Photo: Kilian Jornet

Watch: The World's Fastest Climber Shows How He Jogs Up Mountains

by Henry Miller Jan 16, 2018

It takes at least two weeks for the average expedition to climb and descend Mt. Denali in Alaska. Kilian Jornet Burgada’s record-breaking time? 11 hours, 48 minutes. The 30-year-old Spaniard is famous for blowing past previous records almost every time he summits a mountain. What is even more incredible is that many of his toughest climbs, including a 26-hour summit of Mt. Everest, are accomplished without the use of supplemental oxygen. While other mountaineers spend a few nights sleeping on the faces of the world’s steepest ascents, Burgada briskly jogs up 30+ degree ridges, GoPro in hand, in an average workday.

The mini-doc below shows Burgada and the similarly accomplished sky-mountaineer Emelie Forsberg preparing for a new superhuman feat: acclimatizing to and ascending a 26,000ft mountain in two weeks. While their new methods of at-home acclimation should be helpful to any aspiring record-breaker, it seems that the most important secret to Burgada’s speed is simply being Burgada.


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