"Kilian Jornet was drenched and tired. Mr. Jornet, 37, was just a few days into an ambitious odyssey, a self-designed project he had named States of Elevation. His goal was to link, by foot and by bike, the tallest peaks in the contiguous United States a series of 70-plus publicly accessible mountains in Colorado, California and Washington known as the 14ers because they are all 14,000 feet or higher (symbolized on the map as ). He estimated it would take him around a month."
"I just felt exhausted, Mr. Jornet recalled in a recent interview. It felt impossible to do one more week, let alone another month. But then the body switched, and I went from fighting to adapting. Climbing peak after peak in Colorado, he seemed to grow stronger as he moved west, through the Mojave Desert and into the Sierra Nevada, across Northern California and finally into the Cascades."
Kilian Jornet, 37, began States of Elevation to link by foot and bike more than 70 contiguous U.S. peaks of 14,000 feet or higher across Colorado, California and Washington. He estimated the effort would take about a month. After a long flight from Norway he was jet-lagged, struggled to acclimate during a mountainous Continental Divide traverse and felt soaked and exhausted from steady rain. He had prior feats including two Everest summits without supplemental oxygen, 177 Pyrenees peaks in eight days and 82 Alps peaks in 19 days. He considered quitting, then his body adapted and he grew stronger moving west, aided by a small RV support crew and rotating companions.
Read at www.nytimes.com
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