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Below are some answers to help to common questions that we receive regarding the Adventx Fit To Climb Program: How do I complete the Stair Intervals? First, find a set of stairs. They can be outdoors, indoors, at a stadium or even a stairmaster or eliptical trainer at the gym. Warm up with steady walking for 10 - 15 minutes. Then make repeated high intensity efforts - about 2 minutes is a good length of time (this may mean two or more flights/sets if your stairs are short). In between efforts, rest for 2 - 3 minutes until you can breathe comfortably before starting again. If you are new to interval training, start with 3 or 4 efforts. Don't worry about your performance level today as you'll see gains as the weeks progress. The 40 minutes is an average time frame, the amount of time it will actually take you depends on the number of efforts you put in. Be sure to allow 10 minutes to cool down at an easy pace. What is a Turkish Get Up (from the Rainier Dozen)? Steve Cotter offers a great instructional video on the Turkish Get Up using a variation I find very helpful for climbers in building strength for the big steps often found on climbs. Using a kettle ball or additional weight, as demonstrated in the video, is optional depending on how challenging this exercise is for you. See the video below. Be sure to complete the exercise on both your left and right sides. How do I complete the Timed Run? The Timed Run (or walk) is a benchmark that allow you to see progress over the sixteen weeks. When not setting benchmarks, it's easy to 'feel' fitter, or even less fit, at times. The Timed Run is a timed effort over a short distance that allows you to see tangible gains. You can choose your actual distance, I suggest about 1 mile, four circuits of an athletic field or the perimeter of a city park - but it can be any moderate distance that you choose and can follow again over the coming weeks. The Timed Run also acts as an improvement target, providing focus for this workout. What is the Fitness Test all about? In Fit To Climb we'll do the test every four weeks to act as a measurement of overall fitness as well as specific core muscle endurance and agility. The repeated test is designed to show progress and these sessions should also be fun. Be sure to record your results from this week's test and we can compare them to the results of the next test. As with all training, there should be an emphasis on safety and self care. Push your limits but don't place undue stress or strain on your body. Rather than go all out, try to nudge your results forward in a controlled and sensible way, much like a successful mountain climb. I don’t have the time or the right terrain to fit in all of the training! There is no doubt about it, the Fit To Climb Program is a demanding training routine and asks for a significant investment of time. Additionally, ideal training takes place on terrain that can replicate the demands of the mountains. Finding both the time and the terrain to fit in all of your training is a difficult task. Check out our Time and Terrain Tips for Mountaineering Training, a collection of ideas, suggestions, and tips that our guides and climbers have used over the years to get the most out of your training. Be creative with the time and terrain you have available! Additionally, consider alternate activities like cycling to get your workouts in, see Cycling for Mountaineering Training for more ideas. -John Colver John Colver is a longtime climber, former mountain guide, and certified personal trainer with the American Council of Exercise. Colver introduced outdoor fitness classes to athletic clubs throughout the greater Puget Sound region before creating his adventX brand. Currently, adventX leads training programs in Seattle and Colver presents clinics on outdoor fitness at companies such as Microsoft, Boeing, the American Lung Association, and REI. Colver lives in Seattle, and is working on his second book, Fit to Climb - a 16 week Mount Rainier Fitness Program. Questions? Comments? Share your thoughts with John and other readers on the RMI Blog! You can read the past Weekly Mountaineering Training Series on the RMI Blog.

Dave Hahn calling from Camp One on Mount Everest 20,000'. That was a day of waiting and watching for us. The weather improved a little bit, this morning it was sunny and clear. And couple of helicopter and courageous helicopter pilots made use of that time flying out from sick and hurt people from Camp Two to Camp One. But the big work that they did was trip after trip flying casualties out from Base Camp. We followed some of that on the radio. Our efforts to get our selves out of here, two of our Sherpa team Wingen and Sunam, made a valiant effort coming up from the bottom of the Ice Fall, to see how far they could get before the damage of the earth quake stopped them. They got about a third of the way. Additionally, we were part of supporting a team, coming down from the top trying to do the same thing. They probably got about a third of the way down, luckily both teams, got out safely. There was a massive aftershock this afternoon at about 1 o'clock local time. But it seemed almost as powerful as yesterdays quake. And we are worried, as everybody is, about putting people in the Ice Fall again. That is probably not going to be our exit plan. And now we are looking to helicopter out in the next day or two to get down to Base Camp. And that probably will be what we do, but the timing is still up to mother nature. If it keeps on snowing as it did this afternoon, and making flying impossible. But perhaps we'll keep you updated. We'll let you know how it goes. We are safe. We are in a good spot. And we are not in panic mode. Thank you. RMI Guide Dave Hahn

This is Dave Hahn with RMI's Everest Expedition. This morning, early this morning we got up from Camp 1, five climbers Jeff Justman, Chhering Dorji and myself. We completed a good circuit, climbing up to 21,300 feet Advance Base Camp and back to Camp 1. We were here about 11:30, 11:15 this morning. And then shortly after that, at about noon, there was a major earthquake and resulted in avalanches off of all the mountains around us. Our camp was in a good place we got dusted but here at Camp 1 we were just fine. Our concern then shifted to Base Camp. We are hearing reports of some pretty destructive action down there, injuries and loss of life. Our entire team is ok. We have talked with our Sherpa team down below and with Mark Tucker [at Base Camp]. And so our team is okay. About the same time as the earthquake a pretty good snowstorm commenced up here in the Western Cwm and down at Base Camp. We're sitting things out safely at Camp One. But we don't have the ability to travel right now, good mountaineering sense dictates that we stay put and ride this storm out. This may take a little time to ride the storm out and that's what we'll do. It may take this a little time but we are okay. We are self sufficient up here and our concern is with our friends at Base Camp. We're hearing the strenuous efforts that our Sherpa team and Mark Tucker are going through down there trying to help with the injured and those who haven't fared so well. We'll try to be in touch. We obviously are in a situation where we won't have great communication. It's likely that the earthquake destroyed any cell service around the Base Camp area. We are calling you on a satellite telephone, we got some batteries and we will nurse those batteries to make them last. RMI Guide Dave Hahn

On The Map

Namaste from Depot Camp (ABC) at 6,000m!!! 2,000 to go... we're on the move! Day 1 of summit push brought us on the late afternoon to a frigid moraine camp which prompted the funny scene of everyone gathering for dinner in down suits over the rocky platforms of our tents... like an army of teletubbies. Much more talented, though, we didn't let the cold get to us and ventured early to the comfort of our tents, knowing that our move to Camp 1 tomorrow will be a bit more demanding than our hike today, basically a strategic move to shorten the distance between Base Camp and Camp 1 (by the way, these guys are ditching 1.20h from what it was taking on our first trip!) Despite having a strong team of Sherpa support, we decided to endure a one night of alpine style camping.... with our bags at Camp 1, we chose to all sleep in our down suits to avoid carrying our base camp bag, and have lighter move. At the moment, we're (at the guides' tent) listening to Liam Knoff's playlist, waiting for the early Tibetan night of the fall, to go into full sleepy time. Stay tuned for our progress uphill tomorrow. RMI Guides Elías, Adam, Robby and the RMI Shishapangma team!!!

When training for any sport, the best training advice is that you need to “do the sport.” If you are training to run a 5k race, you should spend a significant amount of your training running. 24 hour mountain bike race? You are going to spend a lot of training time on a bike. Crossfit competition? You’d better flip a lot of tires, do a lot of burpees, and swing a lot of ropes. So what do we do when our chosen sport is mountaineering?

For the lucky amongst us, we have mountains and hills nearby. We can lace up a pair of boots, put on a weighted pack, and head out the door for a several hour hike. So many of our climbers don’t have the luxury of living nearby mountains (for many, not even many hills), yet so much of our training advice relies on gaining vertical elevation throughout the workout. For flatlanders, one of the best options to still achieve vertical distance during a workout is to use a treadmill set at its max incline.

On Mt. Rainier we aim to climb at a pace of about 1000 ft/hour. We use this measure because our pace varies with the terrain. In flatter terrain with less rise per step, we’ll up the tempo and move a bit faster. As the terrain gets steeper and the effort increases, we back the speed down somewhat, all in an effort to continue to move efficiently. 1000 ft/hour, therefore, is a useful benchmark in your training.

A treadmill typically has a max incline of 15%. To climb 1000ft. on a treadmill therefore, you need to walk roughly 1.25 miles of horizontal distance (what the treadmill measures). Setting the pace to 1.25 miles per hour on the treadmill will approximate the pace of the climb, at least on paper.

There is a physics argument around frame of reference that argues that a treadmill should be the same effort as hiking outside (the same argument is made for stairmasters), however, physiological studies show that heart rate and oxygen consumption (a way to measure effort) are lower on a treadmill for the same pace on solid ground. This suggests that a treadmill then requires somewhat less effort and is in effect easier. How much easier? This is a difficult question, that doesn’t have an answer. With this knowledge, we can simply set our pace to be faster than 1.25 miles per hour and increase the difficulty through speed. If we increase the difficulty enough, we will approach the difficulty of the climb.

Other great options for tailoring your training to the vertical gain involved in climbing include stadium or office building stairs. In this case, you are moving your center of mass uphill, just like in mountaineering, so 1000 ft/hour will feel similar to the actual effort. Embrace the options that are available to you, grab a pack and some weight, and see how much vertical you can incorporate into your training!

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Comments? Questions? Share your thoughts here on the RMI Blog!

            Black Lives Matter. This isn’t a belief or personal opinion; it is a fact. And here at RMI we feel it is time for us to speak up about it. The last few weeks have been incredibly painful and emotional, but for the Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color (BIPOC) communities in our nation, the last few weeks are representative of daily life – this is just one of the times the rest of us decide to tune in. The murders of George Floyd, Brianna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and countless others are not isolated events. They are the painful and violent windows into the systemic racism that underlies nearly every part of our lives. It is especially noticeable in the outdoors.

 

            We have always seen nature, and specifically the mountains, as the ultimate equalizers. The mountains do not care about your race, ethnicity, gender, economic background, sexuality, or disability. If the mountains do not want you to summit, no amount of wealth or privilege will get you to the top. But the mountains, and their equalizing power, come at the end of the approach, and what we often forget is that the approach is much longer for some of us than for others. So many of us take our privilege for granted, the privilege that allows us to simply put on our boots and start climbing. But for millions of Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color, there are countless barriers between them and the mountains. Economic restraints, white-washed media, a lack of outdoor education, subtle racism on trails and in parks, and a plethora of other issues conspire to keep BIPOC out of the outdoors. According to a 2014 national park study,  91% of all national park visitors in the Pacific Northwest are white. This needs to change.

 

            We have been asked, rightly so, why we have not released a statement clarifying our position sooner. We did not feel it was right to say something without first educating ourselves and understanding the barriers faced by BIPOC in the outdoors. The need for this education can be seen as an indictment of our own complacency over the years. A few weeks is not enough time to call ourselves fully educated on the topic, but we are trying. Here at RMI Expeditions, Whittaker Mountaineering, and Bight Gear we are now in the process of gaining that education with the goal of taking significant actions to reduce barriers and increase representation of BIPOC in the outdoors.

 

            We want to use our voice and our capital in a more meaningful way than a one-time donation or post, because this issue is endemic.  To design and implement the kind of long-term, high impact program we have in mind, we need time. We will be releasing an action plan in the coming weeks and look forward to your suggestions and ideas, as we still have a lot to learn about our privilege and the ways we can best help our BIPOC outdoor community. And once our action plan is released, we ask that you check in on us and hold us accountable, whether that is in two months, two years, or two decades.

 

            The mountains have the potential to provide adventure, fulfilment, growth, and wonder to people of all races, ethnicities, genders, and sexualities. It is high time we help BIPOC communities grasp that potential.

 

Sincerely,

Peter Whittaker

Owner of Bight Gear, RMI Expeditions, and Whittaker Mountaineering

The Expedition Skills Seminar - Muir led by RMI Guides Brent Okita, Hannah Smith and Avery Parrinello reached the summit of Mt. Rainier today.  Brent reported a beautiful day with windy conditions and challenges.  The group has spent the last several days training at Camp Muir.  Tonight will be their final night at the 10,000' camp and they will descend to Paradise tomorrow.  We hope the team enjoyed their time on the mountain.  Congratulations on reaching the summit!

Lou Whittaker, the founder of RMI Expeditions, passed away peacefully on March 24th at his home in Ashford, Washington, surrounded by family and loved ones. Lou was born on February 10th, 1929, in Seattle, Washington. 

He and his identical twin brother Jim began mountaineering at age 12, their first foray into the sport they would help shape. At 16, he summited Mount Rainier for the first time, the mountain that would become synonymous with his life, and earned him the nickname “Rainier Lou.” The record of his time in the mountains is bursting with achievements, from the first American-led expedition on the North Side of Everest to the first successful American expedition summit of Kanchenjunga and many others. On numerous rescues, he saved dozens of lives in the mountains; if people were in trouble, nothing could stop him. 

Anyone can be a mountaineer, but not everyone can be a guide. Lou was a teacher at heart, and in 1969, he founded Rainier Mountaineering, Inc. (RMI Expeditions). Mountains were the source of his health, the wellspring of his confidence, and the stage for his triumphs, and he was one of the first to make mountaineering and its benefits accessible to the broader public. Since its inception, RMI has emphasized teaching and leading over 100,000 aspiring climbers. His leadership made mountain guiding a true profession, with many of the world's premier mountaineers benefiting from Lou’s tutelage.

When he wasn’t pushing the boundaries of mountaineering or helping to define the standard of guiding excellence, Lou was a masterful carpenter, craftsman, and builder. Lou and his wife Ingrid built unique homes of natural black basalt and massive log beams. His projects were often made more challenging by his insistence on self-reliance but were all the more beautiful for it. His enthusiasm for hard work was infectious; he was a master at pulling together a team, and the stories from those projects are still shared among those lucky enough to be included.  

Lou once said, “There’s a certain amount of risk involved in life. When it comes down to dying, I want to know what it is like to have really lived.” And he certainly did. He was a pioneer, constantly pushing the frontier of the mountaineering world. He was a philosopher, always ready with a poem, limerick, or quote. He was an innovator who never encountered a problem he couldn’t solve. He was a philanthropist, who started and chaired multiple nonprofits. He was a patriarch who loved the family that orbited him. He had the vision for American Mountain Guiding, and helped to make the industry and sport what it is today.

Above all, he was a monumental man who commanded the room when he walked in and helped influence thousands of lives. He warmed both hands on the fire of life. With his size 13 shoes, he left one hell of a set of footsteps, footsteps we should all try to follow, no matter how challenging the climb.

Lou is survived by his wife Ingrid, his twin brother Jim (Dianne), his sons Peter (Kerry) and Win, his grandchildren Kristian, Gabriella, and Kalen (Ryan), his great-grandchildren Scotty and Sage, and many nieces and nephews. He was preceded in death by his daughter Kim. There will be a Celebration of Life at Rainier BaseCamp at the foot of his beloved Mount Rainier this summer. We’ll have more details soon, and ask you to come raise a glass to this iconic mountain man.

“I warm’d both hands before the fire of Life….” 

                                                                                    –Walter Savage Landor

 

The Whittaker family has created a Tribute to Lou Whittaker page on Facebook for you to share stories, memories, and photos.

Interval Training is a training technique employed in many endurance sports. It refers to a training session where periods of high intensity effort, followed by rest, are repeated during a training session.    The benefits of interval training:    Benefits include improved cardiovascular fitness, increased aerobic performance and increased anaerobic threshold. It has its place in a weight loss program too, due to the high levels of energy burned during and after the workout.    It’s true that during a climb, the goal is to ascend at a steady pace and to conserve energy, which begs the question;    “Why do high-intensity interval training”?    There are several reasons. One is that as we climb higher, the air is thinner and every effort becomes more taxing. Interval training, by raising the anaerobic threshold, will simply extend the range of effort we can make before we get out of breath. It also helps us to recover after a short, hard effort.    Some ideas to implement this type of training:    As a general rule, you’ll want to be fully warmed up with some mobility exercises (for example, try the Daily Dozen) and 10 to 15 minutes of moderate walking or running, just enough to get your blood flowing and your muscles ready for a hard effort.   Stairs: If you have a set of stairs available in town or at an athletic stadium you can use them for interval training. Simply push hard up the stairs for about a minute then rest by going easy down the stairs. How many times you’ll want to repeat this depends on your fitness ability. To start off, you may chose 3 or 4 efforts. During the peak phase of training a dozen or more will provide significant benefits.  Steep grade: Same as above and use a stopwatch or mark a spot as your turn-around point.  Indoors: You can do intervals on treadmill, bicycle, stair-master and elliptical machines None of the above? You can even do intervals with a step, a low wall or even a box you might find in a gym. Simply use your watch and do repeated step-ups. You can even wear a pack, hold weights or a medicine ball while you work.    Example workout: Short high intensity interval training.  Here is the timeline for a one hour interval training session:  • 0:00 Daily Dozen • 0:12 Ten minutes moderate walking or running  • 0:22 Two minutes rest • 0:24 One-minute high intensity • 0:25 Repeat six times • 0:43 Ten-minute cool-down walk • 0:53 Stretch • 1:00 Finish If you are new to interval training, expect to feel both exhilarated and fatigued. When I do interval training with groups it’s always easy to see the effort evidenced by sweat and hard breathing.    Another version of interval training is ‘Fartlek’ training. The word originated in Sweden and means ‘Speed Play’. It’s popular with cyclists, runners and cross-country skiers. You simply chose random ‘targets‘ like the top of a hill, a loop of a track, a tree or trail marker and then get after it with gusto! Increase your effort level as high or moderate as you feel like and mix up the length of the intervals. I like this type of training very much as it replicates the unpredictable nature of mountain terrain. It’s fun too, helping to pass the time while training alone, or to add a competitive challenge with friends. If you lack stairs, you can use any uphill grade and no matter what the terrain, you can always increase intensity by adding weight to your pack. Learn more about Fartlek Training... Other ideas for interval training include: • The 4 x 4 Interval Workout • Ladder Interval Training   How often to include Interval Training? I find that two times per week is a good amount and I’ll choose days of the week where I’m likely to be fully rested and recovered. Avoid doing back-to-back sessions as you’ll need a day or two to recover after the effort.    In summary:  Interval training is a valuable part of a mountaineers training. It’s energetic, gets the adrenaline flowing, boosts your cardiovascular system, burns energy and helps your body cope with the stresses of a high altitude, low oxygen environment.    As with any training session, make sure you are rested, hydrated and properly fueled before interval training. It’s hard work - you’ll need good energy to complete the sessions.  - John Colver                          John Colver is a longtime climber, former mountain guide, and certified personal trainer with the American Council of Exercise. Colver introduced outdoor fitness classes to athletic clubs throughout the greater Puget Sound region before creating his adventX brand. Currently, adventX leads training programs in Seattle and Colver presents clinics on outdoor fitness at companies such as Microsoft, Boeing, the American Lung Association, and REI. Colver lives in Seattle. Questions? Comments? Leave a comment to share your thoughts with John and other readers!

These strange times have many of us off balance and out of rhythm, and our training routines have felt the toll as well. Stay at home policies across the country have closed fitness centers and kept us at home without our usual tools. Body weight core exercises are a great way to continue to improve your strength and functional mobility, and taking your strength workout outside is a great way to break your routine and inject some new energy to training. The Dartmouth cross-country ski team uses this type of workout (and it’s where many of the example exercises come from) as part of a base and strength building cycle each fall.
Choose a jogging loop that has areas that you will be comfortable getting down to the ground on (a park, forest loop, or city parkway).

• Set out for a good warm-up, 10-15 min at a gentle pace that is still conversational.
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• Find a comfortable spot (grass or a forest floor are much nicer than concrete!) and complete a set each of two different core exercises (pushups and crunches for instance). This style of workout will build more endurance strength since they use just body weight, so try to pick a number of repetitions that you can do several sets of, but still push you hard in the individual set. 60 full crunches and 40 pushups is a great example.
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• Jog easily for 200 meters. The active recovery of jogging easily will still allow you to recover, but will train your body to recover while maintaining at least some level of effort.
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• A set each of two more exercises (dips on a park bench and side planks). 
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• 200 meter jogging recovery. 
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• Complete a third set of exercises. 6 exercises is a great number to start from for your total workout.
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• Continue until you have done 3 sets of each exercise (9 total strength stops). 
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• Cool down and head home!

 

As you progress, you can vary the workout in the number of repetitions you do during each set, or by varying the total number of sets. Try to mix up the exercises that you use, so that you get a complete core workout, without stressing one group of muscles unduly. This a great workout to do with partners at a safe social distance. You can spice it up by having different partners choose the exercises for a given set, which can add variety and show you some new exercises to add to your routine. If you don’t have a loop that is suitable, try a couple of laps of a small park. While it may take some imagination to get going, getting outside and breaking up your strength routine is a great way to keep the upward progress of your training going!
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These three resources have a number of good core exercises for inspiration:
http://www.brianmac.co.uk/exercise.htm#cte
https://experiencelife.com/article/core-circuit-workout/
http://www.sport-fitness-advisor.com/circuit-training-exercises.html

Comments? Questions? Share your thoughts here on the RMI blog!