Greetings everybody, welcome to Epic TV interviews in the news once again, the Swiss machine
Uli Steck.
Now you probably remember the last time we spoke with Uli.
He had just summited Everest solo and without oxygen.
It was amazing feat.
You probably also remember him for putting up speed records on the three great north
faces of the Alps, the Grand Geras, the Matterhorn, the Eiger, well this time he's gone and he
has climbed three major peaks in Switzerland in less than 12 hours.
He did it before in 2004, I believe, let's say 2006, something like this.
Anyway, in 25 hours, so he's taken less than half the time that he did it before and he
did it in a really unique way.
We're going to give him a call and find out more about how he did it.
Good morning Uli, it's Trey from Epic TV.
Hey, hello, good morning.
Hey man, how's it going?
Good, good, good, good, good, congratulations on the three peaks in Switzerland, the Eiger,
the Jungfrau and the Monch.
Now if I understand correctly, I believe in 2004, you and Stefan Sigris climbed these
three peaks in a really quick 25 hours and these are peaks that would normally take normal
alpinists a good time would be three days, is that right?
Yeah, depends how fast you are but normally you do it on a day, yeah.
So you have gone and you've done all three peaks in 12 hours, now how did you do that?
I mean, you have to be correct, in 2004 we climbed all the north faces.
Okay, okay.
This time I climbed different roads, those conditions are not good for the Eiger north
face, so I'm not climbing the north face in this warm tempered, it's just suicide.
Okay, and that's because of the extreme rockfall that happens when the ice…
Yeah, rockfall and you have water everywhere and all that, I mean you can do it if you
want but it's Russian roulette.
Right, super dangerous.
My idea was just like paragliding, which is interesting.
Paragliding, that's fantastic, tell me more.
No, because I was flying, you know, I had a small paraglider with me all the time and
I climbed the Jungfrau, so you can take off just below Summit and I flew to the base
of the Munch and then I climbed the north face of the Munch and then I take off on Summit
and then see my paraglider and I'm flying to the Eiger and that's the fantastic part
in the whole story.
I just went for it, you know, you just take your backpack and just climb for a day and
that's it.
It's no preparation, no food, people feed, no water, just your backpack and just go.
That's fantastic and how much does your paraglider weigh?
The paraglider is two kilo one hundred grams.
And how big is the paraglider?
So it's a light, all the way down to 19 square meters.
And so you can't just do this trilogy like you did every day, you have to have perfect
conditions basically, right?
I mean that's a big challenge, you know, now it's like you don't only need good,
good conditions for climbing, which also is very, yeah, it's not every day you can climb
this route, but you need good weather conditions for flying.
If the wind comes from the south side, you cannot launch off.
I think you started from the Roll Tall Hut at 3 a.m., the Roll Tall below the Yung Frou?
Yeah, exactly.
I climbed with a good friend with Marcus, he's a very good paraglider, and we just climbed
together to Yung Frou, just easy, slowly, but I think we were, we left quite early in
the huts.
The Roll Tall, which is just a classic climb, rich climb, it's not too hard, it's some,
I don't know, climbing, not very hard climbing, not yet, you have just these snow fields to
get to the summit, because it's a pretty basic route, it's a serious long, classic climb.
Does it have a rating like a PD or a D rating?
I don't know the rating of this route, she doesn't ask me about ratings.
I don't care about ratings, I think four and a half hours it's time to reach, and after
we had like a little break on summit, but the wind was already perfect in the morning,
so we were taking off like around eight o'clock from Yung Frou, and Marcus had to go back.
My idea is, I just try if I can land on the base of the mountaineer face, I'm not sure
if it's going to be possible, I've never done that before, so I went up to over, and I mean
the air was really really stable, the wind was just nice and not too strong, so I could
land in on this glacier plateau, just below the mountaineer face, which was already great,
and for me, on this moment the day was already perfect, I knew, even if I just climbed, now
the mountains, it would be a great day.
So I managed to not face a loud route, I saw it already a couple of times, so it's basically
a training route, it took me like one hour and 55 minutes to climb this thousand-foot
north face, and most people like the route there.
After this, I was thinking like, well, first my plan was just go to the Eiger north face,
but it was way too warm, and so I stood on the munch, just like, okay, I can fly, I can
take off on the munch, pretty easy, but it's still early of the day, what could I do?
And then I had the idea, oh, why not I fly to the south side of the Eiger, and climb
the middle acreage, so this decision I made on the munch, and I took off really easy on
the munch, which was, you know, the take off on munch is a lot smaller than on Jungfrau,
I mean Jungfrau is huge to take off, but on munch, you have to be careful, if you don't
take off stable, you're gonna die, it's like a serious, a serious taking off there, and
I flew over to the E.
One second, how big is the summit of the munch, is it a small, can you tell me how big it
is, how many square meters?
I mean, it's not a plateau, it's just too large, it's not huge, it's maybe 15 meters
wide.
Okay.
But 15 meters, you know, to take off, it's not much.
No, not at all.
It's, you like to have some space for your paraglider.
Yeah, I think I might skip that one.
Then I flew over to, you know, the Eiger Coal to the south side of the Eiger, and I
landed on the ice mare, and there, it was really hard to see if, you know, the whole
glacier is white, and from above, you can't really see how steep it is, and there was
like, hmm, because it works, it's too steep, can I land in there?
It was like hard to find the landing spot, so I decided to land a little bit further
down where I was sure it's a flat space, and there are no crevasses, so I'm not landing
into crevasses.
It's like, you have to be careful landing on glaciers, and then I hacked up, I hacked
up to the hut, had some lunch there, and a little afternoon climb to the Eiger, I mean,
it took me like, for one hour and 15 minutes.
By the Mitolegge Ridge, is that right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's just a nice climb.
Okay, and it took you an hour and 15 minutes, how long would it take a normal alpinist?
Most people have like, six, seven hours to climb from the hut, I mean, you can do that,
if you're like, I mean, I had my percolator, and I was already quite tired, so, but you
climb that in like, under an hour, that's no problem, it's not that far, it's just
600 meters, I don't know, and then from, from here, you know, the Eiger is not a good spot
to take off, and first I was thinking, yeah, now I climb the Eiger, and I just descend
down and take the train home, and when I was on the, on top of the Eiger, the weather was
still perfect, there was no cloud, and perfect wind again, still from the right.
Fantastic.
I was like, hmm, I mean, walking is not that nice, and it's not good for your knees, so
I hiked down the west, west, west, west there, face, and just on the, on the, on Geneva
spur, I found a really good spot to lounge off, and just taking off on Geneva spur,
and I flew all the way down to, to Laos de Gondon, and it was, it was quite, you know,
I taking off on Geneva spur, and my idea was, I just want to go down to my, to my car and
have some, some food, but the thermics were so good, absolutely, I was like, I had really
a hard time to get down, so you don't have an emergency parachute, but you just want
to fly down, but now, I mean, I just went up, up, up, up, up, it just, it just go down,
and I was like, ah no, I want to go down and have some food.
I love the paragliding aspect, have you been paragliding a long time?
No, I, I, I started last year, and I think, yeah, I did my exam, it's, yeah, it was last
September, yeah. Does this give you some ideas for other peaks
and other enchantments? Yeah, I mean, there are lots of possibilities,
but these days are, if you're lucky, you have one or two a year, but of course, then they
are great, and I like to do some more stuff like that.
I was not in a hurry, I just enjoyed the day, it was not like, when I left in the morning,
I was not like, leaving for a, for a big mission, and just do as much as you can, it
was like, yeah, just go have fun climbing, I left with, you know, with Marcus, he, I
mean, he, he's not fast, he just had a good climb up to Jungfrau, and then, okay, let's,
let's see if I can go to Mönchend, it was one of these days, it was not like, okay,
I'm on a mission, I have to move on, you know.
Outstanding, that's such a great story, such a great day, what was the best part of the
day for you? For me, the parts of flying was the, the
best part of it, because, you know, for me, that's something new, I mean, climbing this
route, even without the rope, it's like, yeah, that's nothing special for me anymore, that's
like, okay, you just do it, but the flying part, sometimes I was like, okay, I hope it's
gonna work, you know, I hope, yeah, conditions are the right way, and I don't fuck up the
lounge off, and, and for me, it is always like, just taking off, and just, you know,
at this moment, you just feel, okay, now I'm in the air, it's like, there was the best
moment of the whole day.
Well, once again, congratulations, thanks for speaking with us, and we look forward to
hearing about your next big event.
Yeah.
I do my best.
All right, thanks, Uli.
Okay, thanks, have a great day.
All right, you too.
Bye-bye.
So, there you have it, ladies and gentlemen, Uli Steck, complete nutter, actually, not
a complete nutter.
He's totally on top of what he's doing, he's completely dialed in, what an amazing guy.
That's our show for today, we'll see you next time.
