Jack Kuenzle, an ultrarunner and endurance coach, climbed from base camp to the summit of Denali—and back—in 10 hours, 14 minutes, beating the existing fastest known time by more than an hour. Kuenzle used a combination of skiing and skinning (climbing with skis) to traverse the terrain, leaving camp on June 5.
Karl Egloff, an Ecuadorian/Swiss climber, set the previous record in 2019 at 11 hours, 44 minutes, narrowly beating Kilian Jornet’s time of 11 hours and 45 minutes by one minute, although Jornet used skis while Egloff didn’t. From base to peak on land, Denali stands at 20,310 feet, actually making it the world’s tallest mountain by that measurement.
Kuenzle, a former Navy Seal, has achieved several remarkable records in the past few years: in 2021, he completed Mount Rainier in 3 hours, 4 minutes and Mount Shasta in 2 hours, 30 minutes. In September 2022, he set the record of 12 hours, 23 minutes for the Bob Graham Round in the U.K.’s Lake District—a 66-mile loop with a gain of 27,000 feet of elevation and 42 fells.
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Kuenzle, who hails from California, began running 100K races in 2019. “2020 and 2021 are when I really started focusing on FKTs (fastest known times),” he said in a profile with iRunFar earlier this year. “I started focusing on more mountainous FKTs. Then in 2021, I did a project to try to set records on all the most competitive one-day FKTs in the northeast United States.”
The Denali FKT for women is 21 hours, 6 minutes, set by Katie Bono in 2017—that record is set to be challenged later this month by 38-year-old ultrarunner and skier Meredith Edwards. “This is going to be a big learning experience for me,” Edward’s told Women’s Running in a story about her attempt. “I always tell people, ‘I don’t even know if I’ll like it, but I want to find out.’”
Contributing Writer
Laura Ratliff is a New York City-based writer, editor, and runner. Laura’s writing expertise spans numerous topics, ranging from travel and food and drink to reported pieces covering political and human rights issues. She has previously worked at Architectural Digest, Bloomberg News, and Condé Nast Traveler and was most recently the senior editorial director at TripSavvy. Like many of us, Laura was bitten by the running bug later in life, after years of claiming to “hate running.” Her favorite marathon is Big Sur.
