On June 5 2024, Utah-based mountaineer Anna DeMonte set a new women’s ski Fastest Known Time (FKT) for Mont Blanc’s Grand Mulets route.
She completed the course – which includes a 3,300-foot trail climb past the Mont Blanc tunnel, traversing the Bossons glacier, navigating massive crevasses and seracs and ascending the Arete des Bosses to the summit before skiing down the north face in an impressive seven hours and 29 minutes, carrying all her own gear.
And here’s the newly released YouTube vid documenting the journey – which wasn’t without its challenges – she tumbles 20m down a snowy slope at one point, losing around five minutes.
On the same day as DeMonte set her record, her partner, Jack Kuenzle, also set a new men’s ski FKT on the same route, of four hours and 59 minutes. However, they set off at different times and made their attempts separately.
It’s worth pointing out that both these ski records are actually slightly slower than the on-foot records. DeMonte’s time came within two minutes of the women’s overall FKT, set by Hillary Gerardi (damn that tumble) while Kuenzle’s time is two minutes slower than Kilian Jornet’s FKT of four hours 57 minutes on foot. Clearly lugging all that ski equipment up to the 15,771 foot summit of Mont Blanc isn’t completely offset by the speeds you reach on the way down. But hey, it’s still a massive achievement.
“I am both happy and humbled with the effort I put together. We put so much time and focus into training, scouting, acclimatizing, and waiting, all in a new country, and still, conditions were far from optimal. I’m stoked to have done this in a style I am proud of, carrying all of my own equipment from start to finish,” said DeMonte after completing the challenge.
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