In the summer of 2023, Kilian Jornet set off on an eight-day romp across the Pyrenees, his home mountain range along the border of Spain and France, climbing 177 peaks over 3,000 meters. He mostly self-filmed the effort, and during the resultant film, “Into the (Un)Known,” viewers get to follow Jornet through the figurative and literal ups and downs of his journey along the peaks, and get a glimpse into the headspace of someone who can only be considered one of the greatest mountain athletes of all time.
The film can be accessed on the NNormal website by signing up to receive an email.
Planning the Route
What does it take to plan and execute a trip of this magnitude? What’s his motivation?
To cross the Pyrenees, Jornet followed an aesthetic line along ridges put together with beta from friends, dropping down into the valleys for meals, sleep, resupplying his food and water, and riding a borrowed bike between foot traverses. In hindsight, it can be seen as a prologue, or a test run, for his more recent and bigger Alpine Connections route, where he set the fastest known time for climbing all 82 of the 4,000-meter peaks in the Alps in 19 days during the summer of 2024.
Kilian Jornet during his 177-peak traverse of the Pyrenees in Spain and France. All photos: NNormal/David Ariño
In addition to listening to Jornet describe the effort and his goals for the trip, the breathtaking scenery and self-taken video of Jornet scrambling on terrain far out of reach of the average mountain runner provides a feast for the eyes.
Returning to the Pyrenees
Jornet taking on this project seems like a natural progression in his life. He was born in the Pyrenees and spent his first 12 years living in a mountain hut with his family. At age 11, his entire family completed a trek across the range — from the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean — in 42 days. But it had been a long time since Jornet had returned to his childhood mountain range, saying in the film, “I realized I couldn’t recall the smells or texture of the rock.”
So, he called up friends from the area and started planning a route connecting major peaks, with “the beauty of the route being the most important.” Jornet goes on to say that planning a trip like this “awakens the creativity; it awakens the search.”
Jornet notes that we live “in a world where everything is known, where you can find information … to just go and find solutions on the way is just magical.”
In the film, after explaining that he did very little research on the actual technicality of the route, he says, “I wanted to be surprised, to find the flowing pace, and discover the mountains, step by step.” And that’s precisely what he did, emphasizing that he wanted to feel like he was exploring instead of performing.
Kilian Jornet following a technical ridgeline through the Pyrenees.
Early on in the trip, he contemplates how it would be faster to drop off one ridge, down into the valley to climb the next peak, but decides to stay high instead, saying afterward, “It was kind of an adventure itself; getting lost, getting frustrated, and following chamois tracks to stay on the ridge.” Throughout it all, you get a sense that Jornet, age 35 when he undertook this adventure, has returned to a seemingly childlike state, with variations of the phrase “Look how cool this is!” uttered frequently during much of the self-filmed footage.
Viewers also get a glimpse of Jornet when things don’t go quite as planned. On his fourth day out, on a long ridge between the peaks of Lustou and Culfreda, which he didn’t expect to be technical and found a rocky ridge instead of what he called easy “cow summits,” he admits, “I didn’t look at the topo[graphic map] for this section, and I thought it was just going to be easy.” This is followed by a resigned, “Oh Kilian,” sigh, and then, “Either I’m getting old, or I started this too tired, or I’m stupid. I think the third one.”
And there are the moments of pure joy, where the 10-time winner of Sierre-Zinal, five-time winner of the Hardrock 100, 11-time winner of the Zegama Marathon, and champion of countless other races seems entirely in his element — high in the mountains, moving deftly over technical terrain.
Throughout the film, Jornet takes the time to reflect on returning to his home mountain range and the changes he’s seen over his lifetime, returning to places where there used to be snow and ice when he was young. “I remember these glaciers; I remember these features that don’t exist anymore.”
Núria Burgada, Jornet’s mother, waits for him on his final summit at sunrise, cementing the sense that Jornet, who has traveled the world to run in countless mountain ranges, has come home for this adventure. And as we now know, this was, on some level, just a dress rehearsal in his home mountains to prepare for something even bigger and more ambitious.
Kilian Jornet rests on the summit of Pico Posets, during his 177-peak traverse of the Pyrenees.
