🇫🇷 Two Frenchies rewrite the record books

Good morning, Stoke Crew. Summer's in full swing, tan lines are getting weirder, gear is everywhere and every weekend is jammed pack with adventures... just the way it should be! Here the news to keep you STOKED! Cheers, yeeeew, and love - Tyler

In today's report

• ⛰️ Mont Blanc women's record
• 🥇 New Tour Divide record!
• ⛏️ Alta upgrades
• ❄️ New Zealand's winter is sleeping in

Today's Stoke Stories

🇫🇷 Two Frenchies rewrite the record books

⛰️ Iris Pessey just set the women's ascent speed record on Mont Blanc, then flew off the top. On June 18 the French skyrunner left the church in Chamonix at 3:30 a.m. and tagged the 15,764-foot summit in 5 hours and 2 minutes, ten minutes quicker than the mark Hillary Gerardi set in 2023. Instead of running back down, she pulled out a paraglider and flew to the valley, closing the full round trip in 5 hours and 34 minutes.

• The line covers roughly 9.9 miles and about 12,467 feet of gain on the way up.
• Her "Mont Blanc Express" project took more than two years of scouting and risk planning, and she trained with sandbags on her ankles to mimic the weight of crampons on the summit push.

Why It Matters: Women's fast-and-light alpinism has been quietly raising its ceiling for years, and milestones like this one barely make it across the Atlantic. A sub-5:05 ascent of the highest peak in Western Europe is next level....Pay attention now, because these times will look modest in a decade.

🥇 Victor Bosoni didn't just win the 2026 Tour Divide, he smashed the record. The 24-year-old from France rode the roughly 2,700-mile route from Banff, Alberta, to Antelope Wells, New Mexico, in about 11 days and 8 hours, beating Justinas Leveika's 2024 official men's mark by more than a day and a half.

• He averaged 14 mph while moving and close to 10 mph even counting stops, knocking out around 235 miles a day on a rigid, drop-bar Factor SARANA with more than 100,000 feet of climbing along the way.
• Bosoni broke clear near mile 100 and just kept stretching the gap. He finished hundreds of miles ahead of second place, Dutch rider Laurens Ten Dam (who once took 9th at the Tour de France).

Why It Matters: A day and a half is not a nudge, it's a leap. Times like this don't come from being slightly fitter than the last guy. They come from sleeping less, stopping smarter, and dialing the kit until nothing's wasted. Bosoni just moved the bar to a place that'll take years for anyone to touch. He rode the whole thing, alone and unsupported!

Skiing

🏔️ One mountain builds, another waits on snow

⛏️ Alta has laid out its offseason punch list for the 2026-27 season, and it's the kind of mountain work that pays off all winter. Behind the scenes crews are reshaping terrain, upgrading infrastructure, and finishing a multi-year lodge project before the snow drops.

• The High Traverse is getting hand-cut and widened, which means easier access and better snow retention early season and during wind events.
• The Albion Day Lodge expansion will add seating, bathrooms, storage, employee housing, and more room for guests after a two-year build.
• Crews are regrading the Big Dipper run in the Supreme pod for better early-season coverage, swapping out aging snowmaking lines near the Collins lift, and burying power lines through the Town of Alta.
• Smaller wins round it out: a handful of new Wildcat parking spots, a heated year-round restroom near the Grizzly Gulch trailhead, and another avalanche-control tower.

Why It Matters: Skiers notice the flashy lift upgrades and ignore the boring stuff, but it's the boring stuff that saves a season. Widened traverses, regraded runs, and new snowmaking lines are what keep terrain open in a thin year. This is Alta quietly weatherproofing itself against bad snow.

❄️ New Zealand's winter is sleeping in, and the South Island's biggest resorts are stuck waiting on snow. A warm, dry autumn (one of the driest Mays on record) left the mountains bare, and warm daytime temps have choked off snowmaking. Several marquee resorts have pushed their opening dates back, some more than once.

• The Remarkables and Cardrona near Queenstown, plus Treble Cone and Mt. Hutt in the Canterbury and Wanaka regions, have all bumped their timelines as conditions refuse to cooperate.
• Mt. Hutt is holding out for a solid 1 foot base before spinning lifts, and said it needs roughly three full days of good snowmaking to get there.
• A recent Nor'wester made it worse, hammering the ranges with winds clocked around 248 km/h along with rain and heat that ate into what little snow existed.
• Relief is finally tracking in: a colder southerly change late this week is forecast to drop natural snow, with several resorts now eyeing Saturday, June 27, and Cardrona aiming to open learner terrain even sooner.

What else is going on

• Apex Park closed after Colorado's first 2026 bear attack near Golden
• Snowboarding pioneers dominate Colorado Snowsports Hall of Fame's 2026 class.
• Lake Tahoe residents fight Forest Service plan to spray glyphosate herbicide across 2,400-3,600 acres for Caldor Fire restoration, citing cancer concerns and risks to pristine watershed.
• Jackson Hole unveils Corbet's Couloir via ferrata opening July 18 with three new routes, 4,000 vertical feet of climbing, and dual suspension bridges hanging 400 feet up.

🔥 The STOKE VOTE

📚 Trailhead Trivia

Alta is one of a small handful of US ski areas that still ban snowboarding. Can you name one other resorts with the same ban?

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Answer!

Deer Valley Resort in Utah and Mad River Glen in Vermont. Lame (I snowboard)