For a while, I was probably one of the stranger people at the gym.
Fifty-five-pound pack. StairMaster. Then the incline treadmill. Then time pulling a sled.
A lot of preparation for Denali involved going absolutely nowhere.
Eventually, I would get dropped on a glacier in Alaska, haul my equipment uphill, and spend 17 days on the most technical mountain I’d ever climbed. But first, there were stairs. A remarkable number of stairs.
I summited on day 15. Looking back, I’m grateful for the work I did beforehand. Once we landed, I needed to handle my own effort and have something left to contribute to the team.
Making a Big Idea Fit Into a Tuesday
Denali occupied space in my head long before I stood on it.
At some point, thinking about the mountain had to turn into a routine. Something I could do before work, after work, or on a day when I wasn’t feeling particularly inspired by my own ambitions.
I built a spreadsheet. Several tabs, different versions of the schedule, workout notes, adjustments. One tab was called “TRAINNNNING,” which gives you some idea of where I was mentally.
Underneath the enthusiastic spelling, the priorities were consistent: uphill work with weight, sled hauling, strength, longer efforts, and recovery.
That was how the idea became manageable. I couldn’t do much about conditions on a glacier thousands of miles away. I could put my pack in the car and get to the gym.
The mountain was a long way away. Tuesday’s workout was available.
The Pack Gets Heavier
Weighted uphill work became a major part of my preparation.
I used a 35-pound vest for some sessions and a 45- to 55-pound pack for others. StairMaster, incline treadmill, repeat.
One Monday entry combines 30 minutes on the StairMaster and 30 minutes on the treadmill with the vest, followed by pushups, pullups, dips, ab-wheel work, and curls.
A heavier Friday session includes 40 minutes on the StairMaster and an hour on the incline treadmill with a 55-pound pack.
Those sessions gave me time to become familiar with sustained effort. The first few minutes were one thing. Continuing after the pack had settled in and I’d checked the clock more often than necessary was another.
There’s a point in a long indoor workout when you’ve exhausted the entertainment value of your own determination. You still have time left.
I learned something useful there.
On Denali, there would be plenty of work to do after I stopped finding it interesting.
Learning to Haul
A pack presses down. A sled pulls back.
I was preparing for both.
At Squatch, I used a Torque Tank for hauling work: pulls, pushes, backward work, and longer drags. One Tuesday session paired 35 minutes on the StairMaster with a 55-pound pack and an hour of Torque Tank work, plus carries and cycling.
The gym gave me resistance and repetition. Alaska would supply the snow, terrain, rope, and occasional disagreement between my sled and the direction I wanted to travel.
I wanted some familiarity with the effort before landing on the glacier. There would be enough unfamiliar things waiting for me there.
On the lower mountain, everything we needed had to move with us. Food, fuel, shelter, equipment. Training with a sled gave that future responsibility a physical shape.
It also made me think more carefully about packing.
What a Heavy Week Looked Like
The schedule changed as preparation progressed, but this captures the shape of one of my heavier weeks:
| Day | Main work |
|---|---|
| Monday | An hour of combined stairs and treadmill with a 35-pound vest, plus upper-body and core work |
| Tuesday | Weighted stairs, an hour of sled work, farmer’s carries, and cycling |
| Wednesday | Upper-body strength |
| Thursday | Full rest |
| Friday | Weighted stairs and treadmill with a 55-pound pack, strength work, sled work, and cycling |
| Saturday | A shorter sled session and bodyweight work |
| Sunday | One hour of StairMaster and 60–90 minutes of treadmill with a 55-pound pack, plus an optional hour of sled dragging |
There were different versions of the plan, adjustments, and individual workout notes. Every week didn’t follow an identical script.
What stayed consistent was returning to the work I expected to need.
I could have found more entertaining ways to exercise. Denali gave me a reason to repeat the useful ones.
Sundays Were for Staying With It
My usual Sunday was an hour on the StairMaster at full incline with a 55-pound pack, followed by another 60–90 minutes on the treadmill carrying the same weight. If I felt strong, I’d add an hour of sled dragging.
I tried to stay in Zone 2 for as much of it as possible. Then stretching, food, protein, electrolytes. The fairly ordinary business of recovering from something I had voluntarily spent my Sunday doing.
These sessions took time. Once I started, there was very little to negotiate. The pack weighed what it weighed. The next hour was still going to take an hour.
That was useful practice for me. I could spend the whole session thinking about how much remained, or settle into an effort I could sustain. I got plenty of opportunities to work on the second option.
On Denali, we would spend long stretches hauling equipment through an enormous landscape. Progress could feel slow even when we were working hard.
Those Sundays gave me some familiarity with that feeling. I’d already spent hours carrying weight without much changing in front of me.
At least on the glacier, the view was better.
Strength With Somewhere to Go
There were plenty of pushups, pullups, and dips in my training. Also step-ups, farmer’s carries, weighted lunges, ab-wheel work, and core stability exercises.
Some sessions had fairly high volumes. One entry lists 240 pushups, 61 pullups, and 75 dips. The specificity of that extra pullup suggests I was determined to receive full credit.
But the purpose reached beyond the numbers. I wanted strength I could keep using through a long day.
On Denali, arriving at camp doesn’t clear your responsibilities. You still have equipment to manage, snow to move, and water to make. You’re tired, and the ordinary work of being alive has acquired several extra steps.
I wanted to have something left for that.
I also wanted to have something left for other people.
Preparing to Be Useful
On the mountain, I started thinking about the team as having a shared pot of energy.
Someone encourages you. Someone gets up and does a difficult task. Someone stays patient when another day of weather keeps everyone in camp.
Those contributions affect how the day feels for everyone.
Physical preparation helped me arrive ready to carry my share. It gave me a better chance of keeping enough attention and patience for the people around me, too.
I knew how much work I’d put into getting there. Everyone else had their own version of that story.
Being tired didn’t make my experience more important than theirs.
That thought has stayed with me beyond climbing. When you’re working toward something together, the way you handle your discomfort affects the whole group. A rope makes that connection unusually visible.
Practicing the Smaller Things
My plans included longer weighted hikes and reminders to bring hydration and trail snacks.
It’s easy to spend months imagining whether you’ll be strong enough, then give very little thought to whether you’ll remember to eat while working hard.
Long sessions gave me room to pay attention to those details. How the pack felt after a few hours. Whether I was drinking. Whether I could keep a steady pace without turning the beginning into something I’d regret near the end.
On the mountain, small tasks repeat until they make up much of the day.
Eat. Drink. Adjust a layer. Check equipment. Keep moving.
Preparation meant making space for those habits alongside the harder workouts.
Recovery Was on the Schedule Too
The notes include full rest days, easy cycling, stretching, mobility, yoga, and foam rolling.
Putting recovery in a spreadsheet is easy. Following through can require more judgment, especially as departure gets closer.
There’s always another workout available. Another reason to wonder whether you’ve done enough.
Eventually, I had to arrive with the body I’d been preparing. I wanted it available for the climb.
The rest days belong in this story alongside the heavy sessions. They were part of the preparation, even when they gave me less to write down.
Learning More Than Effort
I could spend hours getting comfortable under a pack and still have technical work to prepare for.
Rainier and RMI’s six-day Expedition Skills Seminar–Muir were part of my preparation planning. In the workbook, I specifically called out crevasse rescue from both the victim’s and rescuer’s perspectives, along with handling heavy packs and sleds.
That distinction mattered: being prepared to need help and being prepared to help someone else.
A couple of our team members fell into crevasses on Denali. The rope systems and the people connected to them had immediate significance.
Fitness helped me keep functioning. The climb also required technical skills, attention, and trust.
There was a lot to learn before I could be useful on that mountain.
Then You Get There
After all the planning, you land on the glacier.
The equipment is sitting beside you. The sled needs loading. The people on your rope team are there, and the weather has its own plans.
We had snow through much of the first several days. We hauled loads, made carries, waited, and climbed. I had spent months preparing, then had to work with the day in front of me.
At 14,200-foot camp, looking toward Foraker, I felt grateful just to be there. I still wanted the summit. I could also see how much had already gone into reaching that place, and how much remained outside my control.
We got a good weather window. I was fortunate enough to summit on day 15.
I think about those indoor training sessions differently now. They were ordinary hours, repeated until they added up to something I could bring to an extraordinary place.
At the time, I was staring at a gym wall with a heavy pack on.
Foraker would come later.
For what happened after all those hours in the gym, read about my 17-day Denali expedition.
What are you preparing for right now, and what does the ordinary work look like?
