Congratulations to Anna DeMonte who on 5th June 2024, set the women’s fastest known time to ski Mont Blanc’s Grand Mulets route in a scorching 7 hours 29 minutes. The challenge required incredible conditioning and a razor sharp technical alpine skillset as Anna completed the route carrying all her own gear from start to finish.
“Regardless of conditions and challenges, this objective was one of the most exciting undertakings I have ever tried.” –Anna DeMonte
“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, and with no accompaniment save briefly with a couple of photographers.
Mont Blanc is an epic ~12,600ft objective. It includes a 3,300ft trail climb that passes the Mont Blanc tunnel, then traverses onto the Bossons glacier in steep and broken snow. Then climbing up another 2,300ft to the junction between the Bossons and Taconnaz glaciers where you must pass over massive crevasses and seracs.
Passing above the junction and by the Grand Mulet, the route is exposed to a large Serac (the Petit Plateaux) which must be done swiftly before turning towards the Arete des Bosses that takes you to the final summit, another 6,700ft.
The ski down on the north face was one of the best skis I’ve ever done. It drops directly off the summit, traverses around a serac before taking you back towards the Grand Mulet and trail where you transition back to trail running.
This challenge is special to me because it combined almost every alpine skill I have learned in recent years to do safely and quickly. It’s icy, steep, requires glacier travel knowledge, and technical trail running.
The preparation was brutal at times, and predicting conditions proved especially challenging. I’m humbled by this mountain and I hope to inspire more women to attempt speed ski efforts on this in the future.” –Anna DeMonte
About Anna DeMonte:
Anna grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she developed a passion for swimming. The sport’s precision, physical demands, and competitive nature led her to collegiate swimming and competing in the 2012 and 2016 US Olympic Swimming trials. After a spinal injury in 2017 ended her newly formed competitive cycling career, she moved to Utah in 2020 to heal from the injury and rediscover her love for movement– only now in the mountains.