14er Fitness: How to Get in Shape to Hike to the Top of Colorado and California 14ers

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14ers, particularly in Colorado, “are a day hike.”

I guess that is a factual statement if you are thinking about a hike that can be started and completed in the same day.

But, when you dig a bit deeper, things get complicated. The nature of the weather in the high mountains means that thunderstorms are likely to blow in around noon. So, you have to be off the summit by noon. Which means that you need to be able to hike fast enough to make your round trip in half a day, not a full day.

But that’s no big deal, right? Averaging two miles an hour, you can do a 10 mile round trip in 5 hours.

Well, can you average two miles an hour? Over broken ground? Talus hopping? Up the face of a peak that turns to a thirty degree slope as you ascend from a basin into the saddle? And that basin to saddle climb is 1,000 to 1,500 vertical feet?

Oh, and throw in the altitude: at 14,000 feet you’ll bring into your body 43% less oxygen than you would at sea level. (Due to the reduced air pressure, each volume of air has 43% less oxygen in it.)

I guess my point is that a 14er can be an enjoyable and scenic day hike if you are prepared. If you are unprepared, all those constraints can make a summit bid a tough needle to thread. And that isn’t even the worst-case scenario; the worst-case scenario is when you aren’t prepared but you think that you are.

So, how do we get prepared?

This video is the first in a series designed to answer that very question. But there’s a lot that goes into that answer, so I need to break it into parts: fitness, gear, planning, and acclimatization. I started with fitness.

Of course, there are lots of ways to train for activities that demand strong aerobic endurance, and no one way is the only right way. But when I think about breaking it down and simplifying it for someone who may be coming in new to the experiences of high altitude hikes, then I am drawn to mirroring the activity (hiking long distances uphill) when it comes to preparation.

As our fitness and skills advance, we may be tempted to go deeper into alpine climbing specific fitness. And if that is your goal, there is no better resource than Training for the New Alpinism by Steve House and Scott Johnston. It is what the best mountain athletes in the world use as their framework for training; it is what I use; and it is what I teach when I’m teaching high altitude mountaineering in formal settings.

But, for those just starting out, we can simplify things in terms of how we want our body to adapt and become “comfortable” with the activity. That is where I bring in the three major dimensions of a high altitude hike: distance traveled, vertical gain, and pack weight.

Well, there is actually a fourth dimension: the altitude, itself. But that topic is big enough to warrant its own video and blog. And there will be one.

So, taking altitude out of the equation for a moment, I am left with those three. And what I have always strived to do, coming from my background as a competitive athlete, is to “practice harder than I play.” I want the “games” to feel like they are within my comfort zone, so that I can just focus on performance. So, practice, and the somewhat more controlled environment that practice provides, are my times to push beyond my comfort zone.

And, to the extent possible, that’s what’s behind my “125% rule” of extending beyond the distance, vertical, and pack weight I need for a climb. I would rather be struggling on a local hike because I can’t “carry that much weight” or “put in that many miles.” If that happens up in the alpine, the potential consequences are more severe.

Practice harder than you play, because there is no (convenient) way to mimic the altitude. And once you are up at altitude, again, the risks are just greater.

This simple approach of working my way up to and past the three major measures of physical demand (distance, gain, and pack weight) is easy to remember, easy to track your progress against, and straight forward in training methods. You can do it on your local hills, in the gym on an incline trainer, or even on the stairs in your home or office if you need to. That’s a pretty good combination for someone who is just starting out.