High-altitude runner conquers Everest twice
Jornet: ‘I wanted to try to go back up again’
BARCELONA, Spain — Their bodies and brains ravaged by the oxygen-scarce heights of the Himalayas, even the hardiest few who scale the treacherous slopes of Mount Everest cut short celebrations for some welldeserved rest. Not Kilian Jornet. Somehow, he still had some legs left.
“My plan was to go up one time,” Jornet told The Associated Press in a recent interview in Barcelona, a couple of hours south of his native Pyrenees. “When I was going down, I was like, ‘Hmm, we could have some days before we leave.’ I wanted to try to go back up again.”
So the man who has helped nurture high-altitude running from obscurity into the forefront of extreme mountain sports set out for a second solo ascent in a sixday span of the tallest peak in the world.
Not that Jornet had anything left to prove. Despite being slowed by a stomach bug that caused him to vomit and cramp while climbing, Jornet made his first ascent up Everest’s north face from the base camp near the Rongbuk monastery at 5,100 meters in Tibet, crowning the 8,848-meter summit around midnight of May 21 in 26 hours after one continued push. That was the fastest known time for the route without the use of supplemental oxygen, according to the International Skyrunning Federation, which governs high-altitude racing.
By May 27, Jornet had recovered quickly enough to make a second ascent from an advanced base camp, at 6,400 meters. He passed by three camp sites where climbers usually need to rest and reached the summit in 17 hours, just 15 minutes slower than the record set by Hans Kammerlander in 1996.
That climb usually takes mountaineers a lot longer. Something like four full days.
Jornet didn’t rue missing Kammerlander’s mark because his conquering of Everest was the culmination of a personal mission to tame the world’s most intimidating peaks.
“For me the times is an excuse, always,” Jornet said. “It was interesting to see if it is possible to go up and down, to climb mountains in the Himalayas (like) we climb in the Alps or the Rockies or in home ranges because it (does) not need a big infrastructure, big logistics. You just need your backpack, and if it is good weather you can climb and some days after you can do it again.”
Maybe if you are as superhuman, or as souped-up human, as Kilian Jornet.
The 29-year-old Spaniard ascended Everest without the help of other climbers, fixed ropes, or supplemental oxygen to counter the brain-withering effects of the “death zone” above 8,000 meters.
Only about 200 climbers have ever made it up Everest without the use of supplemental oxygen since Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler did it for the first time in 1978. Before those pioneers proved otherwise, it was thought to be a guaranteed death. Only about 20 have ever done it twice, like Jornet. The large majority of those who venture up Everest still take extra oxygen.
With or without supplemental oxygen, Everest remains one of the most perilous places on the planet. Nearly 300 people are known to have died on the mountain. This year is proving particularly deadly, with 10 lives lost through May, including renowned Swiss mountaineer Ueli Steck. And since retrieving corpses is dangerous and costly, Everest’s slopes have become an open grave.
Experienced American mountaineer Adrian Ballinger was climbing Everest for the first time without supplemental oxygen when he crossed paths with Jornet on his descent on May 22.
“I could see the pride and exhaustion in his eyes after the first climb. It’s hugely impressive to do it from base camp in one push. It took me four days,” Ballinger, who had already climbed Everest six times with an oxygen bottle, told the AP by telephone. “The big thing is really to do it twice in one week. I have climbed it with oxygen twice in one week and found it incredibly challenging. This time (a single climb without supplemental oxygen) it was devastating.”