Mountaineer summits all of America’s 14ers in 31 days

This past weekend, a Spanish endurance athlete Kilian Jornet finished a 31-day effort to climb all 72 of the 14,000-foot high peaks in the continental United States.

Not only did he manage such an awe-inspiring feat, Jornet, 37, did so without the use of planes, trains or automobiles. He used only his “human power” to cover the vast western landscapes between each of the mountains in Colorado, California and Washington.

“I will seek the best way to link the summits — not just to reach them, but to trace the most meaningful lines that connect them across the boundless West Coast of the US,” Jornet wrote on his website, States of Elevation, “using both biking and running to make the journey.”

The whole way, he ran up mountains, hopped on his bike and pedaled off to the next.

Starting at Long’s Peak in Rocky Mountain National Park on Sept. 3, he ultimately covered over 3,198 miles and gained 403,638 feet of elevation. That’s the equivalent of biking from San Francisco to Portland, Maine, and — over that distance — also climbing 20 Denali’s.

Averaging around 100 miles a day, Jornet wrote on social media that the trip was never about the numbers.

“The point was the country between them: the quiet miles, the shared ridges, the storms that make you small, and the simple goal to get there under his own power, running and riding the spaces in between.”

Who is Kilian Jornet?

Considered to be among the greatest mountain athletes in the world, Jornet is known for mind-boggling feats of endurance and adventure within the planet’s most iconic ranges.

He holds speed records on Denali, Everest, Aconcagua, Kilimanjaro, Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn to name a few. He holds course records for many mountain races and won “world series” mountain racing titles for multiple years.

Last year, Jornet climbed all of the Alps 4,000-meter peaks in just 19 days, so there is some precedent for his latest feat. While that journey included more technical terrain than he saw while traversing the lower 48’s high peaks, his U.S. journey was longer and quite a bit taller.

In addition to this life of adventure, he’s also an entrepreneur — owning his own clothing line called, NNormal — and, according to the Guardian — is a “a physiology obsessive who often uses himself as a guinea pig to see how his body adapts under stress.”

That kind of a life, however, is in his blood.

Jornet’s father was a mountain guide and his mother a school teacher. The family lived in the Pyrenees — the mountain range between France and Spain — and he actually grew up in a mountain hostel. He was summiting mountains before he was 10 and breaking mountain climbing speed records by his 20s.

Climb every mountain

He climbed 56 fourteeners in Colorado, so that is where the majority of his vertical gain accumulated. According to his website’s summary, Jornet’s trip included some of Colorado’s best known mountain links, such as Nolan’s 14 and the Elks Traverse. He also had to access more isolated peaks, like some in the San Juan’s, which required him to travel down into the states south west corner.

Afterward, Jornet hopped on his bike for nearly 850 miles of desert, taking a path that went through Utah, Arizona and Nevada before reaching the Sierra Nevadas in California.

There, Jornet climbed another link up called Norman’s 13 — his apparent favorite part of the route — and then White Mountain, before biking up to Mt. Shasta on the California/Oregon border.

On that peak, he said he endured the “top three craziest winds I’ve ever had on a mountain,” pushing temps well below zero degrees Fahrenheit. He then rode his bike the rest of the way, across Oregon, into Washington, ultimately summiting Mt. Rainier on Oct. 4th.

“States of Elevation was complete,” he wrote on Instagram about the final climb.

“Back at the trailhead, after 31 days of effort, came the small ceremony that follows a long road: poles down, silence settling, pizza in hand, and ... pickle juice shots.”