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 In an attempt to hit the ground running this summer’s climbing season, instead of going to the gym I’ve started exercising while at work. And no one even notices. What do I do? Climb stairs. Sounds simple enough, right? It is.
For me, the hardest part of stair climbing was breaking the habit of using the elevator. I work in a building with several different towers and often have to go down one elevator, walk to another, and go back up. After two and a half years, my elevator riding habit is fairly well ingrained into my subconscious, I often find me reaching for the “up” button without even thinking. Slowly, though, I am building a new habit, a stair-climbing habit. You should build a new habit too!
Obviously, climbing one flight of stairs a few times a day isn’t going to make much of a dent in your fitness level. To gain more fitness-per-floor, there’s a couple of things I do to work my mountain climbing legs.
 1. Instead of, say, going from the 4th floor to the 2nd floor, I’ll walk down the stairs all the way to the basement and then back up to the 2nd. Now, instead of only going down two flights, I go down four flights and up two. Going from 1st to 4th? Down to the basement, up to the roof, and back down to 4th. Do whatever works. This really doesn’t take up that much time, so you won’t get coworkers asking where you’ve been, and you get a lot of up and down which is so crucial in mountain climbing.
2. Climb the stairs with your toes. When I’m stair climbing to get fit, I step on every step (not every other step like some people suggest: “It’s more strenuous so you’ll get a better workout!” I disagree. I prefer the repetition of one step at a time to the more strenuous and less repetitive two steps at a time…), let my toes bend up toward my shin, and then stand up on my toes to take the step. This works more muscle groups and stretches your calves at the same time!
So that’s it. I will also go all the way up and all the way down if I have a bit of downtime; as an IT professional I have a lot of sitting-around-and-waiting-for-things-to-go-wrong time.
Give it a try and let me know what you do to increase your stair climbing fitness!
Ice Mountain – 13,950′ – CO’s 61st highest – Contiguous US’s 78th highest
   
Getting a late start after car-camping, we set fourth on the trailhead to Apostle basin, just south of Winfield, CO. The trailhead was packed but we managed to find a parking spot. We began hiking at ~9am? (Jesse?) and before too long we arrived at the border to the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness. After a long, mostly flat hike, the trail pittered out and we found ourselves at the base of the Three Apostles, seemingly held up by a giant rock glacier (REALLY cool, kind of visible in the fourth picture above).
   
The trip around the rock glacier was easy enough, the walls of the glacier seemed to be formed so perfectly that I expected a bulldozer to power over the top of the mound and overtake us. The rocky-grass slope became a rapidly steeper rock field, closer to a vertical boulder field than a scree slope: rocks three feet wide occasionally rolled a few feet. Precarious at times, helmets would be good here.
   
We passed one person who was coming down near the top. Soon-thereafter, within a stones throw of the saddle and the beginning of the ridge, dark clouds rolled in and thunder struck. So close. I snapped one final shot looking down into the valley, turned, and trekked downwards.
See this route at summitpost.org.
 
The east ridge of Pacific Peak is directly north of Quandary Peak in the Ten Mile Range near Breckenridge, CO. The first four pictures are from August 7th, 2009; the rest are from a week later, August 13th.
Begin near the end of McCullough Gulch Rd. Head uphill. After some brief bushwhacking you will end up on a gentle meadowed slope, continue upwards, you will eventually reach the beginning of the ridge.
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When you reach the beginning of the ridge, grass will be replaced with rocks, and you will be able to see Pacific Peak ominously looming in the distance.
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The ridge is a great, fun, class 3 climb! Eventually the ridge will pitter out and you will arrive at the plateau beneath Pacific Peak which houses Pacific Tarn, a great place to eat lunch and take a break. From here, according to the Colorado Scrambles guidebook, the peak is attained with “an easy scramble to the top.” The remaining trek to the summit, though not technically difficult, is quite strenuous, but the views at the top are worth the hike.
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The decent takes you down an extremely unstable scree slope (we chose to go one at a time down…) into a boulderfield. Eventually, vegetation returns, but the car is still forever away (see that road in the distance? The car’s at the end of that.).
See the Pacific Peak east ridge page at summitpost.org
See this route in Colorado Scrambles by Dave Cooper.
 So I’ve done a bit of research on the various organizations in the Colorado Front Range area who offer AIARE Level One avalanche courses. Here’s what I’ve found.
If you’ve taken courses from any of these places please feel free to comment about the quality of the course! Also, please feel free to add to or dispute any of the information.
 Longs Peak and Mt Lady Washington
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Longs Peak trail, 330am
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 River crossing, pre-dawn |
 Already above timberline, sunrise, looking east |
 First view of Sol |
 Trail, at sunrise, looking north(ish) |
 Longs Peak and a huge heard of Elk |
 Closer view of the Elk |
 Jesse and the boulderfield campground |
 Me and The Keyhole |
 Me having just gone through The Keyhole. What a view! |
 Beginning of The Trough. It's really steep, and took really long. |
 Bottom of The Homestretch |
 USGS marker |
 View of Mt Meeker from top of Longs |
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In an attempt to hit the ground running this summer’s climbing season, instead of going to the gym I’ve started exercising while at work. And no one even notices. What do I do? Climb stairs. Sounds simple enough, right? It is.
1. Instead of, say, going from the 4th floor to the 2nd floor, I’ll walk down the stairs all the way to the basement and then back up to the 2nd. Now, instead of only going down two flights, I go down four flights and up two. Going from 1st to 4th? Down to the basement, up to the roof, and back down to 4th. Do whatever works. This really doesn’t take up that much time, so you won’t get coworkers asking where you’ve been, and you get a lot of up and down which is so crucial in mountain climbing.
Denver, CO