Ski Touring
The time 5 athletes spent 375 hours crossing the Alps on skis
In 2018, 5 athletes crossed the main ridge of the Alps from Vienna to Nice in the world's longest ski tour, Red Bull Der Lange Weg – a gruelling, unforgettable mission by anyone's standards.
The snapshot
Their challenge was to break the long-standing record for travelling from Vienna, along the main chain of the European Alps and ending up in Nice, France. Journeying on skis and foot, they had just 40 days to break the record, which had stood since 1971.
The history
Red Bull Der Lange Weg was inspired by four Austrian ski mountaineers. Robert Kittl, Klaus Hoi, Hansjörg Farbmacher and Hans Mariacher, who mastered the route in 1971 with only one support man in a VW bus, Alois Schett.
The journey
The world's longest ski tour involved lengthy, exhausting marches on foot as well as on skis, often in the most extreme weather conditions and in poor visibility. "It was really tough," Hug admitted. "Every day, you had to recharge your energy to re-focus and move forward step-by-step. These 14-hour days cost a lot of physical energy and we had to adapt the route very often, and to reorganise again and again because the weather was very difficult. This took a lot of mental energy."
The stage between Marmora and Entraque
© Philipp Reiter
The challenges
The athletes were forced to break off the ascent of the highest mountain in the Alps, Mont Blanc (4,810m), only 100 vertical metres below the summit due to a high avalanche risk. The planned climb of the Dufourspitze (4,634m) was also not possible. "The biggest challenge was certainly the bad weather, which made life difficult for us almost every day," Wallmann said.
I still can't believe we really made it
The statistics
- 36 days in total
- 375 hours on the move
- 1,721km in distance
- 89,644m of cumulative elevation gain
Into the sea in Nice
© Philipp Reiter
The achievement
After breaking the record by finishing the journey in 36 days, an exhausted but delighted Reiter recalled in Nice: "We were on the road for 36 days, we were stuck in a blizzard at 3,700m, we rode in knee-deep spring-snow and now we're at the beach. This is totally crazy. I still can't believe we really made it. It was damn far, it was pretty hard, but that doesn't matter any more, because we're here now!"
