Kílian Jornet’s States of Elevation
Near the end of an impossible journey, Kílian Jornet assessed what seemed like an insurmountable Mt. Rainier, and saw poetry. Seventy-one summits down, just one to go, but snowstorms blanketed the way. He had come so far. Felt stronger every day. Then Mother Nature reminded him that he was only advancing on her terms. He'd finish the trip, if she said so.
The scope of Jornet's States of Elevation project was so huge, it was practically illegible. Like reading Wingdings. Surmount every summit he could over 14,000 feet in the Lower 48 United States, and connect them all by bike. 403,691 feet of elevation gain. 2,568 miles of riding. Within a one month span. Sure. Numbers and words lose meaning as they escape the orbit of human understanding. Jornet is quite possibly the only person on Earth capable of dreaming up such a feat, much less completing it.
Jornet had accomplished similar quests before. In 2023, he summited all 177 peaks in the Pyrenees above 3,000 meters in just eight days, and in 2024 he summited all 82 peaks above 4,000 meters in the Alps in 19 days, setting a record. He connected all those climbs by bike, too.
But States of Elevation was special. He developed an affinity for the American West through competing at famed races like the Western States Endurance Run and the Hardrock 100. The landscape is more varied and vast than the European ranges that are now well-worn for a man who grew up in a Pyrenean mountain hut.
States of Elevation would also push Jornet out of his comfort zone in one key way. He had connected climbs by bike before, but never spanned distances as endless as the expanses between ranges in the American West. He enlisted Trek to help with the equipment: A Madone for the pavement, and a Checkpoint for the offroad sectors, both outfitted with SRAM components. But the question remained: How would his body respond?
Before he could even think about the final days of his journey, Kílian had to overcome the opening week. States of Elevation began in Colorado, which held 56 of the 72 summits, and lots of punchy connections. Worse, Jornet barely saw the sun as he was battered by cold and rain. That initial intensity nearly stopped Jornet's endeavor just as it began.
"The first week, it was horrible," Jornet says. "At those points I thought that it would be impossible to finish."
Every day after his first felt worse than the last, until he got past Aspen and arrived at Elks Traverse. Then suddenly, a kind of comfort settled in. "It really felt like my body was fighting against everything: Against the altitude, against the physical effort. And that day in the Elks, the body stopped fighting and started to adapt to the things. And then it really felt like a switching point."
Gradually, the days began to trip into each other. The relatively short 40 – 100 mile rides he rode during the Colorado portion of the trip prepared him for the long stretches from Colorado to California — nearly 900 miles in five days to the foot of the Sierra Nevada — and then 389 miles up to Mt. Shasta. Entering States of Elevation, he saw the bike primarily a means to an end: A way to get from one climb to the next under his own power. As he grinded out mile-after-mile through the desert, he slowly fell in love with biking, too.
"I had almost never rode a gravel bike before this trip, and at the end of the trip, I enjoyed it so much," Jornet said. "I had so much fun. I just want to keep doing more."
You can probably guess Jornet's preference between the two bikes, and that's not a knock against the Madone. "I really love both bikes," he said. But as an ultra-endurance trail athlete, it's no wonder Jornet gravitated towards Checkpoint's impressive comfort. Throughout the trip, he was accompanied by friends in the endurance sports community, many of them locals who met Jornet with full suspension mountain bikes and grinned when they saw his classic gravel setup. But both the Checkpoint and Jornet held strong on the burly trails. His neck and elbows were tired at the end of long days in the saddle, but he never experienced any pain.
He loved how well the Checkpoint transitioned from trail to pavement, too, though he had to concede that Madone was even smoother and faster on the road. And vice versa, he was impressed by how well the Madone kept rolling whenever he had to connect sections of road with short stretches of gravel.
Which leads to one of the most impressive stats of the trip: Zero mechanical issues or flat tires, after hundreds of hours riding across the western expanse.
"We got flat tires on the RVs three times. We got some mechanicals on the cars. But I didn't have any mechanicals on the bike. I didn't have any flat tires on the bike," Jornet said. "We were amazed."
It's odd to think that arguably the greatest trail runner of all time can still discover new aspects of himself out in the wild. He has seen the American West before. He has ridden a bike. No one would dare question his tolerance for high effort and pain. But States of Elevation still somehow exceeded his expectations. Leaving Colorado, wonder became his driving force. Even the most difficult parts of the journey sparked joy.
Unceasing hours cycling through an unchanging desert might drive some people mad. For Jornet, it only stoked awe for the immensity of the landscape encompassing him.
"You can say, 'OK, it's boring because you're in the same landscape for three days.' You pass a town every 100 miles. But somehow, that's the beauty of it. It's just that it's so big," Jornet says. "And then going to a wild place like the Sierra Nevada, I was out there for three days in the mountains, and in three days, you don't see any road, or any human settlement.
"It's the expansion of the wild areas, and of the landscapes. It's amazing here."
Jornet experienced some of the hardest conditions of his career during States of Elevation. Snowstorms in the Palisade Traverse in the Sierra Nevada. "The most wind in my life in the mountains" up Mt. Shasta, forcing him to crawl the final 1,000 feet of the climb, lest he be blown off the side.
Then Mt. Rainier, 31 days after he set out from outside Boulder. The calendar had flipped from September to early October. Most people don't even attempt to climb Rainier after August, as the glaciers melt and open up in the late summer season, creating deep, unpredictable crevasses.
Jornet isn't most people, of course, but everyone has limits. And as he contemplated Mt. Rainier’s impassability, he also considered what he would accomplish with one more summit. It would give the project a sense of finality, sure, but it wouldn't prove anything that he didn't already know about his physical capabilities. Nor would anyone doubt him. To summit Mt. Rainier for the sake of a slightly larger number also wouldn't do justice to the trip's mission. It would neither heighten nor lessen his experience.
"In the end, it's not about summiting," Jornet said. "That's really an excuse to experience this connection with places, and what makes them amazing. That it's every landscape. Like when I was in the desert with people that are from there, I could see in their eyes as we were talking, I could see why it's so special. And the same when I was here in the glaciers.
"I would be happy if, say, nature didn't allow me to pass. … I feel strong, but it's not about being strong. It's about nature giving you the opportunity to do it."
Jornet was OK to leave Mt. Rainier alone if that was what nature dictated, but it relented just enough to allow him passage. He trudged through deep snow at more than 10,000 feet above sea level to finally complete States of Elevation on October 2. But again, that's not entirely the point.
The numbers are impressive. They boggle, because they'll never belong to you and me. And they only belonged to Jornet, really, to the extent that he never tried to make sense of them. They were a pretext to a quest. A spark, not a goal. A reason to convene with Mother Nature, and explore his limits and curiosity as he defined them.
The numbers may be incomprehensible, but the journey isn't. There's a driving sense of wonder in everyone, ready to lead us as far as Mother Nature permits.