Speed Climbing

Swiss "speed climber" Ueli Steck is known for scaling mountains (you guessed it) extremely quickly. This first video shows snippets of interviews with him, describes his technique and training (plus there are pretty shots of our beloved Swiss Alps in summer). Needless to say, he is very, very harcore. He happily compares himself to a swiss watch at one point.

Below is a gorgeous clip of of his most famous feat to date, his record-breaking climb of the North Face of the Eiger in Switzerland. It ususally takes a couple of days to scale this mountain; he did it in 2 hour and 47 minutes, breaking the long-standing previous record of over four hours.

As an aside, I cannot at all relate to how this person's mind works - his drive and total devotion the goal of climbing things faster than anyone else. I don't get it. But it takes all kinds, I guess!

PS: Any idea what the song playing in the background is? It's really good.