Denali training fund youth program

While our goal is to provide a rewarding experience for every climber, some issues such as fitness bear some self-assessment and may not be evident prior to the expedition. Every climber must meet a series of prerequisites before joining a Denali expedition. These prerequisites not only add to the safety level of each climb, but help us to build well-rounded, similarly skilled teams. Screening climbers is one of our more difficult tasks: we can inquire about your skill and fitness levels, but this does not ensure the expected level of readiness on the day of the climb.

Thus, we ask each climber to train hard, make sure they have met the skill level requirements, and be open to suggestions for courses, training, and winter skills. Please be well-prepared for this climb as it helps to galvanize our teams of climbers and guides and makes for a much more pleasurable experience.

Our pace on the mountain is moderate by mountaineering standards. While a select few climbers were able to successfully join a Denali trip after a single course, the vast majority will greatly benefit from more climbing experience. We work with and asses each climber on an individual basis. Please contact Gordon Janow at [email protected] to discuss preparing for Denali or to share your climbing bio.

While there is no precise formula for climbing Denali, each climber should possess an adequate level of the following prerequisites:. Denali requires proficiency in basic mountaineering skills including: cramponing, walking on snow, self-arrest, crevasse rescue, and glacier travel on a rope team. Gaining these skills generally requires, at minimum, completion of our Denali Prep Course this course is best for climbers with some prior experience, as early season conditions can prove difficult for learning basic skills ; or our 6-Day , 8-Day , 9-Day , Day , Day , or Day training course; or have equivalent skills and experience gained in an appropriate training location.

Climbers should be climbing in the prior seasons leading up to Denali. Completing a course or a series of climbs and then not climbing for year or more leading up to Denali has not served climbers well. You should be able to walk and climb on moderate snow and ice slopes for up to eight hours per day, carrying a 50 lb. You should be mentally and physically prepared to go the extra mile when necessary and be ready for weather changes, team emergencies, and summit bids.

After already establishing a good baseline fitness level, a successful Denali climber steps up their regimen at least six months in advance for this climb, so please review the six-month training regimen.

Climbers should have winter camping skills and a good understanding of personal care i. Climbers should be ready for the mental demands of a Denali expedition. This includes being patient with fellow climbers and guides, being prepared for long hours in a tent during inclement weather, pushing yourself to your limits, and understanding expedition life.

If you are interested in climbing Denali, please submit your climbing and training bio for review. During this month, work on getting into the training routine. Physically, by the end of this month, you should be fit enough so that your body does not ache the day after a workout. Mentally, you should feel that you cheated yourself if you do not follow your routine regularly. Caution: Do not get fanatical about this!

Keep your exercise routine enjoyable and exploratory. Do your workouts so that you will not mind doing it again tomorrow.

Find exercises that are fun to do and go to places that are new. Be creative. Do not think that all must be done at a high intensity now. Work out four days a week this month, rest one to two days and, if you are up to it, use one of the rest days to do a fun workout e.

Try to find friends that will work out with you. They can be the motivation for you to get into the routine. It is harder to forgo a workout when you know that someone is planning to work out with you that day. Aerobic training is the emphasis of your program. You want to have the endurance to exert energy for hours at a time, day after day. This month, put in at least two hours per week 30 minutes per day of aerobic exercise.

This exercise should be a continuous effort for the given time period. The most popular type of aerobic exercise is running, but biking, swimming, cross-country skiing, and hiking are also good substitutes. Interchange them each day if one gets boring. Both my editor and guiding boss are biking fanatics and they highly recommend mountain biking and road biking as excellent forms of aerobic and leg strengthening exercises.

You may not start off thinking that you can talk with your heart rate up that high for long periods of time, but you will need to gradually work up to that ability. Strength training needs to be slowly incorporated this month. You should be working on building strength in your back, shoulders, arms, and abdominal muscles.

Your leg muscles will get stronger through the aerobic exercises, but you can include exercises that specifically work the leg muscles too if you feel up to it. A strength program should include a three-days-per-week routine this is besides the aerobic training!

You do not have to join a health club to get a good strength workout. The following examples can be done at home:. Muscle fatigue should set in on the last few repetitions of each set and muscle failure should occur on the last repetition of the third set, if you have selected the proper resistance.

Do not make your strength routine time consuming or boring at this early stage. Some forms of aerobic exercise, such as biking, may not require you to exert the same amount of energy in a given amount of time as compared to running. I recommend that you do not jump into any form of exercise without a light form of warming up first. Some stretching of the muscles you are about to use heavily is a good way to prevent injuries and get your skeletal-muscular system prepared for your exercise routine.

You should also drink lots of water. Your body will need it with these workouts, but it also needs to get used to hydrating.

Dehydration is a common cause of adverse effects from altitude. You will need to drink large amounts of liquids on Denali three to four quarts, minimum, per day and your body should now start getting used to taking in those copious amounts. For now, we recommend drinking two to three quarts of water per day.

Caution: those of you with kidney problems should check with a doctor for recommended amounts. Remember that you are not training to compete in the Olympics next week and this workout schedule is probably a change in your current lifestyle, so take it gradually and easily to begin with this month. You want to maintain the training, so it is better to do parts of this program rather than none at all. Aerobic workouts should still be, at least, four days a week with no more than two days rest per week.

You should substitute one rest day for your recreational day. Increase the duration of these workouts to at least 40 minutes, but you must now make sure these sessions are a continuous effort.

Strength workouts should remain at three days per week. This month you should include hill-climbing or stair-climbing as part of your weekly routine. At least once a week, but no more than twice a week, find a long hill or flights of stairs to climb. The duration of the climb should be no less than five minutes. Repeat the climb until you have completed a minute session. Carry a backpack that has about 20 lbs.

Avoid stopping during this routine. This workout is probably the best simulation of what you will be doing most on McKinley. Caution: do not carry too much weight in your pack now because the coming down portion of this workout can kill your knees if you are not use to the weight.

Aerobic workouts should now be five days per week, with one day rest. Increase your workout sessions to a minimum of 45 minutes. Concentrate on working continuously throughout the entire 45 minutes.

Continue to include a hill- or stair-climbing workout with a backpack at least once a week. Increase the weight carried in your backpack by 10 lbs. You can substitute one or two of your aerobic workouts with the hill- or stair-climbing session. Be careful with your knees on downhills.

Strength workouts should increase to four days a week. Increase weights and repetitions, but again, do not exceed maximum repetitions already mentioned. At this point of your training you may find that motivation might be lacking at times. Be creative, find new places to train, more friends to train with, go climbing to get psyched, read books on mountaineering, and watch videos or slide shows of other mountaineering adventures.

This month you begin your training in earnest. You must now get mentally conditioned, as well as physically. Take each day as it comes. You may want to consider taking a good daily multi-vitamin with the RDA of iron, if you do not already do so. This will ensure that your body is getting its recommended amounts of vitamins and minerals that you might need with your increased exercise routines.

The iron will assure that your blood will have the iron needed to maintain the hemoglobin in your red blood cells good for carrying oxygen. Your aerobic workouts should remain at five days per week, with one rest day per week. Your sessions should now last a minimum of 50 minutes. This workout should be around 30 minutes, and you want this session to get your heart rate up to around to beats per minute for at least one minute duration at a time, but not longer than two minutes.

Recuperate between these high-intensity bursts within three minutes before going at it again. Physiologically, the faster your heart rate during the stress exercise, and the less rest time you give yourself between the exercises, the more training benefit you will reap. You should really be working hard during this session and feel relatively exhausted at its end.

An example of this type of workout is running a hilly course, sprinting uphill as your high-intensity burst , and jogging the downhills and flats, for your recuperation. This type of workout is one of the best natural ways to build up your red blood cell count which is responsible for getting oxygen to your cells and getting your cells to get rid of lactic acid a waste product of cellular respiration and cause of muscle fatigue more efficiently.

Strength workouts remain at four days per week and should be a habit for you by this time. Increase your weights and repetitions accordingly. This can be a replacement of two of your aerobic sessions. Increase your backpack weight by another 10 lbs. You may want to consider carrying jugs of water for weight so you can empty them at the top of your elevation gain, assuming that you do not have to repeat the climb often in the one session.

This way you do not have to carry the weight down and pound your knees. Caution: remember that you will be carrying very heavy loads down the mountain when the expedition is over, so you should consider strengthening your leg muscles for downhills.

This month try to get out into the wilderness once or twice to test your gear. Make sure your boots are comfortable, apparel fits and does what you want it to do, tent sets up easily, backpack fits and handles the heavy loads, sleeping bag feels good, and you are getting familiar with the stoves, etc.

The only way to do these things is to go camping and climbing. You do not want to find out that things are not just right on Denali. You can substitute two of your aerobic workouts for this outing if it is an overnighter. Continue your aerobic workouts at five days per week with at least one rest day. Workouts should be a minimum of an hour in duration.

One aerobic workout per week should last for at least an hour and a half. Continue with at least one stress session per week and shorten the rest periods between the high intensity portions. Wear your climbing boots for these sessions to get used to them, if you have not been doing so already.

Strength training is now for endurance purposes. Continue to strength train four times per week, but use two of those days for emphasizing repetitions done quickly.

You should use a weight that gets you to almost complete exhaustion at the end of the minute. If no one is available to time you, do your exercises until muscle failure. Caution: do not lift free weights alone! The other two days should be used to maintain your routine from last month. Again, this month get out to the wilderness and test your gear.

Get the kinks out of them and you. Remember to still drink your quarts of water, eat well, and get lots of rest. The final month to tune up for this long-awaited climb. This is the month of training that will get you physically up the mountain. Your aerobic workouts will still be five days a week. Please Note: This is an Outdoor Program.

Please come dressed for the weather and prepared to explore! Older siblings may be recruited to help! Denali Discovery Camp DDC provides local youth with experiential learning adventures through hiking, exploring, and discovering the diverse habitats of Denali National Park and Preserve. This week-long day camp is open to students entering 1st through 8th grades.

Throughout the program, Denali Backcountry Adventure participants learn experientially about the physical and mental preparations required to launch a backcountry expedition. Wilderness Intensive Learning Development W. Working together with the Menke family, we continue to inspire future generations and embody the incomparable spirit Scott shared with us.

Denali - Facebook Flickr Instagram. To be added to our camp email list and receive Youth Program updates, please email our Youth Program Manager, Justine Schmidt, at youth denali. This was my eighth successive time with this program, and there are always repeaters.