BEFORE THE
CLOCKS.

Andy Gohlich imagined the line. Ryan Tetz made the first complete crossing in 2019, Matt Zupan established the unsupported mark, Jason Hardrath the supported mark, and Kilian Jornet moved it forward again. Olivia Amber made the first women’s completion currently documented in the public route history in 2025.

A rare long-running record: Hans Florine, Russ McBride and Tony Ralph in 1998; Josh Swartz; Jack McBroom; then Sean O’Rourke’s 62:03 in 2012. Jacqueline Florine set an early women’s benchmark on the then-legal 14 peaks; Renee Elsdon Jacobs later completed all 15. The human-powered history runs from Honnold and Wright through Sam Skrocke’s still-standing self-supported mark, then Ryan Tetz, Jason Hardrath and Kilian Jornet in the supported category.

From July 29 to August 7, 2014, Sam Skrocke climbed all 15 California fourteeners and linked every trailhead by bicycle, starting on Mount Shasta and finishing back at his bike at Tuttle Creek after Mount Russell. He reported 642 cycling miles and 50,727 feet of bike gain while carrying all his gear plus all climbing and camping food from the start. He accepted no private aid and bought only ordinary restaurant meals during the cycling legs, so the official category is self-supported—not unsupported—although Skrocke described his ethic as ‘completely self-supported and mostly unsupported.’ The mountain standard was just as striking: six Palisade summits in one day, an onsight 5.9 variation on Thunderbolt, the 5.9 Palisades Traverse, and Russell’s Fishhook Arete onsight at the end. It remains the listed men’s self-supported, self-powered benchmark; the later faster bicycle-linked efforts belong to the supported category.

On October 22–23, 2014, Ryan Tetz established the supported Trans-California Crossing Direct, taking a west-to-east bicycle line through Stockton, Oakdale, Old Priest Grade, Yosemite and Tioga Pass. James Nichols stayed through the entire crossing as the sole support crew. Ryan’s finish clock read 27:20:22 for 320.1 miles. The primary Strava file preserved 287.08 miles, 24,855 feet of gain and 25:18:02 elapsed before the GPS lost the final section; a separate 26-mile, 2:02 finish-credit activity documents part of the gap. Because those digital files do not perfectly reconstruct the finish note, this archive keeps 320.1 and 27:20:22 as Ryan’s contemporaneous reported totals—not a cleanly GPS-verified FKT. No later attempt on the exact line has yet been located; the precise Pacific and Nevada-border touchpoints still need Ryan’s confirmation.

On July 8–9, 2019, Ryan Tetz established and claimed the first full triple Sierra crossing in any sport: three full road crossings of the range in one nonstop ride. He rode Highway 395 to 49 over Tioga Pass and Highway 120; Highway 49 back to 395 over Sonora Pass and Highway 108; then Highway 395 to 49 over Monitor and Ebbetts passes, finishing near Angels Camp. Strava preserves the full 309.42-mile track, 28,494 feet of gain, 22:41:38 moving and 26:32:35 elapsed. His rule set was one ride, no sleeping, and a Highway 49 or 395 touch after every crossing. The RV Project independently described it as the first known triple-Sierra bicycle crossing. The activity does not identify a crew, so support style remains undocumented.

On Thursday, May 15, 2014—a date reconstructed from his May 18 report—Ryan Tetz began at the Lee Vining Mobil and made the original Tioga–Sonora double crossing. He rode west over Tioga Pass through Yosemite, Groveland and Old Priest Grade to Chinese Camp; turned north through Jamestown and Sonora; then crossed east over Sonora Pass to Highway 395 and Bridgeport. His SuperTopo account, published under Ryan Tetz, records 211 miles, 21,794 feet of climbing and 20 hours. It was a completed two-pass Sierra crossing, but not the closed ‘Mission Mobil to Mobil’ loop he intended: with a dying headlamp at about 1:30 a.m., he stopped roughly 25 miles short of returning to Lee Vining. Tetz began self-supported with food and clothes in a custom frame bag, but Shellybell Morriss later gave him Gatorade and followed with truck headlights over Sonora Pass and down to 395, so the final style is supported late. Strava preserves only a 73.80-mile fragment whose title reports 208 miles and 20 hours; the fuller first-person SuperTopo report supplies the archive’s 211-mile total.

The practical trailhead-to-trailhead crossing links Crescent Meadow to Whitney Portal and includes Mount Whitney, although the named High Sierra Trail technically joins the JMT at Wallace Creek. FKT therefore keeps with-summit, without-summit and yo-yo variations separate. On the with-Whitney course, the current listed unsupported marks are Joseph Roldan’s 15:26:39 and Marie VanZandt’s 19:30:45. Earlier benchmarks include Marcia Rasmussen’s 30-hour solo without Whitney, Brian Robinson and Peter Bakwin’s 24:58, Brett Maune’s 18:38 and Leor Pantilat’s long-standing 15:46. Direction and intermediate Whitney splits belong beside every clock.

Steve Roper’s Sierra High Route is a remote point-to-point line whose off-trail sections resist the certainty of a blazed trail; FKT directs athletes to follow Roper’s description rather than treating its public GPX as the exact course. Andrew Skurka and Buzz Burrell completed an early fast thru-hike in 8d 4h with a resupply in 2008. Brian Lucido opened the formal unsupported progression at 6d 13h 35m in 2015, followed by Leor Pantilat’s 4d 16h 21m and David Ayala’s current listed men’s unsupported mark of 4d 3h 36m. Renee Elsdon Jacobs holds the listed women’s supported benchmark at 4d 23h 53m.

For FKT purposes, the JMT / Nüümü Poyo runs pavement-to-pavement between Whitney Portal and Happy Isles, adding the eleven miles below Mount Whitney’s summit. There is no single JMT clock: northbound, southbound, two yo-yo directions and each support style have separate tables. Current headline marks include François D’Haene’s 2d 19h 26m supported and Aurelien Sanchez’s 3d 3h 55m 10s unsupported northbound times, and Jeff Garmire’s 3d 0h 47m 56s unsupported southbound time. The current listed women’s unsupported marks are Caroline Himbert’s 3d 16h 36m 15s northbound and Amber Monforte’s 3d 22h 55m 59s southbound. The official-route and pavement endpoints are essential to every comparison.

Before GPS, the Portal Store was the timing desk. Marty Hornick and Jason Lakey established the witnessed lineage; Brett Maune and Andy Anderson moved it forward. On August 2, 2015, Matt Dubberley climbed in 1:47:40 and returned in 2:38:15—the current men’s unsupported Mountaineer’s Route car-to-car mark listed by FKT.

The Whitney Classic first carried the bike-hike idea from Badwater to the summit. Don Bowie’s recovered modern lineage begins with a preliminary 19:35:16 in 2012, followed by 17:21 in September 2013. Ryan Tetz and Bowie then traded the mark in 2014 before Tetz lowered it to 13:16:07 in 2019. Tina Lewis and Rylee Sweeney established the listed women’s progression.

Ryan Tetz and Jason Hardrath created and completed the Yosemite Picnic in 14:36:50 in 2020. Starting at El Capitan Bridge, they bicycled 43.5 miles out of Yosemite Valley—climbing 6,500 feet—to Tenaya Lake. They swam the 1.1-mile length of the lake, ran and scrambled the Tuolumne Triple Crown, then swam back across Tenaya to their bicycles. Finally they bicycled the full 44.5 miles home to El Cap Bridge, finishing where they started. The two bicycle legs account for 88 miles and 8,900 feet of climbing: nearly the entire 100-mile linkup is framed by the ride up from the Valley and the ride home.

The Yosemite Winter Picnic bikes Tioga Road from the winter closure, skis to Cathedral Peak, climbs the peak, then reverses the entire course to the car. Ryan Tetz’s January 2, 2018 solo is preserved on Strava: 40.25 miles, 6,355 feet and 12:41:10 elapsed. On April 6, 2022, Tetz and Leo Franchi completed the line together in 12:57:57 elapsed, logging 40.42 miles and 6,220 feet. Jake Whisenant—who also held the Lurking Fear speed record on El Capitan and The Prow record on Washington Column—made the third known completion and second known solo on May 15, 2024 in 8:58:59 elapsed, with 40.12 miles and 6,808 feet. The 2018 outing falls in calendar winter; the April 2022 and May 2024 finishes are spring completions of the same bike–ski–climb line.

Peter Croft completed the first full traverse solo in 1999, first light to dark from camp. The separate trailhead-to-trailhead clock begins with Austin Siadak’s 23:58 in 2014, passes through Sean O’Rourke’s 17:42 in 2016 and Dylan Doblar’s 17:28:44 in July 2025, then reaches Matthew Cornell’s current listed 15:21:29 unsupported mark on August 21, 2025.

From August 2–9, 2021, Vitaliy Musiyenko soloed the Sierra crest from Taboose Pass to Piute Pass, joining his new Full Monty extension of the Palisade Traverse with the Full Evolution Crest. He covered roughly 32 technical ridge miles and nearly 60 summits in eight days, with no support or preplaced caches.

Jason Lakey made the first accepted single-push completion of the eight-mile, Grade VI 5.9 full crest in 2008, accompanied through roughly halfway by Nathaniel Walker and Matt Ciancio. Later parties have completed the traverse, but no faster directly comparable strict-line single-push has surfaced in the recovered public record; Ryan remembers Lakey’s benchmark as still unbeaten. Its exact clock and rules remain missing. Michael Reardon reported a 22-hour solo in 2005, though later Sierra sources dispute whether he completed the full crux crest. This is the complete Southfork-to-Agassiz/Bishop line—not the shorter Thunderbolt–Sill classic.

Ryan Tetz, Vitaliy Musiyenko and Jason Hardrath completed the second ascent and current listed FKT in 2022, circling the Merced Lake drainage car-to-car in 3 days, 12 hours, 47 minutes and 7 seconds. They traveled self-supported with one cached resupply, cutting the first-ascent team’s eight-day passage by more than half.

The high-country loop joins Tenaya’s Northwest Buttress, Matthes Crest south-to-north and Cathedral’s Southeast Buttress. Its public progression runs from Jason Hardrath through Vitaliy Musiyenko, Christian Black, John Clark and Greg Horvath to Travis Soares’ 3:44:12 in 2021.

This is the Mt. Conness variation—not the Tenaya–Matthes–Cathedral Tuolumne Triple Crown. It links the North Ridge of North Peak, the North Ridge of Mt. Conness and the West Ridge of Conness in one technical circuit. Meikael Beaudoin-Rousseau established a listed 5:01:30 in 2022; Matt Zupan lowered the unsupported mark to 4:49 on August 8, 2024.

On August 27, 2010, Jason Lakey free-soloed Keeler Needle, Whitney’s East Buttress and East Face, then Russell’s Mithril Dihedral and Fishhook Arete in approximately 16 hours 30 minutes car-to-car—48 pitches and about 5,500 vertical feet of technical climbing. Lakey described it as one of his most real, pure and proud mountain days. Despite its scale, it remains one of the era’s most underrepresented Sierra linkups in the recovered public record.

Vern Clevenger and Claude Fiddler completed the traverse in three days in 1982. Peter Croft brought it under a day in 1992; Josh Swartz reported 16:56 car-to-car in 2002. Jason Lakey’s later one-day chapter still needs its exact time and endpoints recovered.

Jon Crowley and Jimmy Elam recorded an earlier 11:39. The current public table lists Jed Porter’s 2014 south-to-north 11:25:37 as supported and Sean O’Rourke’s 2020 north-to-south 11:43:32 as unsupported. Sean’s uphill version included Hogue and Peak 13,315; direction, summits and support make the marks separate categories.

Sean O’Rourke climbed from the radio-tower road near 5,280 feet to the 14,252-foot summit and returned in 7:01:23 in 2018; June Watterson lowered the listed women’s unsupported mark to 9:04:41 in 2026. Andy Hyslop’s 2002 White Mountain Day began near the same desert-floor toe of the ridge, but continued north over Point 13,484 and descended a different ridge before circling back to the car. It is an important ancestor, not the same out-and-back course.

The Northeast Gully and Mendenhall Couloir are two names for the same principal climbing line on Laurel’s northeast face. Ryan Boyer now confirms an earlier 1:27 summit split and 2:12 car-to-car, documented at the time with a summit photo but no GPS while he and Peter Clark pursued a friendly local rivalry. Boyer’s date and exact start landmark remain unknown. Jason Lakey wrote 1:47:12 in the register in 2018, but his route and start point were not recorded; Sean O’Rourke then climbed the NE Gully from Convict Lake in 1:31. The ascent-only progression now runs through Duncan Reid and Meikael Beaudoin-Rousseau to Reid’s 1:20:42; Renee Elsdon Jacobs opened the listed women’s history before Hailey Koetz lowered it to 2:25:00.

Today’s course starts and finishes at the edge of the pavement in Lake George’s main parking lot and requires the North Arête through the true south summit. That summit rule matches Ryan Boyer’s old-school definition of the line. In a July 2020 message, Boyer also remembered Peter Croft posting quick but undocumented times in the late 1980s or early 1990s and described informal Mammoth extensions—house-to-house, Clocktower-to-Clocktower and house-to-Crab Cooker—that belong to the surrounding linkup culture rather than this standardized FKT. The local history preserves Boyer’s 55:00 ledger entry, Josh Dibble’s reported 48:32 in 2014 and Boyer’s later 47-minute car-to-car run, but the exact endpoints of the Dibble and Boyer efforts remain unrecovered. Ryan recalls that a possibly separate Josh attempt began near the bridge beyond normal vehicle access; that start is unconfirmed. The GPS-backed pavement-to-pavement table begins with Ryan Tetz’s 47:38, then Meikael Beaudoin-Rousseau’s 44:25 and Dylan Doblar’s current 43:18. No women’s performance is currently listed.

On July 17, 2026, Jake Whisenant completed the North Arête car-to-car in 3:49:40, unsupported and onsight. He carried climbing shoes, food and a water filter, reached the base in 1:26 and the summit in 2:15, then returned to the Mosquito Flat trailhead. It is Jake’s formal FKT entry and the current men’s mark listed for this route variation.

Sean O’Rourke ran the North Ridge in 5:42 car-to-car in 2011, reaching the summit in four hours and carrying rock shoes only for the crux. The current Meysan Lakes trailhead table lists Meikael Beaudoin-Rousseau’s 5:26:15 in 2022 and Dylan Doblar’s 4:30:56 unsupported mark from July 27, 2024. Sean’s earlier first-person report remains part of the chronology even though it is absent from that table.

Jed Porter’s Sierra Speed archive records Peter Clark at 3:31:02 in September 2014, pack-station parking lot round trip. When Mount Emerson was formalized on FKT in 2022, the route adopted the closer campground trailhead sign and estimated the endpoint difference at roughly five minutes each way. Goran Lynch followed that official shorter course in 3:19:30 unsupported on September 22, 2024. He holds the current listed FKT on the shorter course.

From Christmas 1928 into spring 1929, Orland Bartholomew traveled solo on skis from south of Mount Whitney toward Yosemite along a planned, roughly 300-mile cached line through the High Sierra. He also made the first winter ascents of Whitney, Langley and Tyndall. It predates modern route standards and FKT clocks by generations, but belongs at the beginning of any Sierra winter speed-and-traverse history.

David Beck, Nick Hartzell and Bob Couly completed the first full ski in 1975; Doug Robinson made it a one-day proposition with 22:05 in 1985. Ryan Soares and Steve Hammond lowered the listed mark to 19:50:43 east-to-west in 2022, and Soares went solo in 17:18:00 in 2023. On March 15–16, 2026, Soares reversed it—Wolverton to the Shepherd Pass trailhead—and finished in 17:11:56: solo, unsupported, single-push and on telemark gear. Six days later, Michelle Campeau and Lexi Arlen established the first listed women’s benchmark, 2d 1h 44m unsupported. Direction and team style belong beside the clock.

Cody Townsend, Tommy Caldwell and Bjarne Salén completed the first known winter ski-mountaineering traverse of Norman’s 13 over eight days in March 2026. Moving south-to-north from Horseshoe Meadow to South Lake, they tagged all thirteen Sierra fourteeners; COROS’s shared line records 98.48 miles and 48,937 feet of ascent. The snow-adapted line differs from the summer foot course.

Shay Har-Noy, Ben Horne and Konstantin Stoletov made the first winter ascent of Peter Croft’s nine-summit Evolution Traverse in 2012. They spent about 36 cumulative climbing hours across four ridge days—and seven total days in the backcountry—turning the eight-mile VI 5.9 rock ridge into a roped snow-and-mixed mountaineering route in temperatures near −7°F.

On March 28, 2026, Ryan Soares completed the first known single-push Monarch Divide and current listed FKT: 23:47:49 solo, unsupported and on telemark gear. His winter line ran 58.5 miles with 15,584 feet of gain from Coats Meadow to Road’s End, crossing Bishop Pass, Thunderbolt Col, Potluck, Mather, Frozen Lake and Marion before the long western exit.

Jay Jensen, George Miller, Galen Rowell and Dave Sharp completed the first documented winter crest traverse in February 1974, taking 16 days with food caches and shelter at Barcroft through major storms. A June 1998 team turned back at White Mountain. In May 2005, Dave Huebner continued alone after Todd Calfee turned around at Boundary Peak and completed the roughly 50-mile spring ski line in about 34 hours elapsed. Starting February 25, 2026, Jake Whisenant and Dylan Johnson logged 43.77 miles, 16,875 feet of gain and 55:52:32 elapsed on skis. Jake called it a possible second calendar-winter ski traverse after Rowell’s party and asked for historical confirmation.

Jed Porter and Ian McEleney completed the first winter Full Palisade Traverse in 2013, moving independently without caches across a VI 5.9 line and six fourteeners.

On February 10, 2012, Ben Horne soloed Whitney’s East Buttress and East Face in winter in 12:05 portal-to-portal and 12:45 car-to-car. Thirteen days later he made the first reported winter solo and single-push of Lone Pine Peak’s Northeast Ridge from the desert floor: 7:19 to the summit and 11:25 car-to-car. Together they capture a short, remarkable pre-registry Sierra speed season.

Allan Bard, Chris Cox and Tom Carter assembled the sectional vision across the 1982–83 seasons; Jed Porter made a continuous 16-day, 125-mile interpretation in 2017, mainly solo but joined by friends through part of day four. In May 2023, Jenna Kane became the first known woman to complete a Redline interpretation, traveling with Greg Cunningham for 19 days, roughly 145 miles, more than 80,000 vertical feet and 28 ski lines. The route’s deliberately fluid definition makes this expedition lineage rather than a single rigid FKT table.

Sean O’Rourke and a partner strongly identified—but not yet directly confirmed—as John Berude linked Ritter’s Southeast Glacier, Banner’s Southwest Couloir and Carson Bowl from June Lake in spring 2023. Sean’s report publishes neither an exact outing date, elapsed time nor track, so this remains a documented ski linkup rather than a record claim.

The standard line climbs from the Shepherd Pass trailhead through Williamson Bowl and up the West Face. Published dayhike history includes Robert Charles Altman’s 21:45 in 2004 and Rick Graham’s roughly 17:30 in 2005. The official men’s unsupported round-trip progression runs from Brendon Harrison’s 12:47:24 in 2019 to Nick Handel’s 8:28:43 in 2023; Handel’s 3:55:47 is also the current listed unsupported ascent. Canaan Vallejos’s 9:24:26 is listed with support style unknown. Ryan remembers an earlier Jason Lakey benchmark on Williamson, but no time, course, register entry or primary account has yet surfaced, so it remains an oral-history lead rather than a published record.

The full Northeast Ridge rises roughly 8,000 vertical feet from the mouth of Shepherd Creek, accumulating more than 9,500 feet of gain in about five horizontal miles. The American Alpine Journal has described it as the longest ridge in the Sierra. Its history has three distinct branches: Homer D. Erwin first climbed the shorter Williamson Creek variation in 1925; Norman Clyde later completed the entire ridge from Owens Valley; and John Ohrenschall with Warren Harding made the shorter variation’s first winter ascent over five days in 1954. Barry Beck and Scotty Strachan’s 2002 timestamps document a 19:52 full-ridge day from the Shepherd Pass trailhead, descending the West Face and Shepherd Pass. Sean O’Rourke started at the mouth of Shepherd Creek in 2016, summited a little over nine hours into the day and returned by the West Face, Shepherd Pass and the approach road in roughly 13:45.

The two-summit Shepherd Pass day has its own record lineage. Josh Swartz published a 15:11 round trip in 2001; the modern men’s unsupported progression runs through Eric Jesse’s 11:40 in 2020, Cordis Hall’s 9:50:52 in 2021 and Nick Handel’s current listed 8:28:43 in 2023. Erin Ton’s 11:23 in 2025 is the current listed women’s unsupported benchmark. Handel’s clock also appears in the Williamson-only table because he tagged Tyndall without extending his trailhead-to-trailhead time; this archive keeps the combo visible as a distinct achievement.

The Bishop Horseshoe is Hyslop’s four-summit, locked-gate circuit from the Buttermilk Country—not the White Mountain Day or the Bishop Sky Marathon. On September 30, 2002, he crossed Basin Mountain, Four Gables, Peak 12,808 and Mount Tom and returned to the same gate in 9 hours 32 minutes. Rockfax reports 14 miles, 10,300 feet of gain, sustained fourth-class movement and a short fifth-class band on Four Gables. Ryan Tetz returned to the historic line on August 2, 2021, recording 15.46 miles, 10,617 feet and 11:47:37 elapsed on Strava. His later account credits Hyslop’s original and describes the route as about 90 percent off trail. Hyslop remains the faster published benchmark.

The White Mountain Day is a separate circular desert-floor route—not the Bishop Horseshoe or today’s White Mountain West Ridge out-and-back. On October 4, 2002, Hyslop left his car on White Mountain Ranch Road at 09:16 from approximately 5,300 feet. He climbed the ridge between Jeffrey Canyon and Lone Tree Creek, reached White Mountain at 14:35, continued north over Point 13,484 at 16:00, descended a different technical ridge to the desert and returned at 19:05: 9 hours 49 minutes. Rockfax reports approximately 15,000 feet of cumulative ascent, leaves the mileage unknown and notes heavy snow above 12,500 feet. It may be among the earlier published FKT-style desert-to-summit circuit clocks yet recovered, but the guide makes no FKT, record, partner or support claim.