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…
I wanna be like you. I’m 50 with a sore knee but not in too bad shape and I need to get out of my head! I’ve been taking hour long walks with my dog. I wanna expand my horizons, literally. I’m setting a goal for McKinley. Let me know please if you have any advise. Thanks.
I meant Whitney. Mt Whitney is my goal. Where do I start?
Robert, I just turned 50 last month, so I know how it feels! It’s great that you’re taking hour long walks with your dog. That’s a great place to start, and you’ve got a built in hiking buddy.
The key to building up to something like Whitney is consistency over time. The hour-long dog walks are great for weekdays, but you’ll want to start doing a longer hike on the weekends. I would suggest checking out some of the local hiking clubs (Meetup.com is a great resource). These are great not only for finding longer, more challenging trails in your area, but it’s usually more fun to hike with others.
The Six-Pack of Peaks is what I would prescribe when training for Whitney, but you’ll need to do much more than just six hikes. When I was training for the JMT, I hiked three times a week: a six mile hilly hike on Monday nights, a 4.6 mile hilly hike on Wednesday night, and a long hike on Saturday. This gives your legs a chance to recover in between, and ultimately conditions you for the elevation gain and altitude you’ll experience on Whitney.
Of course, I’m no doctor, so you’ve got to do the smart thing and check with your doc beforehand. Let them know what you’d like to do and your plan to work up to it, and make sure that knee or other problems won’t get in the way. My training plan was six months, but your mileage may (literally) vary.
One thing I will recommend that will help save your joints is a good pair of trekking poles. Just be sure to learn how to use them properly. You can check out my trekking pole advice with videos on proper form under the gear section here on SoCal Hiker.
Good luck, and let me know how it goes!
Thanks Jeff! That sounds like great advise. I’ll keep you updated on my progress.