Twenty-three years ago some friends and I attempted to hike the North Loop Trail on Mt. Rainier. It didn’t go well. I was under-prepared for the challenge. I ended up getting separated from my group and spent the night, alone, directly on the trail in the hopes that my buddies would trip over me if and when they came along. We were reunited the next morning, but we were gassed, and we ultimately decided to walk out, leaving half our group to finish.
Last week, most of that same group got back together for a shot at redemption. This time, we selected a route and goal more in line with our abilities and I trained, hard, for the challenge ahead. I’m happy to report that I made it the entire 36.2 miles to the Blue Glacier and back. We saw a couple of trail runners doing that trip (plus the Mt. Olympus summit, which adds another 8 miles) in a single day, which was humbling. We chose to stretch our journey over six days.
The links below are really for myself and the rest of the team so we can remember what we did, what we took, and how we felt the next time we plan a backpacking trip. But maybe you’ll find it useful as well.
REI has a page that really helped me get ready for this trip called Conditioning for Backpacking. Leading up to that plan I walked 2.75 miles daily and bumped that up to 5 miles once a week. The strength training helped–I had very little, if any muscle soreness on the trail–but doing it over again I would probably do a lot more cardio.