WA women break record on grueling Infinity Loop at Mount Rainier

Approaching Mowich Lake campground last month in pursuit of a record time on the grueling Infinity Loop, mountain guides Kiira Antenucci and Abby Westling, both 25, needed to take a break. 

In the 72 hours prior, they had summited Mount Rainier twice and ran two-thirds of the national park’s Wonderland Trail — on seven hours of sleep. As campers set up for the night, Antenucci lay on a picnic table and Westling curled up on a bench for a 20-minute nap. But they soon realized it was too cold to sleep. They could alert their friends, bail on the record attempt and coordinate a pickup. Or they could keep walking down the trail to a lower elevation, where it’d be warm enough to rest. 

“We were like, ‘Well, no, we don’t want to bail.’ So we’re just going to keep on walking,” Westling said. “That was the determination that we’re really going to make it to the end.”

On July 30, Antenucci and Westling set the fastest known time for a self-supported female pair on Mount Rainier’s Infinity Loop, finishing in three days, 22 hours, 19 minutes, 38 seconds. They beat the previous record, held by Issaquah ultrarunner Kaytlyn Gerbin and Portland’s Alex Borsuk, by about six hours. Gerbin and Borsuk were the first known women to complete the loop. 

Dreamed up by renowned Washington climber Chad Kellogg, who died in 2014, the Infinity Loop features two summits of Rainier and the entire Wonderland Trail. It’s a 143-mile feat that includes more than 44,000 feet of elevation gain.

“It’s awesome to see Kiira and Abby set a record on this route,” Gerbin said. “The Infinity Loop is one of those routes that is hard to conceptualize, even after you’ve done it. It’s logistically and technically challenging, and takes a unique skill set of alpine and glacier navigation ability, physical and mental endurance, and running fitness to complete.”

Both women were introduced to the outdoors by their families at a young age. Westling grew up in Olympia while Antenucci was raised in Evergreen, Colo. Antenucci comes from an expedition background and guides full time, working for a handful of companies in the North Cascades and spending winters ski guiding in Utah. Westling also is a full-time guide who summits Rainier weekly. In 2019, they met at Mount Rainier as guides for Seattle’s RMI Expeditions. It wasn’t until 2022 that they became mountain partners, spending an overnight trip skiing around the Enchantments and Mount Stuart. 

“We speak the same language; we have similar guiding experience. When I’m scared, she’s calm. When she’s scared, I’m calm,” Antenucci said. “It was just really easy to make decisions and really easy to be together but alone, which I think is a rare thing to find.”

Just before their ski trip that spring, a close mutual friend and fellow guide, Luke Wilhelm, died in a climbing accident. The pair turned to American Alpine Club’s Climbing Grief Fund for support. CGF offers grants “for individuals directly impacted by grief, loss, and/or trauma related to climbing, ski mountaineering or alpinism.” These grants are used for mental health services with therapists that have experience in the climbing world. 

They used their Infinity Loop attempt to raise money for the fund in Luke’s honor and awareness for the resource. They’ve raised more than $10,000 for the fund. 

On July 26, the duo dropped Westling’s van at the White River campground then headed to Paradise to begin their first Rainier climb, on schedule to summit during the night.

All was going according to plan until they approached Disappointment Cleaver. Antenucci got extremely sick, vomiting more than a dozen times — a combination of getting hit by a rock here on her most recent climb and a caffeine pill triggered a panic attack. They continued slowly until, at about 13,500 feet, they decided to take an hourlong nap in the middle of the night, huddled together with just their parkas and Gore-Tex layers for warmth. The nap helped Antenucci, who felt better the higher they climbed. They continued on to the summit. 

The descent of Emmons Glacier proved to be another challenge, as Antenucci and Westling weathered sharp knee pain. But they made it back to Westling’s van, where they took another nap and refueled before heading clockwise on the Wonderland Trail, tackling a 30-mile section that would return the women to Paradise. In pain as they ran in the dark, they talked the whole time, keeping each other’s spirits up. They reached Antenucci’s truck at 1 a.m., exhausted and sore. They crawled into the truck for a two-hour nap, both thinking they were not going to finish. 

But the pair woke up feeling good. They applied some glitter to their faces and started their second Rainier attempt in 49 hours. 

“At that point, I told Abby, kind of jokingly at first, that if I could make it up the snowfield the second time, that we could finish the whole Infinity Loop,” Antenucci said. “And it’s a ridiculous thing to say, because at that point, you’re not even halfway done with it. But for me, I’ve always hated the snowfield.” 

As the guides approached Camp Muir, descending co-workers cheered them on. Buoyed by the support, Westling and Antenucci summited a second time. 

It was midnight when they completed the second descent. They slept again at White River to prepare for the final leg — a 60-mile counterclockwise trek all the way back to Paradise. 

After the first 30 minutes, Antenucci wanted to turn around. But after another 30, she was confident they would make it to Mowich Lake — 26 miles away and their final bail point. Instead of sleeping, they pushed through the night. As the sun began to rise, they reached Longmire, just 5 miles and 3,000 feet of elevation from Paradise. 

At Longmire, Westling felt her lowest.

“I knew that we were going to finish but everything started hurting,” she said. “My body was just like, ‘Oh, you’re almost done, so now you can feel the pain in your knees and feet and head.’”

At the top of the trail heading into the Paradise parking lot, the pair hugged and walked together toward the iconic steps at Paradise, their start and end point. As they got closer, they saw co-workers and friends rounded up by Westling’s boyfriend. Cheered on by the crowd, Antenucci and Westling walked to the steps and sat down victorious.

After burgers and pizza, they were ready for a full night’s rest. When asked if they’d ever try the Loop again, both Antenucci and Westling answered with the same emphatic “no.” But they’re proud of their accomplishment, of the awareness raised for CGF and for honoring Luke’s legacy. 

They have more big, to-be-determined athletic objectives on the horizon. And now, they have the additional confidence to get out there.

“There are other things that I’m excited about trying to do,” Antenucci said. Those athletic feats and metaphorical mountaintops, which didn’t seem reachable before, “feel possible now.”