The climb from Ivarstead up to High Hrothgar is maybe the most famous hike in The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim – in no small part because of the Frost Troll halfway up ready to kill underleveled players. It’s claimed in-game that there are 7,000 steps, but that number has been debunked several times over the years using various methods. Now, one gamer has used a real-life stair climber to finally put this issue to bed.
YouTuber ShakeMistake, who has previously done feats such as walking across Death Stranding and Elden Ring, and swimming around Solstheim using motion controls, posts to Reddit about their achievement.
“As requested, I’m using a stair climber this time! This is accomplished with a phone app in my pocket connected to my PC, and when it recognizes movement, I move in the game,” they explain.
It takes them 3,686 real-life steps and just over 45 minutes to get from the first step to the gates of High Hrothgar, where the Greybeards live. I’ve used a star machine in the gym before and let me tell you, that’s incredibly impressive – those things are pure evil.
They say they weren’t satisfied with that, though, so they decided to climb to the very peak of the Throat of the World, the mountain that High Hrothgar is on. “It took me 6,100 steps to get to the tippy top,” they say, and then they paced back and forth until they hit 7,000 real-life steps. All in the name of science.
The actual number of in-game steps – by that I mean physical slabs that make up a step in a series of staircases – is 748, counted 14 years ago by one dedicated player. However, there are numerous ways to determine the number of steps, and everyone comes up with a different answer, several of which are explored in this video.
Have you ever counted them yourself?
Instead of counting a bunch of steps, play some of the best RPGs available.