New Troposphere Record

 It must seem to some that we do nothing more than try to break the speed record on this climb. Fact is, we rarely get on it and mostly just to get to halfway house.
After filming our Rope Solo instruction video on Troposphere -which is good for filming on - Hamish and I talked of hosting a speed climbing day. He said that he would have to learn it again before he would be able to go fast on it.
Just for fun, we decided to kill some time by having a run up it. Hamish decided to lead due to me being more familiar and less likely to fall. The aim was to go at a steady pace since Only I and Alex had gone under 15 minutes. After seeing him speed through the first low angle part and then skip a bunch of draws, I realised that he was set for speed
I started up after him (just 20m apart). When he got to the 2nd pitch anchors, where we have always placed our first microtraxion for safety, I noticed that he didn't place it. What the hell, if I fall, he was only likely to be 10 metres above his last piece. Fact is, I didn't plan to fall. Turns out that he forgot the 2nd microtraxion too, which protects him from me falling on the crux pitch. I knew that we were going fast, although we had a couple of timing issues where I waited for him then subsequently dogged him
When we reached the top, I couldn't believe that the clock was at 12mins flat. I guess that Hamish wasn't out of practice afterall