A group of 25 Vashon Island women, members of the Island-based Road Crew Walkers, recently completed their 13-week winter walking challenge.

The walkers logged a total of 10,570 miles, about the distance from Anchorage, Alaska, to the tip of South America, all of it on Vashon’s roads.

This distance averages out to 4.84 miles per woman per day of the 91-day challenge. The women, who range in age from 45 to 73 walked these miles outdoors through Vashon’s cold and rainy winter.

Three Vashon teams competed for the prize — which included a celebratory meal cooked by the other team members. The top Island team was the Walkie Talkies, with 4,113.5 miles, followed by the Macadam Madams with 3,275.5 miles and the Footnotes with 3,181.2 miles.

Top walker Gail Cunningham logged 986.3 miles. Had she known how close she was to the 1,000 mile mark, Cunningham says that she would have managed to walk another 13.7 miles.

Her feat is remarkable, since she averaged 10.84 miles per day. Cunningham, who says she was not athletic as a young woman, began walking seriously when she joined the Road Crew in 2002.

Other top walkers included Susan Haworth with 681.1 miles, Joanna Guglielmino at 642.2 miles, Molly Purrington with 606.8 miles and Karen Fuller at 598.5 miles.

Favorite walks for the Road Crew include Pig Lane toward Point Robinson and around Luana Beach Road, Burton Loop to Reddings Lane and back and Ober Park to the Dilworth Loop.

Cunningham’s favorite early morning walk takes her to a spot on the west side where she can view Colvos Passage, the Olympics and a moon hanging in the sky, and she can think, “If I wasn’t here at this exact moment I would be missing this incredible sight.”

The Road Crew plans to have an annual winter walking challenge.

— Joanna Guglielmino is a retired feline veterinarian and has walked for two years with the Road Crew. She was the record keeper this year for the Walking Challenge.