Training For Everest… 26 days and counting…

In an attempt to get ready for the March 28th departure date for Nepal, I’ve been training pretty hard. My running is now up to around 50 miles a week, I’m in the gym strength training 3 times a week and have one long day in the mountains hiking or backcountry skiing a week. With all the snow we’ve gotten in Little Cottonwood Canyon lately it has been hard not to run up and get a few turns in as well.


My wife, Molly, and I also made another cross-training trip to Ouray, CO to work on that extensive San Juan climbing tick list. After reading about the first ascent of Ames Ice Hose in the latest edition of Alpinist, I knew I had to try and get that in this season and fortunately had the chance to climb both Ames and The Talisman last week. The strength training in the gym definitely paid off as the last pitch of Talisman was a challenge with steep ice and mixed climbing rated at WI6/M7

Before the whole Everest climb had come into being, I had signed up for one of Gordy Peifer’s ski camps. Gordy runs Straightline Adventures Big Mountain Ski Camps which offer camps in the US and Europe. This camp was specifically for Teton Gravity Research 'Maggots' (Got change for a nickel?)and held over three days last week at Snowbird and Alta where we had over 2 feet of fresh powder and were lucky enough to have Jamie Pierre, Chris Collins, Steve Hall and Gordy as coaches. Skiing with these guys gave me a great cross training workout and I learned the hard way not to follow Jamie when he says… “anyone want to catch a little air?”

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