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Sep 6, 2020 · ‘In the mountains, I never waver’: Kilian Jornet filming his documentary, Path to Everest. Photograph: Sébastien Montaz-Rosset. He is the most outrageously talented mountain runner there...
- Overview
- A Complicated Record
- The Gift of Quick Recovery
Fueled by a love of the mountains and a drive to push his physical limits, Kilian Jornet achieved what no other mountain runner has before—two Everest summits without oxygen in about five days.
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2018 Adventurer of the Year Kilian Jornet
Kilian Jornet reached the peak of Mount Everest twice in under one week without the use of supplemental oxygen or support.
Kilian Jornet arrived to Everest base camp with the goal of setting a Fastest Known Time (FKT) for a roundtrip ascent of the world’s tallest mountain from the Tibetan side. What the 30-year-old mountain runner from Spain actually achieved on Mount Everest (8,848 meters) in May 2017, however, defies easy categorization.
“I came into this project not knowing if it was even possible to climb Everest without oxygen,” he says. “It was all about learning from the beginning.”
When it comes to assessing Jornet’s Everest speed times, however, it gets harder to set the record straight.
Other climbers who have attempted speed ascents on Everest have typically begun timing their summit bids at Advanced Base Camp, at 6,400 meters. Jornet, however, initially made the decision to start his stopwatch at Rongbuk Monastery, where the paved Chinese road ends and the trail to Everest basecamp begins. This, in part, was an attempt to bring a fixed landmark to the often arbitrary practice of claiming Fastest Known Times.
Jornet’s time of 26 hours from the monastery, with an elevation of 5,100 meters, to the summit of Everest, at 8,848 meters, is extremely impressive, but also difficult to compare.
Further, Jornet had food poisoning, which slowed him down, especially above 7,000 meters. “I had diarrhea, vomiting, but I knew it wasn't going to kill me,” says Jornet. “It was good to see that, even with not feeling 100 percent, if you are physically strong, it's possible to just keep going.”
Nevertheless, Jornet was apparently dissatisfied with his initial performance because five days later, he went for a second speed attempt. This time, however, he started his stopwatch where other climbers began their speed ascents, the indistinct region called Advanced Base Camp.
On this effort, Jornet claims to have climbed to the summit in 17 hours, which is about 15 minutes slower than at least two prior records. In 1996, Hans Kammerlander climbed without oxygen from ABC to the summit in 16:45—although he used on-mountain support. In 2006, Christian Stangl claimed a time of 16:43—and he had no support.
Jornet is physiologically gifted, to put it mildly. He has scored a V02 max of 92 ml/kg/min, one of the highest rates ever recorded. At 33 bpm, his resting heart rate is absurdly low. He trains over 1,200 hours per year, but sleeps just seven hours per night—a statistic that should boggle the mind of any serious trainer.
“We have just one life, and sleeping is a waste of time!” Jornet says.
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His ability to train constantly, virtually never take rest days, win back-to-back 100-mile races, and climb Everest twice in the same week without oxygen appears to hinge on his uncanny ability to recover quickly.
The first two were a walk in the park. Well, kind of. The Himalayan beast required slightly more of Jornet but he still managed to reach the summit twice in six days without oxygen, radio ...
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Mount Everest, 8,848 m (29,029 ft). Jornet summited Mount Everest at midnight (local time) on 22 May 2017. Climbing without supplemental oxygen, he reached the top in 26 hours from base camp.
- 1.71 m (5 ft 7 in)
- 58 kg (128 lb; 9.1 st)
- Spanish
179M subscribers. Subscribed. 85. When he was a child Kilian Jornet, the world's greatest ever mountain runner, made a list of all the races he wanted to win and all the mountains he dreamt of...
Nov 15, 2018 · A new documentary on the attempt, Path to Everest, is out now. The film goes behind-the-scenes as Jornet worked toward setting the fastest known times for ascent and descent on the world’s most...
Feb 12, 2020 · The man who climbed Everest twice without oxygen Spanish endurance athlete Kílian Jornet is a legendary mountain runner and ski mountaineer. Without a doubt, he's one of the greatest of his ...
