A man just set a new world record climbing ten 14ers in one day. According to Denver 9 News, Josh Sanders, from Kalamazoo, Michigan broke the record of summiting ten 14,000 foot (4,267 meters) peaks in one day on June 29th. He started at midnight and completed summiting 10 peaks by 11:33pm. He had attempted the record last year and had summited five peaks before 10am, but while on Bierstadt he was forced to turn around due to a bad storm. The old record was set back in 2013 with only nine summits in a 24-hour period.
Setting this kind of record is no joke and is definitely an uphill battle from the start. For a hiker or climber to “summit” a peak in Colorado, the rule is that you have to ascend at least 3,000 feet (914 meters). Sanders climbed four groups of peaks for a total of 18,000 feet (5,486 meters).
Sometimes to achieve the unachievable you just have to persevere and Sanders puts it best:
“There’s no denying that, I was tired from 21 and a half hours just consistent movement through the mountains, up the passes, up the ridges, and really, there was a moment when I was traversing the saddle and thought I had gotten to the summit of Oxford, but once I got up – realized it was a false summit and I saw it looming seemingly a half mile in the distance that was probably the lowest point,” said Sanders. “But it also forced me to be aggressive and just really turn on the jets and leave it all out there on the mountain.”
