American Tyler Andrews summited Manaslu today shortly before 1:30 pm, in a nine-hour and 52-minute blitz from Base Camp. He has smashed the FKT (fastest known time) record on the mountain. Pemba Gelje Sherpa broke the previous mark last year.
The American trail runner took advantage of his early arrival at Base Camp and the quick fixing of the ropes. A sherpa team finished fixing the lines to the summit yesterday.
Remarkably, Andrews hadn’t planned to attempt his FTK yet.
“Today was supposed to be an acclimatization rotation, but he [Andrews] was feeling fantastic when he got up to Camp 4, and the weather is just absolutely perfect right now, so he decided to go for it,” expedition operator Dawa Steven Sherpa of Asian Trekking told Explorersweb.
Perfect timing
Andrews climbed without supplementary oxygen and without sherpa support. Although he traveled to Nepal with regular training mate Chris Fisher, Andrews went for Manaslu’s summit on his own.
After the ropes were fixed to the summit yesterday, there were some people on the mountain but no crowds were reported. Before Andrews, only one summit team had set off from Camp 4. That team consisted of five clients from Seven Summit Treks and four sherpas. “There were around 40 people ahead of Andrews. He passed them between Camp 3 and Camp 4 this morning, before 9 am,” Dawa Steven estimated.
Andrews is now descending. He told Dawa Steven that he plans to reach Base Camp today. He said he will not attempt a return trip FTK. We will have to wait for Andrews to confirm the news when he returns.
Before departing for Nepal, Andrews told ExplorersWeb that he was aiming for more than just Manaslu.
“Depending on timing we are also looking at Dhaulagiri, Himlung Himal, Baruntse, and a few others,” he said. After today’s success, he has plenty of time for further peaks.
Himalayan FKT fever
Speed climbs on 8,000’ers are not new, but the trend to apply the FKT criteria is fairly recent. Runners can take advantage of the fixed routes, but attempts are increasingly without sherpa support. On Manaslu, speed records were set by Francois Cazzanelli in 2019 at 13 hours, Pemba Gelje Sherpa last year in 12 hours, and now by Andrews in under 10 hours.
This year, Vadim Druelle of France bagged the FKT on Nanga Parbat in 15 hours and 15 minutes, and Benjamin Vedrines, also from France, completed K2 in an incredible 11 hours.
As for Andrews, he already has an impressive number of FKTs in his running career, such as on Aconcagua, Kilimanjaro, and Ama Dablam. He combines trail running in the Alps, Andes, and the U.S. with big multi-project trips to Nepal’s peaks. In spring, he aimed for Pumori and Lhotse, but conditions didn’t allow him to launch summit pushes. Last year he also attempted a FKT on Manaslu but didn’t feel well and turned around at some point above Camp 4.
