Most people who cycle the Pan-American route, the epic 30,000km-plus ride from Alaska to Patagonia, settle for the pedalling. Tobias Renggli, a 23-year-old from Lucerne, is adding a twist: he plans to climb the highest peak in all 35 countries along the way.
He set off in April 2025 from Deadhorse on Alaska's Arctic coast, riding 1,200km in temperatures as low as -30°C before skiing eight days with a sled to reach the foot of Denali. He and climbing partner Heli Hofmann then became the first party to stand on the 6,190m summit that year, spending 36 days on the project and breaking trail through deep snow to get there.
Canada came next: Mount Logan, 5,959m, again with Hofmann and no guide, summited in late June — this time the last team up for the season. After a two-week break in Vancouver, having covered 3,000km and knocked off two of the hardest mountains on his list, Renggli continued solo through the United States at a steady 100 to 160km a day.
For Mexico he chose the hard option: Baja California instead of the mainland. It nearly beat him. Temperatures topped 40°C, and he started a 120km stretch toward Loreto carrying just two litres of water. Near Ciudad Insurgentes, thunderstorms flooded the roads and he carried his bike through thigh-deep water at night while cars turned around.
His original ground rules were pure human power, plus sailboats where water forces the issue — he also wants to bag 12 Caribbean high points. In practice, he's relaxed about it. He flew out of Denali after skiing in, and caught the ferry from La Paz to Mazatlán. Since Baja, updates have been thin, but he has reportedly crossed into Guatemala, likely having climbed Pico de Orizaba (5,636m) in Mexico and now eyeing Volcán Tajumulco, Guatemala's 4,220m rooftop.
He's no newcomer to this format. At 18, in 2022, he cycled all 44 European countries in seven months, climbing each country's highest peak and camping every night. In 2024 he scaled the highest points of all 26 Swiss cantons in roughly three weeks. A film collective he belongs to, the Black Forest Collective, documents the current trip, and the footage so far is remarkable.
Why follow along? Because it's a fresh lens on the Americas, and a useful one. Renggli's route doubles as a checklist of mountain regions most travellers only see from afar — the Alaska Range, the Coast Mountains, the Mexican volcanoes, the Central American cordilleras — stitched together by some of the continent's most scenic (and demanding) cycling corridors, from the Dalton Highway to Baja's desert coastline. Even if you'd never attempt a fraction of it, his progress is a masterclass in what the stretch between Prudhoe Bay and Panama actually looks like on the ground.
Story via ExplorersWeb.
