On July 8, 2020, the two Bernese alpinists Adrian Zurbrügg and Nicolas Hojac climbed the so-called spaghetti tour over 18 peaks in the Monte Rosa massif in a new best time. In doing so, they beat the fastest time of Ueli Steck and Andy Steindl by almost an hour.
Adrian Zurbrügg and Nicolas Hojac started a special mission about two weeks ago. Without sleeping beforehand, the two alpinists started shortly before 23 p.m. Monte Rosa hutto the world famous Spaghetti tour to complete in record time.
According to official information, the tour leads over 18 peaks, all of which tower above the 4000 mark. It starts from the Monte Rosa hut. From there it goes over the Monte Rosa massif, where the highest peak in Switzerland is located, to the Little Matterhorn.
20 peaks exceeded in 13 hours and 39 minutes
As there are two more unofficial (Balmenhorn and Felikhorn) in addition to the 18 official summits, Zurbrügg and Hojac decided to exceed them.
We wanted to climb the tour as cleanly as possible and for that we needed optimal conditions.
By sunrise they have climbed the first ten peaks. The two were able to benefit from the very good conditions, but feared that the midday heat would soften the hard frozen snow and would slow them down.
Record hunt went according to plan
Even if the lack of sleep and the exertion of the last few hours became noticeable towards the end of the tour, everything went like clockwork. The experienced alpinists had to fully focus on the Monte Rosa massif so that no accident happened despite the record hunt. On the whole tour there was only one minor incident the last time I rappelled.
Our rope got stuck in the rock and we unfortunately had to cut it off with a knife, otherwise the loss of time would have been too great.
At around 12:30 p.m., the alpinists reached the top station of the Little Matterhorn, the destination of the tour. It took them 13 hours and 39 minutes to cover the 29 km route, covering almost 4500 meters in altitude. This is almost an hour faster than the original record.
Record broken by Ueli Steck and Andy Steindl
In 2015 this tour was for the first time in this form of Ueli Steck and Andy Steindl climbed in 14 hours and 35 minutes.
To climb the route during this time makes us very proud.
However, the two wanted to add that the two times could not be compared directly to each other, since Steck and Steindl climbed the tour as part of Steck's “82 Summits” project and Steck was probably not 100 percent recovered at the time of the tour.
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Credits: Picture and text zVg