00:17
R At home: Kilian training in Val Veni, Aosta Valley.
“WHILE UELI RUNS A LOT FOR FITNESS, HE’S UNLIKELY TO CATCH KILIAN UP ON EASIER-ANGLED TERRAIN.”
08:42
R The Swiss Machine.
painting a zen-like Eden of summits, sunsets, friendship and feasting on wild fruit: “I don't like to just push, push, push,” he explains. “This evening I was running fast up Brevent with my friend, then I stood for half hour taking strawberries.” He opens his hand, examining traces of the fruit with wonder, then smiles: “It’s nice you don’t need to carry things but just take what nature gives. Then you run faster to the climb, climb fast and run down.” Kilian grew up in the mountains – his parents run a hut 2,000m up in the Catalan Pyrenees – and seems to draw his boundless energy from them. “When he was a young,” his mother recalled, “We knew we had a child we would have to tire out.” He walked for seven hours when he was 18 months old. His mother was tired, Kilian: no. Still exploring the limits of what his body can do in the mountains, Jornet recently began a new four-year project: racing up and down some of the world’s highest peaks and setting speed records. For example, most mountaineers take two days to scale Mont Blanc, carrying ropes, rucksacks and Gore-Tex. In July, Kilian took 4hr57 to sprint up and down the 4,810m peak in shorts. That's not all. His running partner fell in a crevasse on the descent. Kilian stopped to help him climb out, check he was OK, discuss continuing, then still smashed the previous record. Yet all this is just a warm up. In 2015, Kilian will take on Everest, at speed, without supplementary oxygen or ropes. He thinks his 2,000m-high childhood has given him an advantage in terrain up to 3,000m, but at extreme high altitude it's a
level playing fi eld. In the Himalaya he found he could ascend at 3-400m per hour in 7-8,000m high terrain, but tells me, “They say after 8,200m it starts to be really, really hard. I think the last 600m on Everest will really hurt.”
This Everest plan may sound familiar. Like Kilian, renowned speed alpinist Ueli Steck began as a talented all-rounder in his sport – climbing – then focussed on shattering mountain speed records. Ueli has also raised his sights to the Himalaya. Recently he’s been training for a ground-breaking ascent of Everest without using oxygen or ropes. Steck has long been the most famous and accomplished man pushing speed records in the mountains to new levels. Does he now have competition from a trail runner who's only been to Nepal once, but seems to fi nd everything too easy? You probably all know about Steck's Everest project. His
fi rst attempt made major worldwide headlines earlier this year, for all the wrong reasons. “STARTIN' SUMMIT? I'LL HIMALAYA YER OUT” the Sun's front page blared, tactfully. Sherpas claimed that Ueli, Simone Moro and Jon Griffi th knocked ice down on them while climbing. Then they formed a mob and unleashed what seemed like decades of tension towards Western climbers upon the trio. Ueli was trapped in a mess tent on Everest for hours while Sherpas with rocks in their hands threatened to kill him, then they all escaped down the mountain. Jon Griffi th wrote afterwards: “Ueli is reticent and has a chronic migraine. Occasionally I
“COMPARED TO OLYMPIC ATHLETES WHO ENHANCE TRAINING WITH SCIENCE, EVEN TOP ALPINE CLIMBERS WERE TOTALLY IN THE DARK AGES.”
SUMMIT ONLINE ALPINE SPECIAL #01 | SUMMER 2014 | 25
R Kilian managed Courmayeur- Chamonix via the Innominata Ridge in 8:42.
PHOTO: SEB MONTAZ.
PHOTO: SEB MONTAZ.
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