A mountaineer can forget many details of an ascent, but he always retains in some corner of his mind those moments in which he really gambled and what was at stake was nothing other than his life. The real brake on a mountaineer is not his motor, nor even his technique, but his ability to respond with judgment to a question as innocent as it is enormous in scope: am I going or not? If the answer is negative, the only option is to retreat. If the answer is positive, it is time to embrace and deal with a commitment that, poorly managed, will end in misfortune. Kilian Jornet (Sabadell, 36 years old) describes in a calm voice and on the phone his arrival at the summit of the Weisshorn, one of the 82 four-thousanders he has just climbed in just 19 days: he can effortlessly remember the joy of the moment, its beauty, with the sun escaping on the horizon and solitude as perfect company. But, as if trying to exorcise something that was gnawing at him, the Catalan suddenly jumped onto the route between the summits of the Aiguille Verte and the Droites, two of the most iconic peaks in the Mont Blanc massif. There, following a ridge of rotten rock with no cohesion, no ice or snow to form a stable whole, the Catalan mountaineer understood that he was exposing himself a lot: “It is something that I have been thinking about a lot these days, on my way back to my home in Norway. The conditions of the terrain were so bad that it made the place very exposed and dangerous. I decided to go, but now I have to think about whether or not I did the right thing,” he reflects.
His amazing alpine ride has left a good part of the European mountaineering elite speechless, who sincerely congratulate and admire Jornet’s feat. Paradoxically, there have been voices that try to deny the Catalan’s status as an alpinist, ignoring both the setting in which he has moved and the style he has used. Many may not be able to dissociate the image of the ultra-distance runner from his version as an alpinist. “I have run very little, in truth. In exchange, I have walked a lot and also climbed, but I am clear that this project had nothing to do with the races I have been able to participate in these last few years. To carry out the crossing of the Alps I have had to put on the table everything I know about mountains, everything I have learned as a skier, on expeditions, on climbing trips and even in my trail races. But denying that this is alpinism makes no sense,” says Jornet.
Kilian is not a mountaineer who is focused on difficulty, which can mislead some of his audience: “I usually go climbing because it allows me to move with greater security and skill in technical areas, but climbing requires a lot of time to progress and what I really like is moving quickly through these terrains. I could invest and consider doing another type of mountaineering, but I am not motivated by repeating this or that route, but by forging my own path.” Jornet does not want to be Ueli Steck, whose record of 62 days to complete the 82 Alpine four-thousanders in 2015 was overwhelming: “I think the biggest difference with Ueli is logistics, because he was very, very strong. Ueli started the project with a partner, but he got injured and continued alone. He also had a small support team and what he did was set up two base camps, one in Valais and another in the Mont Blanc massif, and from there he went up and down. I, on the other hand, have chosen to stay at the top and make the most of the connections between ridges to save myself a lot of trips. I think that has been the key.”
One of the most mind-blowing revelations heard after he had put an end to his project came from the mouth of Frenchman Benjamin Védrines, his companion on the final stretch of his journey in the Écrins, who said that Jornet could have continued climbing mountains for a few more days: “Yes, he asked me if I could have continued and I said yes, that I could start again the next day and continue like this for a while, going up and down. Physically, I feel very good. I started with 54 kilos of weight and I have finished with 54 and a fractured rib. Apart from that, I am very well,” he admits, almost surprised. In endurance sports, such as cycling, completing a great challenge without losing weight is considered a metabolic success, and it is worth remembering that just a year ago, Jornet lost seven kilos in eight days after reaching the summits of 177 three-thousanders in the Pyrenees. Now, his medical team needs to make sense of all the tests they have carried out these days.
Another detail that has caused admiration and incomprehension has to do with the footwear he used: Jornet only used sneakers. “I thought about taking some boots and changing shoes, but it would add weight and I put it out of my mind. I have been working in these terrains with sneakers for many years, and what I did take great care of was choosing the right crampons so that they fit perfectly to the sole of my shoes. Then, it is true that this choice forces me to have a very good cramponing technique, to master the French technique of all the points on the ice (invented by the guide Armand Charlet in the 1940s, who made a virtue of his problem of joint hyperlaxity in the ankles) and to lose all the rigidity in the sole when climbing on vertical rock. In exchange, I am light, and I have good sensations on lying rock,” he explains. Of course, this choice of footwear is not something that almost anyone can afford, otherwise they will have an accident.
Part of the French press wanted to make a drama out of a simple coincidence: just when the UTMB was arriving in Chamonix, Jornet was touring the Mont Blanc area, supposedly to draw audiences and interest away from the queen of ultra-distance races with whom he has a falling out. “I smile, because I don’t know what else to do. It was a coincidence because when I designed the challenge months ago I had no idea what dates I would be near Chamonix. Thinking like that is very twisted,” he laments. “The truth,” he continues, “is that it was hard for me to decide when to take on the challenge because, although in July the terrain conditions and the objective dangers are less, August had its advantages: what scared me the most were the crevasses, and as I was going to traverse many glaciers alone, with no one to tie me to for safety, I preferred the snow to be gone and only the bare ice of the glaciers to be able to see the crevasses well and not be too scared. The trade-off was that there were more rock falls and the crevasses (the gap between the glacier and a wall) were bigger, but these were two issues that I could more or less deal with.”
Jornet never said he was going to climb all 82 four-thousanders, and his communication strategy was, to say the least, confusing: “Yes, that’s true. I really didn’t know if I would be able to climb all the four-thousanders. I was afraid that the terrain would be in very bad condition and I didn’t want the fact that I had announced a kind of challenge to turn against me and force me to take intolerable risks. Really, what I was looking for was the experience of crossing the Alps, learning a lot in the process. Now I need calm and distance to be able to share my conclusions.”
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