‘The most beautiful route’: the way Kilian Jornet ascended the seventy-three highest US mountains in one month

While I stood for the sun to rise over Colorado’s Front Range, near the urban expanse of Denver–Boulder–Fort Collins, a breeze from the west swept through, sending a chill down my spine. With temperatures just above freezing on a rocky ledge at over 13,000 feet, I searched for protection on the lee side of a boulder.

Separating us lay a slab of rough granite, referred to as the Cables path. This is the straightest way to the top of the Longs summit, but is less travelled because it’s rated a difficult rock climb and often features a flow of glaze ice – transparent ice – running down it, which mountaineers must cross.

This was how I started the first morning of the athlete's newest personal endurance project, Elevation States. In it, the athlete would climb the highest seventy-three mountains in the mainland United States – every peak above 14,000 feet – all under his own power, cycling between and ascending each one.

Generally acknowledged as the best alpine sportsman of his generation, he grew up in a mountain refuge, a mountain hut in the Pyrenees of north-eastern Spain. His father who worked as a climbing instructor and a parent as a schoolteacher, he summited his first peak before the fifth birthday.

During his 20-year career, he has established fastest times on Mount Aconcagua, the Matterhorn, Mount Denali, Kilimanjaro and Mount Everest; triumphed in the three major events of long-distance racing – the Western States race, Hardrock and Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc – and excelled in mountain races, with a decade of wins at the Sierre-Zinal race and 11 at Zegama-Aizkorri event.

Despite the accolades, he remains soft-spoken and modest. While his victories has enhanced his vocation and helped him accrue almost two million social media followers, he’s cautious about celebrity, confiding in me that many of his preferred moments are personal expeditions in the mountains.

Longs Mountain was the start of a journey that would take him in excess of 3,000 miles across six states, ending on Rainier Mountain in the state of Washington. Meanwhile, my task – besides joining Jornet for a peak here and there – was to chronicle the journey openly, without overusing hyperbole to celebrate his superhuman achievements.

In the early morning I began ascending, an one hour before Jornet and his companion, the present fastest climber on Longs, started their climb. At that moment, from my vantage above the Cables Route, I watched the two dance across a part known as the Boulder field and begin the advanced climbing.

As they drew closer, I could hear them talking easily about past adventures, like longtime companions on a easy jog. Technical alpine rock, frozen surfaces and snowy paths is where Jornet feels most at home, and where he exudes the greatest happiness.

Upon reaching Longs Peak, Jornet stopped to take out his smartphone and snap a few images, which he would later transmit to his partner, his wife Emelie, also a professional mountain-runner, and their young family. Even though it seems that Jornet’s life is dedicated to pursuing the boundaries of endurance, nothing means more to him than family.

In his view, this experience had been long planned. In 2023 he ascended all 177 3,000-meter peaks in the Pyrenees in just one week. The following year he summited all eighty-two 4,000-meter mountains in the Alpine range in 19 days, using only his own strength to connect them.

It was the optimal blend of his interest about the human limitations and a motivation to learn about challenges to the nation's natural spaces, through both direct encounter and discussions with locals along the way.

Upon reaching Longs, he could have descended, descended quickly, and ridden to the subsequent mountain, preserving many hours and significant effort. Instead, he opted to cross the thirty-eight mile LA Freeway, an unmarked path with twenty-one thousand feet of elevation change, which took him the rest of the day.

Jornet is a minimalist who often goes extended durations without eating or drinking. He’s an conservation supporter who supports safeguarding wild places. His expertise in difficult environments that it comes as effortlessly as walking.

By the third day with him, as we ascended the Grays summit in the evening as the concluding phase of a thunderstorm moved across, I questioned about his driving forces. He clarified it was not focused on velocity, best times, or even other people being aware about it.

To Jornet, the mountains are a essential requirement. He wanted to witness the remote ranges of Colorado, sense the grand scale of western landscapes, and understand the steep terrain of the Cascade range, because immersing himself in these environments energizes him.

Shortly after, he completed the Elks journey, a fifty-mile challenging route near Aspen, Colorado that has only seen a handful of finishers. Subsequently he accomplished the Nolan's route, the state's most infamous fourteener link-up, with just a half-hour rest in between.

As my time concluded in the Colorado mountains, I hiked up the backside of the Massive summit and met the athlete near the top. The sun had set and the firmament was shifting to a hazy blue as the last rays vanished.

He,