Through the years, I’ve supported many friends and acquaintances undertaking feats of endurance. But last Tuesday felt different. A longtime friend wasn’t going for a win or a fastest known time (FKT), but attempting a big — we’re talking really big — personal project, and I’d get to be a companion for an infinitesimally small part of it.
That friend was Kilian Jornet, and that project was his States of Elevation project. In this project, during the fall of 2025, he’s trying to summit all of the publicly accessible 14,000-foot mountains (14ers) in the U.S.’s lower 48 states, connecting them all by foot or bicycle.
The sunset lights up the ridge while climbing Handies Peak. All photos: iRunFar/Bryon Powell
I’d be joining him up and over Handies Peak, the high point on the Hardrock 100 course and the closest 14er to my home in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains.
Late last Tuesday morning, I drive out to Grouse Gulch, where we’d come off of Handies later that day, and run the 10 miles over Cinnamon Pass to the Grizzly Gulch Trailhead, where we would start. After a spot of fishing, I join two of his support personnel, Nick and Preston, to wait for Kilian. It is here that I learn Kilian had re-routed his day. After summiting Uncompahgre and Wetterhorn Peaks, he’d cycled a short way toward Redcloud and Sunshine Peaks. Conditions warranted that he alter his planned route and, instead, cycle the 30-plus kilometers to climb the two peaks via a different direction. He took it in stride. This was still the same unflappable Kilian who years ago won Hardrock while running most of the race with one arm in a sling after dislocating a shoulder in a fall early in the race.
Kilian’s gravel bike for his States of Elevation project.
I see him for the first time that day as he casually jogs into the trailhead parking lot where he warmly greets me before taking a seat on his support truck’s tailgate. He casually reports on the preceding hours’ double summit while munching away on peanut M&Ms and a sandwich. Nothing in his demeanor belies the fact that he is neither 11 hours of movement and four 14ers into his day nor two weeks into his grand adventure. He is fully in his element, a maestro of mountain movement.
Kilian snacking on the tailgate of his crew’s truck.
Nervously, I set out of the parking lot with Kilian and Nick, his photographer, videographer, and crew person. What mortal wouldn’t be nervous heading out to climb a 14er with the greatest trail runner of this generation? Kilian leads us over the small bridge across the Lake Fork of the Gunnison River before sprinting off as if shot from a cannon when we reach the first incline. A few moments later, he slows, turns slightly to flash a big grin, and says, “Just kidding.” He knows I am nervous about keeping up with him and is taking the edge off!
We spend nearly all of the next hour and 3,000 feet of climbing, catching up and reminiscing. We met some 16 years ago, on Kilian’s first trip to the U.S. to attempt the Tahoe Rim Trail FKT. It was a part of his first big running-based project, called Kilian’s Quest, and the year was 2009. Memorably, he dropped me less than a mile into that effort despite a much younger me having run a sub-20-hour Leadville 100 Mile just a few weeks earlier. Sixteen years later, I’m nowhere near the athlete I was then, but Kilian sure is!
Kilian climbing his fifth 14er of the day.
We transition from meadow to ridge around 13,000 feet, Nick and stops me for maybe 20 seconds to capture video of me setting the scene. As we finish, Kilian passes by after his own brief stop. I am off his wheel and won’t be catching him on this terrain! My consolation for getting dropped is the growing glorious golden hour light. My efforts to stay close to Kilian are hampered by my desire to snap some pics along the way. While Kilian is 40-some 14ers into his September, this would be my first of the year and I am taking it in.
A magical sunset on Handies Peak.
As I climb in Kilian and Nick’s footsteps, I hear iRunFar’s own Meghan Hicks and athlete Anna Frost cheering from their summit perch. Earlier, they came up the backside of Handies to join Kilian at the summit. We all rendezvous atop the mountain and taker in a magical sunset while snacking on treats Anna had brought. The sunset is good enough that Kilian pauses not far below the summit to snap a pic, despite having a pro photographer there. Once Kilian, always Kilian.
Kilian snapping a pic on his way down Handies Peak.
On the descent off Handies, after the glory light but before darkness, I remark to the group how amazing it is that we’ve collectively known each another for so long. I’d first run with Meghan in 2008, Kilian in 2009, and Anna in 2011. So much has happened in that span. In the moment’s context of descending off Handies on the Hardrock 100 course, we realize that we’ve collectively finished 15 or 16 Hardrocks in that time. We laugh not long later when we still manage to briefly miss the left turn to take us toward Grouse Gulch out of American Basin, despite mentioning that easy-to-miss turn several times already.
Kilian, Anna, and Meghan heading down Handies.
In darkness down at the Grouse Gulch trailhead, we meet one of Kilian’s crew as well as local San Juan badass adventurer Scott Simmons, who is joining Kilian for the next legs of his project. Some 14 hours into the day, Kilian still has to cycle over to the nearby town of Ouray. This ride includes some really rough dirt road that would be challenging enough on a mountain bike. Kilian will do it on a gravel bike, at night, 15 hours into his day’s movement.
This seemingly epitomizes Kilian’s States of Elevation project: an enthusiastic master of his craft putting in huge day after huge day filled with improbable moments. Sometimes those moments — the cleaning of fresh snow from each handhold high in the treacherous Crestone peaks earlier in his project — have taken place in quiet solitude, while other softer summits are achieved awash in the warm glow of friendship and late summer sunsets.
Golden hour good times atop Handies Peak.
