Shisha Pangma, the video of Ueli Steck

Here are the first images and Ueli Steck's debrief of his speed ascent up Shisha Pangma on 17/04/2011. A record time of ten and a half hours to the summit, and a total 20 hours round trip. "Shisha Pangma was just great" Steck wrote on his blog "One of those days when everything works out. I just started to climb, but did not expect to go to the summit. I was just thinking that I am going out to check the conditions up to 7200 meters. But things went well. Perfect Full Moon. Perfect conditions like on Cholatse and I felt great!"

He continued to describe his ascent as follows "I climbed the first part on the British Route then I traversed into the Wieliki Route because of bad rockfall in the night, and I ended by exiting on the Spanish Route. I didn’t have a Topo so i just climbed where I felt there was a good way… The exit was okay, with a few rock sections. After I got to the Summit Ridge I left my pack. There was not much in there but a stove, goggles, some extra food, and half a container of liquid. I climbed the whole route in down pants and jacket. But the temperatures were quite nice. The Meteogram said it was minus 12 degrees Celsius at 8000 meters. Maybe it was around -20 in the night. The ridge was okay – not much snow. The wind blew all the snow away earlier, so I reached the main summit quite quickly. Some of the traverse was a little scary because under the ridge on the Northside there was a lot a snow."

What followed was the descent and return to Base Camp, 20 hours after having set off from ABC. What a race! The only minor point, if you really want to search for something, is the camera that froze during the ascent. We hope that on the next mountain, on Cho Oyu, the batteries will manage to keep up to speed!

Ueli Steck Climbing Shisha Pangma (8027m)