Ecuadorian-Swiss mountain guide and runner Karl Egloff has reportedly broken the Aconcagua speed record, less than two months after Spanish ultrarunner Kilian Jornet set the fastest mark, . Jornet made it up and down the Andes peak in 12 hours, 49 minutes, but Egloff outpaced him by nearly an hour, with a time of 11 hours, 52 minutes.
Egloff’s team posted news of his record-setting run on Thursday. He took the same 25-mile route up as Jornet, starting at the Horcones trailhead on the south side and blasting up 13,327 vertical feet to the top of the Western Hemisphere’s highest mountain.
The 33-year-old Egloff has competed in mountain races worldwide and appears to be hot on the heels of Jornet, who has set blistering paces on some of the world’s highest peaks and plans to dash up Everest this year. Egloff, general manager and tour leader or in Ecuador, beat Jornet’s four-year-old Kilimanjaro speed record in August, clocking in half an hour faster, . He also holds the fastest known time on Cotopaxi, Ecuador’s second-highest mountain.