The Fastest Known Times on the Alps’ Legendary Routes

Pushing the limits of speed in the mountains: FKTs in the Alps

Fastest Known Times are a modern lens on an old instinct: testing speed against terrain and weather. Whether the field is trail running, ski-mountaineering, ultra-cycling or alpine climbing, an FKT is a tidy way to measure a raw, often audacious, question: how fast can a given route be done under accepted rules and conditions?

The Alps are singularly suited to the FKT phenomenon. Ridges and cols concentrate effort into measurable vertical and horizontal gains; glaciers and snowfields introduce variable seasons and modality (running vs skiing); and the long history of classic traverses and north faces gives athletes a ready set of “benchmarks” — the Haute Route, the Tour du Mont Blanc, the GR routes, the Route des Grandes Alpes, and the six great north faces. In the last ten years, advances in lightweight gear, GPS navigation, and logistics have compressed previously multiday objectives into daylight-length or single-night efforts, producing a new layer of performance that sits uneasily — and fascinatingly — between racing, adventure, and alpinism.

Mont Blanc: the goal that keeps being re-measured

Mont Blanc has always been both a summit and a measuring stick. For FKTs its interest is partly quantitative (distance and elevation from Chamonix) and partly situational: the mountain’s glaciers and seracs change year to year, and the chosen line makes huge difference.

Two of the clearest recent benchmarks are from May 2025. On 24 May 2025, Benjamin Védrines completed the round trip from the church in Chamonix to the summit and back — via the Grands Mulets approach — in 4:54:41. Védrines’ effort was remarkable both for the time and for the mixed approach (running, ski-mountaineering and rapid transitions). Fastest Known Time+1

Earlier that month, on 16 May 2025, Élise Poncet set a new women’s FKT for the same round trip on skis: 6:54:47. Her run was widely reported and notable for being significantly faster than previous women’s ski attempts, and for demonstrating how ski mode is re-shaping what “fast” on Mont Blanc can mean. Fastest Known Time+1

Context matters: Kilian Jornet’s celebrated foot-only ascents of Mont Blanc in the 2010s produced times in the same neighborhood (around five hours for a Chamonix–summit–Chamonix round trip depending on route and season), but comparing a ski-enabled FKT to a foot-only FKT is apples-to-oranges unless the discipline is stated. FKTs in the high Alps therefore require precise rule-setting: start point, finish point, route variation, and allowed support. The Mont Blanc pushes that conversation hard because conditions (snow cover, serac danger, crevasse patterns) affect both speed and safety. Fastest Known Time+1

Long traverses: the GR5 / Grande Traversée des Alpes

“Speed” on long alpine routes is as much logistical art as it is physical talent. The Grande Traversée des Alpes (GTA) — the southern stretch of the GR5 linking Thonon (Lake Geneva) to Nice — is an archetype: 600+ km, tens of thousands of metres of ascent, villages and resupply points, and many seasonal permutations.

Different athletes have pursued very different styles. Louis-Philippe Loncke recorded an unsupported completion of the GR5 / GTA in 23 days 23 hours 48 minutes in 2023, leaving Nice and arriving Thonon in just under 24 days. His effort shows the time scale of a self-supported alpine thru-hike speed record: long, logistical, and vulnerable to weather or trail closures. Fastest Known Time+1

Other athletes have attacked the same corridor with more aggressive pacing and support, producing substantially shorter elapsed times. The point for readers is practical: on long route FKTs, style defines the challenge. Unsupported attempts trade the luxury of a support crew for purity and stricter self-sufficiency; supported attempts permit faster schedules but are judged differently by the FKT community. The GR5/ GTA is as much a study in strategy — resupply, sleep discipline, route choice — as it is in endurance.

Link-ups and the scale problem: Kilian Jornet’s 82 × 4000m peaks

The form that has most expanded the imagination of Alpine FKTs in recent years is the long, multi-peak link-up: connecting dozens of classic objectives into a continuous campaign.

In late August 2024 Kilian Jornet completed a project often described as the “82 Alpine 4,000-ers” — linking all 82 of the traditionally recognized 4,000-metre summits in the Alps in 19 days (19 d 16 h noted in some logs) using only human power, a mixture of running, mountaineering and cycling between massifs. Jornet’s project is notable for scale: over 1,200 km and more than 70,000 metres of ascent were reported, with an overwhelming share of the work done on foot. The effort was supported logistically but required relentless daily focus and extremely tight sleep management. Fastest Known Time+2Reuters+2

Why does a link-up matter to the FKT conversation? Because it reframes “fast” not as a point-to-point sprint but as a model for endurance alpinism where route-choice, transition efficiency (including micro-sleep), and local knowledge make the difference between feasible and impossible. Jornet’s project also highlights that modern FKTs often straddle disciplines: run, bike, climb, and sometimes ski — and that the FKT community is now comfortable recognizing hybrid definitions when the rules are explicit.

Road and bike: Route des Grandes Alpes on two wheels

Speed in the mountains is not only about singletrack or glaciers; on tarmac the Alps offer their own gauntlets. The Route des Grandes Alpes — a classic high-pass road ride from Lake Geneva to the Mediterranean — has become a marquee target for ultra-cyclists.

In September 2024 Thibaut Clément rode the full Route des Grandes Alpes (Thonon → Nice) in 38:46:56, posting one of the fastest known times for the fully self-supported, continuous route and logging more than 700 km and 17,500+ m of climbing. The official Route des Grandes Alpes channels and allied coverage documented the ride and flagged it as a contemporary reference for the route. en.routedesgrandesalpes.com+1

Cycling FKTs differ from mountain FKTs in how road conditions, traffic windows, and descent tactics affect outcomes. A headwind on a col can cost tens of minutes; a closed pass will force detours. As with foot FKTs, the athlete who integrates weather forecasting, nutrition, and descent skill into the plan is most likely to succeed.

The north faces: technical speed climbing

Speed on technically difficult alpine routes has produced some of the Alps’ most dramatic records. Dani Arnold’s succession of speed ascents on the great north faces remains a reference case: in 2011 he soloed the Eiger North Face (Heckmair route) in 2:28, a time that at the moment toppled predecessors and set a new standard for speed on large technical ice and rock walls. Later, in 2015, Arnold climbed the Matterhorn’s North Face (Schmid route) in 1:46, another benchmark time. These ascents illustrate a different calculus of speed: route knowledge and perfect conditions trump raw distance fitness. planetmountain.com+1

Speed ascent of north faces sits at a moral and ethical crossroads: the routes are dangerous and often objective-hazard dominated. When athletes seek records there is pressure to choose perfect conditions, which is part of the craft, but there is also a risk that the speed ethic normalizes runs in less suitable weather. The climbing community debates where bravery ends and recklessness begins; FKTs on the north faces make that debate unavoidable.

Trends, technology and what’s changed in recent years

A few clear trends explain the acceleration of FKTs in the Alps:

• Modality blending. Ski and run hybrid FKTs (like recent Mont Blanc efforts) show how skis can compress time on descent and, in certain seasons, on ascent. The FKT community now accepts discipline labels (foot, ski, bike) because modality meaningfully alters outcomes. Fastest Known Time+1

• Logistics & support sophistication. Supported attempts can shave hours or days from a route; self-supported attempts trade external help for purity. Athletes and teams increasingly script resupplies, micro-naps, GPS checkpoints and contingency plans with surgical detail.

• Gear & training. Ultra-light skis, carbon poles and ultralight crampons, coupled with focused altitude training and periodization, allow elite athletes to maintain very high power outputs at altitude — a necessary condition for compressing big objectives into brief windows.

• Verification & transparency. GPS tracks, timestamped media, and community vetting (primarily via FKT registries and independent journalist coverage) are now standard to validate claims. That has increased confidence in record lists but also created norms around how details (route variants, start points, style) must be declared.

• Environmental change. Glacier retreat, rockfall, and changing snow conditions have altered classic lines; in some cases routes that were straightforward a decade ago are now longer or more dangerous. This complicates comparisons across decades and underlines why FKTs must always report season and route variant.

Ethics, verification and the limits of comparison

Not all FKTs are comparable and not all are equally instructive. Key points to make clear to readers and prospective challengers:

1. Style declaration matters. Supported, self-supported, and unsupported attempts each represent different challenges. Always state which you used.

2. Route transparency. Name the exact start, finish and variant. A “Mont Blanc” FKT without route or start details is meaningless.

3. Conditions. Snow and seasonality alter both the time and risk. Glacial conditions in spring can make ski descents fast but hazardous; late summer rockfall can slow a ridge.

4. Verification. Publish a GPS track, log photos with timestamps, and preferably an independent witness or media account. The community will accept claims more readily if they’re reproducible and well documented.

Practical lessons for anyone chasing FKTs

If inspired to target an FKT, here are concise, practical takeaways drawn from the cases above:

• Pick your style and own it. Be explicit whether you’ll be supported. Your logistics dictate possible times more than marginal fitness gains.

• Master transitions. For hybrid routes (run → ski → crampon), seconds accumulate in gear changes. Practice transitions until they’re reflexive.

• Weather is the hidden competitor. Winning an FKT often means getting the weather window right, especially on exposed ridges or long downhill sections.

• Safety first. Good FKTs are fast but not reckless. If objective hazards increase, the responsible choice is to stop and try another day.

• Document everything. GPS, timestamps, and metadata aren’t just bureaucracy — they are the currency of credibility.

Continual Pushing limits

FKTs in the Alps are a study in contrast. Some are minimalist statements of endurance — long self-supported traverses whose value lies in consistency over days. Others are lightning bolts: solo speed climbs, ski-assisted summit rounds that compress tradition into hours. Together they are changing how we think of alpine performance: not as a single sport but as a constellation of modalities and styles, each with its own standards.

That hybridity is the Alps’ gift to the FKT world. The terrain is old and immutable in broad shape, but in practice the routes are new every season. Athletes, in chasing FKTs, learn not just the fastest pace but the best choices: the right route variant on the right day, the transition that saves minutes, the way to carry just enough while leaving nothing essential behind. For readers, the records are both spectacle and manual — inspiration with immediate, applicable lessons for anyone who ventures into mountain speed.

Sources for the key facts cited above

• Benjamin Védrines, Mont Blanc (round trip via Grands Mulets) — FKT entry and coverage (24 May 2025). Fastest Known Time+1

• Élise Poncet, women’s ski FKT Mont Blanc (16 May 2025). Fastest Known Time+1

• Kilian Jornet, “European Alps 82 4000ers” link-up (Aug–Sep 2024). Fastest Known Time+1

• Louis-Philippe Loncke, Grande Traversée des Alpes / GR5 (2023, ~23 d 23 h 48 m, unsupported). Fastest Known Time+1

• Thibaut Clément, Route des Grandes Alpes cycling time (38:46:56, Sept 2024). en.routedesgrandesalpes.com+1

• Dani Arnold — speed records on the Eiger (2:28) and Matterhorn (1:46) and other north faces. planetmountain.com+1