How many things can a person do in 11 hours, 20 minutes, and 9 seconds? A lot, right? That is almost half of the hours in a day. Well, these two guys, Alex Sakelarios and Victor Maisano, decided to run the Five Peaks in San Diego not once, but twice....back to back. "We'd never heard of anyone doing 10 peaks before" Alex said, "so we went for it".
For those that have never heard of the 5-Peak Challenge it involves reaching the top of Cowles Mountain (1,594 feet), Pyles Peak (1,379 feet), Kwaay Paay (1,194), South Fortuna (1,094) and North Fortuna (1,291) all in one day. A combined distance to the top of all five: 11.5 miles....that's just from the bottom to top of each. Doing all five in one loop, continuously, ends up being a total distance of 18.5 miles. These guys did that on foot...and twice...in one day. Crazy!
Their day started with a 4:30AM meet up at the community center in Mission Trails park. Then through the trails to the base of South Fortuna. Up and over this summit then over to North Fortuna. Down the front side of North Fortuna and over to Kwaay Paay where they made it to the summit and back down, then over to Cowles, then to Pyles and then back to the starting place at the Community Center. After a little restocking, refueling, and a little bit of resting they set back out.....to do the entire thing again.
So, 11 hours, 20 minutes and 9 seconds after starting at 4:30AM they were done. They covered a total of 37.03 miles and climbed a total elevation of 9,921 feet. According to Alex, the two played a "fun little game" after starting the second loop...."just pretend the this was the first one" he said.
What an awesome feat and they did it just because they had never heard of it being done before. Way to go fellas.
Josh
April 21, 2021
Maui wowie!! Way to go. That is awesome :D