The Climbing Society of Texas A&M – Commerce recently earned some serious bragging rights. The received official notification that that had broken not one, but two Guinness World Records for indoor climbing.
On January 18th, 2013 the climbing team spent 6 hours climbing non-stop to take the record for what Guinness calls “The greatest vertical distance climbed on an artificial climbing wall in six hours“. The team climbed 12,340 m (40,485.6 ft) beating the previous record of 5,308.8 meters.
Thats not all, the team also won the Guinness Record for “The fastest time to climb the height of Everest on an indoor climbing wall by a team” with a time of 4 hr 24 min 33 sec. The previous record was 9 hours 58 minutes and 55 seconds.
The team consisted of 12 members of the Climbing Society at Texas A&M University-Commerce: Andrew Dahir, Hunter Joyce, Kathryn Cotsakis, Will Lain, Dustin Lux, Luke Raper, Deric Moore, Jake Gadberry, Rory Curtin, Dax Havrilak, Tyler King and Austing King.
During the six hours each member of the team climbed the 45 foot wall over 90 times. That’s more than 4,050 feet for each climber. The four ropes that were used to break the records had to be retired at the end of the event. The fastest single climb up the wall was just under 5.2 seconds, achieved by multiple climbers.
From Guinness,
“We are delighted to confirm that you have successfully achieved a new GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS title for Greatest vertical distance climbed on an artificial climbing wall in 6 hours (team). We would like to congratulate you on your record-breaking achievement. You are OFFICIALLY AMAZING.” – Guinness World Records
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