Runner's World

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STEPPING UP TO THE

CHALLENGE OF 11674 STEPS

RISING PRECIPITOUSLY

TO THE SUMMIT OF

A SWISS MOUNTAIN

DUNCAN CRAIG TACKLES

EUROPE’S CRAZIEST RACE

AND INVESTIGATES THE

GROWING APPEAL OF

STAIR RUNNING

JUNE 2018 RUNNERSWORLD.CO.UK 047

TO HELL

● Basic race etiquette was one of the earliest

casualties. The organisers had been quite

clear – should we become aware of someone

trying to pass us on the single-file steps during

our interminable ascent the would-be overtaker

should say ‘treppe’ (‘stairway’ in Swiss-German)

and we should step aside. But there’s something

about being in the red zone – deeper in the red

zone in fact that you’ve ever been – that relegates

basic manners to the most inconsequential of

matters. Survival instincts kick in and you become

a selfish bugger. Or at least I did – ignoring pleas

from behind sticking to my line forcing overtakers

to brave the steeply sloping chute-like channel

that separates the steps from the funicular tracks.

There was no way I was surrendering even the

faintest sliver of momentum. When you have

thousands of steps still ahead of you such things

take on an absurd importance.

The Niesen-Treppen-Lauf (Niesenbahn stair

race) had captivated me since I first read of it a

decade ago. The Niesenbahn funicular railway is

one of the Alps’ most accomplished engineering

feats. Extending up the Tobleronic slopes of Mount

Niesen in Switzerland’s Bernese-Oberland it cuts

a neat swathe through the forested foothills and

clings stiff-fingeredly to the barren upper slopes

like a freeclimber. But it was not so much this

engineering marvel that interested me as what

ran alongside it as a contingency for an emergency

evacuation of the railway: the world’s longest

staircase – a f light of 11674 steps.

GIANT STEPS