TIME: 5 hoursDISTANCE: 12.9 miles total
ELEVATION GAIN: 4,170 FT
DIFFICULTY: Strenuous
5 Category 5 Peaks in 5 Hours. That was the goal.
Many of you know one of my favorite places to hike is Mission Trails Regional Park, right in the middle of San Diego. I don't really know how this unique range of local mountains formed, but the park contains five distinguished peaks, all in a row. A few years ago I set the goal to hike all five peaks over a summer season. But after doing that, I decided the real challenge would be to hike all 5 in one day. I studied the map and distances and came to the conclusion that with some planning and fitness, it would be possible to do all five, not just in a day, but in a five-hour period. The Mission Trails 5-5-5 Challenge was born, and on Saturday May 2, I convinced my brother Byron to join me for the first attempt.
7:00 a.m. We arrived at the staging area on Father Junipero Serra road and parked the cars (the gate to Old Mission Dam was still locked, so we started off with an unanticipated 3/4 mile walk to where I intended to start). The idea was to run the downhill/level spots whenever possible. With camelbaks full of water/gatorade and a supply of energy bars, we were on our way. The first leg was to hike the Fortuna range via the Oak Canyon trail.
Peak #1: North Fortuna - Arrival: 7:51 a.m. Hiking time to peak: 51 minutes. Cumulative time: 51 minutes. Distance to peak: 2.9 miles. Cumulative distance: 2.9 miles. Elevation: 1,291 ft. The famous "wall" up the east side had us out of breath, but we arrived in good time nonetheless. From North Fortuna we could look south and see all five of the peaks we would attempt that morning.
Peak #2: South Fortuna - Arrival: 8:17 a.m. Hiking time to peak: 32 minutes. Cumulative time: 1:23 hours. Distance to peak: 1.18 miles. Cumulative distance: 4.08 miles. Elevation: 1,072 ft. Just a hop, skip, and a jump across the saddle, this peak was easy to bag from North Fortuna. Now back to the Old Mission Dam, with the goal of arriving before 9:30 a.m. to start peak #3. We made it by 9:05, way ahead of schedule, with total cumulative miles at 6.47. Took a restroom break and downed a power bar. Started the climb up peak #3 at 9:10 a.m.
Peak #3: Kwaay Paay - Arrival: 9:42 a.m. Hiking time to peak: 32 minutes. Cumulative time: 2:42 hours. Distance to peak: 1.18 miles. Cumulative distance: 7.65 miles. Elevation: 1,194 ft. Meaning "The Chief" in Kumeyaay, this peak doesn't have a summit marker, but we made it to the highest point per the GPS. This leg was uphill all the way, and extremely steep the last 1/4 mile. From the summit we hiked back to the original starting point where we left the car. We arrived at 10:15, right on schedule, 3:15 hours cumulative hiking time, 9.15 miles cumulative distance. Goal was to be at the trailhead of Peak #4 by 10:30 a.m., giving us 1.5 hours to bag the last two peaks.Intermission: This was the tricky part. We hopped in the cars and shuttled one to the Southwest trailhead of Peak #5, where we left it there as the final destination (we were going to bag the last two peaks in a "point-to-point" hike). Then we headed back to the intersection of Golfcrest and Mission Gorge at the base of Peak #4. Now we hit our first obstacle. I had an old version of Schad's book "Afoot & Afield in San Diego County" which described a less traveled trail starting at this intersection. Come to find out the trail is there, but it's clearly marked "TRAIL CLOSED, KEEP OUT." Do we break the rules and pass anyway, or do we find an alternate route . . .
Peak #4: Pyles Peak - Arrival: 11:01 a.m. Hiking time to peak: 33 minutes. Cumulative time: 4:01 hours. Distance to peak: 0.9 miles. Cumulative distance: 10 miles. Elevation: 1,379 ft. So to answer the question, instead of starting at the closed trailhead we hiked further up Mission Gorge to find a service road. After about 50 yards, it was clear this service road went nowhere fast. Now what? Bushwacking time. We found a deer trail and followed it as best we could, but it was faint at best in some spots. Got our socks filled with thistles. Sun was starting to beat down. When we made it to the top of the first ridge, we met up with the "closed trail" but who knows if the segment we were on was really closed. Point is we found a trail. A short while later we made it to the top of Pyles Peak. We had one hour left to follow the ridgeline and bag the final peak. No sweat.
Peak #5: Cowels Mountain - Arrival: 11:34 a.m. Hiking time to peak: 33 minutes. Cumulative time: 4:34 hours. Distance to peak: 1.36 miles. Cumulative distance: 11.36 miles. Elevation: 1,584 ft. The highest summit in the park, we had to save it for last. We had now hit 5 Category 5 peaks in 4:34 hours and accomplished our goal . . .Or had we? If we still had to hike back to the car, were we really done? At precisely 11:39 a.m., with 21 minutes left before noon, we decided we weren't finished until we made it back to the car. Now the best I had ever done down this mountain was 24 minutes, so we would definitely have to run the 1.5 miles downhill back to the car in order to make it. For a Saturday morning, the trail was unusually void of hikers. As we neared the bottom, it was apparent why - they were doing trail maintenance, and we had been running on a closed trail without knowing it. The MTRP Serviceman was annoyed when he saw us and told us the trail was closed and that we would have to go back to the Boulder Lake trailhead. Hey buddy, we had done almost 13 miles, and our car was right at the bottom of this trailhead, and we were on a tight schedule, so we were not going to take "no" for an answer. We convinced him we had done a point-to-point from Pyles Peak and he reluctantly let us pass. But the obstacle of workers slowed us down a bit. As we ran down the final steps and arrived at the finish line, my brother yells to me, "Check the time! Check the time!"
Finish: Arrival: 12:00 p.m. Cumulative time: 5:00 hours. Cumulative distance: 12.90 miles. Cumulative vertical elevation gain (all the uphill): 4,173 ft. The GPS read 12:00 on the dot as I reached the final step. I frantically reached for my camera to snap a shot for proof, but in the process it changed to 12:01. No matter, we know we did it. The cumulative distance on the GPS, as you can see, says 17.1 miles, but that's because it counted our shuttling the cars in between peak #3 and #4.
So who's going with me next time?
