Ueli Steck Sets Speed Record on the Eiger North Face

Swiss climber Ueli Steck broke his own speed climbing record on the north face of the Eiger yesterday. The 31-year-old alpinist, who set a record in 2007 with a 3 hour, 54 minute run up the classic Heckmair Route, blazed up on Valentine's Day in 2 hours and 47 minutes.
"When I set up the new record last year, I belayed myself 3 times with 15 meters of rope," Steck said in a statement on the Mountain Hardwear blog. "Yesterday I made it without belaying at all. I just used a rope loop, which allowed me to hook on occasionally. All the equipment was about 3 kg lighter than during my speed record of 2007."
The spectacular north face of the Eiger, which towers more than 5,900-feet above the Bernese Oberland valley in Switzerland and has claimed many lives over the last fifty years, is considered one of the toughest, most formidable mountains in the world. Check out Outside's March 2007 article, "Rising Sun," John Harlin's account of his quest to climb the same route that killed his father, legendary mountaineer John Harlin II, along with footage from MacGillivray Freeman's IMAX film, "The Alps," about Harlin's epic summit journey.
--Damon Tabor