13 JULY 2024

Arabba, Italy

HE DID IT!! The DEUX MILLE CHALLENGE COMPLETED

Maximillian Schnell did it! All 204 cols over 2,000 meters in the Pyrenees and Alps in 77 days, self-supported, with no rest days: 10,839 kilometers and 271,004 vertical meters. He’s the first person ever to accomplish this.

COMMUNITY STORIES

Conquering and utilizing the highest mountains in Europe is a way to soul search, exercise life balance and find purpose. When you follow your natural desires you will ultimately live a happier life.

In the highest mountains, we find solitude and tranquility, but we also find new friends and share stories with other mountaineers. Nothing less matters.

Read more stories from community ambassadors.

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Living parallel to society

Living parallel to society

To live this life, I trade comfort for freedom. I did was supposed to be a good master's degree in France. I was expected to have a very straight-forward life. When you live remotely, you live parallel to society. I don't watch news anymore. You see so much sad...

I’m not in a hurry

I’m not in a hurry

My fascination with Deux Mille cols in one word: - Freedom! Being in the mountains, especially the small and empty roads, makes me feel very small and humble, but it also gives me a 'king of the world' feeling. My overall target is to be as much in the mountains as...

Back to my true self

Back to my true self

Living in the Netherlands, the mountains always have had a majestic attraction. As soon as I felt the gradient and saw the views when I did my first climb, I knew this was going to be something I would be doing the rest of my life and I needed a new and bigger...

Col-hunting is freedom

Col-hunting is freedom

We knew each other from Instagram, but by coincidence we met at the top of Col d'Izoard. What are the chances? Our Deux Mille ambassador, Paolo Stroppiana, had taken on a massive ride from Turin. Our group had only started 90 mins earlier from Briancon. Paolo is an...

The journey is the reward

The journey is the reward

No one knows the Swiss Alps quite like Bruno Reis. The Deux Mille ambassador lives near Luzern with easy access to some of the greatest cols in Europe. - My mother grew up a few kilometers from a Deux Mille climb. Maybe this is why I always loved to ride in the...

Giving up brick and mortar

Giving up brick and mortar

After a year or two trying to grab a week here and there, we decided to do a longer, 6 week trip in summer 2020 to travel around Switzerland, Austria, Italy and France. We plotted a rough route and checked out all the cols we could do in that area. But, such as life,...