Nadine Wallner climbs Vertical Jungfrau Marathon in under 17 hours with Simon Wahli

Former freeride World Champion, ace rock climber (in 2019 she made the second female ascent of Beat Kammerlander's trad climb Prinzip Hoffnung) and general badass mountaineer Nadine Wallner has made a swift ascent of the emblematic Vertical Jungfrau Marathon in Switzerland's Bernese Oberland.

As the name suggests, this is a long ascent that leads from the picturesque Lauterbrunnental all the way to the 4158m summit of the Jungfrau, the iconic mountain located next to Eiger and Mönch. The vertical marathon is actually a logical combination of two existing rock climbs, namely Stägers Bürtblätz (350m, 7a+) and Fätze und Bitze (300m, 7a) before following the long and serious Rotbrättgrat ridge to the summit.

The 34-year-old Austrian mountain guide teamed up with her her colleague Simon Wahli who, ahiling from Grindelwald, quite literally has these mountains on his doorstep. The pair set off at 3:45 am and reached the summit 16 hours and 20 minutes later, at around 8:00 pm. In doing so Wallner has become the first woman to complete this demanding outing.

The first to climb this combination, over two days in 1997, were Sacha Wettstein and Andreas Leibundgut while on 22 August 2013 Roger Schäli and David Hefti whittled that time down to 16 hours, setting off at 3:30 at night and summiting at 19:30.