For years we have trained for climbing by just climbing as much as possible – “The climbers dilemma”. This meant avoiding basically all other forms of exercise bar a small amount of stretching and antagonist work to avoid injury so that we can continue to work our proj for as many hours/days/months/years as necessary. While undergoing the Training for the New Alpinism program (tailored for our specific goals) we have come to two main realizations

1. Fitness is far more important that crimp strength for what we want to accomplish this August. Long alpine days.
2. Checking your fitness level against objectives is the best litmus test to know where your gaps are and what work needs doing. How do you know when you’re ready?

Last fall, Matt and I went to Mt. Khatadin to test ourselves in a true alpine setting. Pristine. Remote. Loose. This led us to realize just how high 1000m really is and how inefficient we were. Which in turn lead us to the focused program aimed at creating fast and efficient alpine climbers who would be proficient in the Canadian rockies. 

What better test of our growth over the previous 10 months than to return to Maine to crush the same route in record time and follow it up with another route the following day.

We are officially booked in for 4 nights at a luxurious Chimney pond lean-to for late June. Officially taken the vacation days. And officially gotten permission from our ladies. Green light. Now we just have to hope all this snow is gone by then or bring ice axes with us.