Mexico in January. Hopefully Ecuador over the summer. Nepal in October 2027. In between, a lot of stairs that lead absolutely nowhere.
I’ve decided to attempt Himlung Himal in October 2027, a 7,126-meter mountain in Nepal and the highest I’ll have ever climbed.
This has been building for a while. In 2017, I went trekking to Everest Base Camp with very little preparation and, at one point, my sleeping bag in my hands. Since then, the trips have become a little more organized. Kilimanjaro, K2 Base Camp and Gondogoro La, Aconcagua, Rainier, and eventually Denali in June 2025.
Each one has made me want to spend more time in the mountains. Each one has also given me a better understanding of what preparing for the next one actually involves.
So this time, I’m sharing that part too: the workouts, the recovery, the adjustments, and the many hours before there’s anything resembling a summit photo.
And because apparently a training calendar wasn’t enough, I turned it into a game.
Follow along on my mountain training tracker.
Three Countries Between Here and the Summit
First up is Mexico in January 2027, where I’m planning to climb La Malinche, Iztaccíhuatl, and Pico de Orizaba. It’s the first opportunity to take this training out of the gym and see how everything feels on an actual mountain.
Then, hopefully, Ecuador over the summer. That trip is still taking shape, but the idea is to get more time at altitude, test equipment and routines, and keep building experience before Nepal.
Himlung is the October goal. At 7,126 meters, it will take me higher than Aconcagua and into a new chapter of climbing.
These trips give the year some structure, but they don’t mean I’ll arrive in Nepal already acclimatized. Fitness doesn’t protect you from altitude illness, and each expedition needs its own time to adjust. That’s one part of the preparation I can’t get from a machine in Austin. The CDC explains the distinction here.
What the Training Actually Looks Like
Austin has plenty going for it. Convenient access to Himalayan terrain is unfortunately not on the list.
A lot of my preparation happens on a StairMaster or an inclined treadmill, gradually building the time I can spend moving uphill with weight on my back. Alongside that, there’s strength work: push-ups, pull-ups, dips, squats, lunges, carries, and core exercises.
The purpose is fairly straightforward. I want to carry equipment for hours, keep moving when I’m tired, and wake up capable of doing it again.
For Denali, some of those sessions became fairly ridiculous. My summit simulation days included an hour on the StairMaster with a 55-pound pack, an hour on the treadmill at full incline carrying the same weight, and then about an hour dragging a sled.
Three hours of effort and remarkably little change of scenery.
One entry in my old log goes further: 60 minutes on each machine, 64 minutes pushing and dragging the sled, 60 lunges per leg with 26 pounds, and another 40 minutes on the bike. Other sessions included 240 push-ups, 61 pull-ups, and 75 dips.
The 61st pull-up apparently needed to be documented.
That’s a snapshot of what I did preparing for Denali, rather than where I’m starting this time. I’m rebuilding toward longer sessions, paying attention to my back, and adjusting the workload as I go. Denali also involved hauling a sled, so that training had a particular purpose; the next expedition gets its own preparation.
Recovery belongs in the schedule too. Rest days, mobility, sleep, and enough food are part of making the work sustainable. I enjoy the recovery amenities at Gevity, but no amount of sauna time gives me permission to ignore the basics.
I Made the Boring Part Into a Virtual Climb
You can follow the process through my mountain training tracker.
The first challenge runs from November 1, 2026, to January 20, 2027. The goal is 80,000 virtual feet, which works out to roughly 1,000 feet a day across the 80-day training window.
These are training points expressed as elevation. I’m not claiming to have found 80,000 feet of climbing somewhere behind an Austin strip mall.
As I log workouts, my marker moves up a mountain banner through three stages: Malinche, Izta, and Orizaba. Each represents about a third of the goal, with the virtual summit at 80,000 feet.
Cardio earns feet based on time, with adjustments for things like incline, machine type, and pack weight. Strength earns feet through repetitions and load. Mobility, recovery sessions, and logged rest days count too.
For anyone curious about the numbers, cardio starts at 15 feet per minute, strength at 3 feet per rep, and mobility at 8 feet per minute. The tracker then calibrates the work against that day’s plan, so completing the planned session earns around 1,000 feet.
There’s a daily ceiling of 1,500 feet. That stops one enormous workout from buying me a week off, which feels personally inconvenient but probably sensible.
The Hard Days Still Count
The streak tracks consecutive days with a log, including rest days. An “Above and beyond” entry earns a 🔥 Beyond badge, while a session marked “Struggle” earns 🪨 Grit.
I like that the difficult, cut-short days have a place in it. If I only recorded the sessions that went beautifully, this would become a fairly selective account of training.
There’s also a “Tomorrow” card showing the next planned workout, with suggestions to ease up when my recovery readings are low or I’ve stacked several hard days together. Those are prompts to pay attention; they don’t prevent me from logging or change the points.
Logging is simple: select exercises or speak the session into the microphone, let the “Tidy” feature organize it, then check the entries and feet before saving. I can open a workout later to see how the score was calculated.
The settings can change as the plan develops. After Mexico, I can reuse the same system with new mountains, dates, and goals for the next stage toward Himlung.
Following the Whole Thing
I’m fitting this around building Gevity, spending time with Espoir, and the rest of life. Some weeks will come together nicely. Others will require moving things around and accepting that the workout I planned isn’t the workout I have time for.
That’s part of what I want to show.
The summit is the exciting bit, but there’s a long stretch beforehand made up of ordinary decisions: getting a session in, taking a rest day, changing the plan, and returning the next morning.
Mexico comes first. Hopefully Ecuador after that. Then Nepal.
For now, my next destination is considerably closer: the StairMaster.
