Outside Magazine Features Ueli Steck

Speed Freak. The April issue of Outside Magazine uses those words to describe Suunto athlete, Ueli Steck. It's a good choice of words, as Ueli holds multiple world records in speed climbing. In 2008, he climbed the famous Eiger Mountain in the Bernese Alps - an ascent that most climbers take three days to complete - in two hours and 47 minutes, shaving a full hour and 7 minutes off of his own previous record.

Outside Magazine correspondent Tim Neville, puts it this way:

"Nobody climbs faster than Swiss superman Ueli Steck... Steck is a mutant combination of the finest climbers out there, past and present. He has Reinhold Messner's high-altitude endurance, can climb 5.13 without a rope, and has the brains and prudence of Ed Viesturs."

Ueli started his climbing adventures young, first tackling a rock face when he was 12 years old.

"At 18, Steck tackled his first real test, the north face of the Eiger, doing the Heckmair Route in a day and a half. By 21 he was racing up stiff lines on the Mönch, and in 2004, at 28, he and a partner linked the three north faces of the Mönch, the Eiger, and the Jungfrau in one 25-hour push. Things really picked up after he free-soloed a wildly exposed line called Excalibur—a 750-foot-long 5.10d over Wenden, Switzerland."

Pick up the latest issue of Outside at the newstand for the full story, or check out the online version here.

Thanks for inspiring us ever further upward, Ueli!