Читать книгу The Light and Fast Organisation - Hollingworth Patrick - Страница 5

Early on the morning of Wednesday 13 February, leading Swiss alpinist Ueli Steck took the short train ride from his lakeside home town of Interlaken up to the small ski resort at Kleine Scheidegg at the foot of the Eiger. Most of the people on the train would have been dressed in thick, warm clothing, ready for a day of skiing: some light-hearted recreation, and nothing more. Indeed, Steck probably looked inconspicuous: rather than thick clothing and skis, he wore only lightweight attire and carried with him a tiny backpack, a thin climbing rope and a pair of short technical ice axes. Few, if any, people on the train that morning were aware of what Steck was about to do.

Less than three hours later Steck was standing on the summit of the Eiger, having completely rewritten the mountaineering record books and in doing so creating a new genre of mountaineering known as extreme alpinism. Steck made history that morning by climbing the North Face in record time, dramatically changing perceptions around what is possible when a commitment to climbing light and fast is made. What had taken the first ascensionists in 1938 four days – or 96 hours – to complete, Steck had finished in a staggering time of only 2 hours, 47 minutes and 33 seconds.

The sport of mountaineering would never be the same again.