Nicolas Hojac And Philipp Brugger Smash Record
Swiss climber Nicolas Hojac and Austrian partner Philipp Brugger smash a 21-year-old record by scaling the North Faces of the Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau in just 15 hours and 30 minutes.
Well, hold on to your crampons and tighten those thermals, because a couple of chaps from the Alps have just done something that would make even a Yeti raise an eyebrow. Swiss climber Nicolas Hojac and his Austrian mate Philipp Brugger have gone and smashed a 21-year-old mountaineering record — and not by a whisker, mind you, but by nearly ten hours. That’s not shaving off a bit of time — that’s giving Father Time a firm slap and running off with his watch.
The dynamic duo took on the trifecta of terror — the North Faces of the Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau — all before your morning coffee had a chance to go cold. They completed the monstrous climb in 15 hours and 30 minutes on April 5, which is just bonkers considering the previous best time was 25 hours, set back in 2004 by Swiss legends Ueli Steck and Stephan Siegrist.
To put it in perspective: what Steck and Siegrist did was already Olympic-level wizardry. What Hojac and Brugger have done is akin to apparating up the mountain like something straight out of a Harry Potter spin-off, Mountaineers and the Sorcerer’s Summit.
“This record feels completely surreal to me,” Hojac admitted, presumably while checking his watch and wondering if they had time for a cheeky fondue before tea. “We would have been very satisfied with 19 to 21 hours. The fact that we managed it in even less time shows that we’re all often capable of more than we think.”
Which is a very polite way of saying: “We aimed for a double and ended up with a six over long-off.”
The pair set off at the ungodly hour of 01:00 — the sort of time most people are rolling over and hitting snooze. They reached the Eiger summit in under six hours, a feat that would take most climbers a couple of days, a few sandwiches, and possibly a minor existential crisis.
Not ones to dilly-dally, the lads kept up the pace, darting from peak to peak with the sort of urgency usually reserved for a fire drill or last orders at the pub.
And if that wasn’t impressive enough, Brugger casually dropped this little gem: “We’ve been wanting to take on this project together for a year now, but then I experienced a perforated bowel.”
Now, most people would take a perforated anything as a sign to perhaps take it easy, knit a scarf, or binge-watch something gentle. Not Philipp. He went from punctured intestines to perilous inclines like it was just another Tuesday.
“To be standing on the Jungfrau with Nico a year later… well, I never would have thought it,” he said — and frankly, neither would the rest of us.
So what’s next for these alpine overachievers? A nice lie-in, one hopes. Or perhaps a race up Mount Everest on unicycles — who knows?
But one thing’s for certain: they’ve reminded us all that human limits are meant to be tested, records are meant to be broken, and if you’ve got the grit, the guts, and a good climbing partner, even the North Faces of three of the most fearsome peaks in the Alps are just another scenic stroll in the snow.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I am off to have a sit-down and a cuppa. Just reading about it was exhausting.
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