Kilian Jornet had quite an American vacation this fall. The Spaniard cemented his legacy as the world’s best mountain athlete by scaling 72 14ers in Colorado, California and Washington in 31 days.
Jornet on Sunday completed his audacious States of Elevation project on Washington’s Mount Rainier, after starting on Longs Peak on Sept. 3.
The 37-year-old climbed 403,740 feet, covering 629 miles on foot and cycling 2,568 miles between the peaks. He spent 489 hours in motion in those 31 days, linking all the publicly accessible 14ers in the lower U.S. On each stage of his project, the once-in-a-generation mountaineering legend was joined by high-profile local athletes who pedaled, climbed and ran alongside him.
Jornet climbed 56 14ers in Colorado in 16 days, covering 1,247 miles on foot and bike. He started the project scaling Longs Peak and racing across the technical, 37-mile L.A. Freeway alpine ridgeline that stretches between Longs and South Arapaho Peak. He ran across the Elks Traverse — seven of the most technical 14ers in the state — in 21.5 hours. Then he pedaled to the Sawatch Range and completed Nolan’s 14 in a nearly 48-hour push. He napped only three hours in what was a 69-hour epic linking the Elks Traverse and Nolan’s 14.
He climbed through snow in the chossy Sangre de Cristos and actually took two attempts to summit the Crestone Needle, Crestone Peak, Kit Carson Mountain and Challenger Point before heading south to Ellingwood Point, Blanca Peak, Mount Lindsey and Little Bear Peak. On Sept. 19, Jornet climbed the state’s most remote 14ers — Mount Eolus, North Eolus, Sunlight Peak and Windom Peak in the San Juans’ Chicago Basin — before saddling up for an 870-mile pedal across the desert to California’s 15 14ers.
Joe Grant, a Durango mountaineer and trail runner, joined Jornet for a moment in Chicago Basin. He had run nearly 18 miles across the Weminuche Wilderness when he connected with his friend in an alpine saddle. He had already spoken a bit with Jornet about his 2016 self-supported push across all of Colorado 14ers, which took a month as he connected the state’s highest peaks in a loop from his Boulder County home.
Grant said Jornet was “tired for sure … but he was very chipper and friendly.” Both the men had long nights of running ahead of them but they shared a sandwich and chatted.
“It was nice to be able to drop in and give him a few words of encouragement, but it really didn’t seem like he needed it,” Grant said. “He had such an incredible vision for this thing. And it’s been remarkable to watch. He’s operating at such an incredibly high level and, still, he’s so down to earth and humble and, in so many ways, not intimidating. He’s an amazing ambassador for the mountains and the sport.”
After a five-day grind across New Mexico, Arizona and southern California, Jornet set what could be a fastest-known-time record on the Norman’s 13 route that links 13 California 14ers with 101 miles of ridgeline and 39,000 feet of climbing. He finished the route in 56 hours and 11 minutes, which needs verification to qualify as a record.
“When I started this project, it was just an idea on a map — something I thought could be great, but I didn’t know if it would be possible,” Jornet said in a statement after summiting Mount Rainier. “Now I see that it was, and beyond the numbers, it’s been a true adventure — a way to discover places that have become very special to me.”