathe abgereist ist, haette ich nun zeit. Ich haenge in der naehe des Camp 4 ab und habe eine Notitz am Schwarzen Brett. Ich habe zwar ein paar Leuten gesag, das sie dir bescheid geben sollen aber man kann nicht sicher sein. So hoffe ich das dich die nachicht so erreicht
Tobias Wolf