Last month I outlined my training plan for the John Muir Trail. In a nutshell, it involves several weekday conditioning hikes, longer weekend hikes, weight-bearing hikes and most importantly, hikes at high altitude with substantial elevation gain.
As I researched my options, I settled on a series of six peak-bagging hikes, each progressively more challenging and all within a couple hours drive from Orange County. While this will be great preparation for the JMT, it’s also invaluable for hikers training for other big adventures — like hiking Mount Whitney.
With that in mind, I organized a series of hikes through Hiking OC called the 6-Pack of Peaks. Here they are, in sequential order:
- Mt. Wilson – This was a 14 mile loop with 4,200 feet of elevation gain and a top elevation of 5,710 feet. I hiked this with Joan and seven other friends on May 23rd.
- Cucamonga Peak comes up next on June 5th. It’s an 11.6 mile out-and-back route with 4,300 feet of elevation gain to the 8,859′ summit.
- Mt. San Antonio — aka Mt. Baldy — is up next on June 12. It’s the first peak in the list over 10,000 feet.
- San Bernardino Peak on June 19th tops out at 10,649 feet, followed by
- Mt. San Jacinto via the Marion Mountain trail on June 26th, and finally
- San Gorgonio — the highest peak in Southern California — on July 3rd. We’re ascending via the short-but-steep Vivian Creek trail.
It adds up to 27,108 feet of elevation gain over 82 miles!
The groups I’ll be hiking with are purposely smaller — I’ll have anywhere from 7-11 friends with me on each hike. And I’m bringing along an actual 6-pack to toast the completion of each hike. For Mt. Wilson, we shared ice-cold Amstel. This weekend, Joan and I will be in Yosemite where we’ll get a taste of what we’ll experience on the JMT in July. When we return from Yosemite, we will hike five peaks in five weeks.
As I complete each segment of the six-pack, I’ll be posting trail reports here at SoCal Hiker. Check back regularly to keep up-to-date!
Sounds like a great plan. We have the Mt Charleston Wilderness here in Las Vegas (well, it’s about an hour away) with a few peaks over 11,000. The elevation can take its toll on the body. Good to see that you have worked that into your prep. I am really looking forward to the trail reports. Great job on SocialHiker.net – I love it!
Thanks, Tim. I checked out your site. I was in Vegas late last summer and did some short hikes in the Red Rock area. Next time I visit, I’ll lookup your trail reports and find some more serious hikes to tackle.
And for those of you keeping track, we toasted Cucamonga Peak with Rolling Rock. I swear it never tasted so good…