Under the “Bag a Peak Map”, I’ve embedded a map from Everytrail that populates trailhead points for all the hikes I’ve uploaded. I don’t know how to zoom into California yet (I have had some hikes outside the country), but this may also be useful.

Z

Check out Ze’s blog on the science of hiking.

http://hikingscience.blogspot.com/

Obviously the anger could happen for different reasons for everyone. Maybe it was the hot day, exposed trail. Maybe the steepness of the trail. Or the lack of stability of the trail. Or the brush. Or simply the length / elevation gain. Or the altitude. Or getting lost.

But in the end it comes down to the feeling.

#5 Cactus to Clouds. The only hike I’ve “hit the wall”. The 9,000′ of elevation gain was fine. But around 9500 to 10000 ft high, I hit the wall. I started slowing down a lot, and so did others.

One could claim it was the altitude, and I’m sure it had a little to do with it, but I think this was just about exhausting my fuel reserves. I’d been up that high many times before and never felt like that. An the trail was not steep at all. So I was pretty pissed!

#4 Rabbit and Villager Peaks. It’s long and tough yeah, but it’s more about the terrain. Lot’s of rocky stuff to annoy the feet (right John and Jen?). And the cholla. Don’t forget the cholla (and Poland). I got stabbed by multiple cholla which came from seemingly nowhere, and each cholla stabbed me multiple times, and stabbed me when trying to pull them out.

#3 First ascent of Iron Mountain #1. Link to 2nd ascent. Probably on everyone’s list. For this one I had better knowledge of what to expect the trail to be like. But still the combination of being stabbed by yucca, loose terrain, and steepness led to some swearing. Plus I was pushing my pace, and that last mile is of course cursable.

The pounding going down the first 3 miles is pretty bad, and I didn’t have poles, so any slip and I went into a yucca. I hate yucca!

#2 My first attempt to ascend Monrovia Peak. Link to TR for second. What a pain. I think this was my first try of a route described from Sierra Club’s HPS list without knowing how brushy it would be. It was really foggy that day, so when we starting ascending the ridge, we kept going through a bunch of brush on steep trail, with no end in sight. We had no idea how long it would last!

To make things worse, the group had enough just below Rankin Peak, so we turned around without going to Monrovia. Then, on the way down, we went down the wrong ridge, and had to descend into canyon via some “trail” someone literally made with a chainsaw.

So yes there was definitely swearing on that one.

#1 Getting up to Bighorn Ridge
Easily the most swearing. All the main elements were there; tons of brush & steep, unstable, and exposed trail. So much breaking through brush, crawling through brush, dust in the eyes and the like. I was swearing, getting angry at the brush, and taking my anger out on the brush. And I was pretty exhausted after.

And this was only getting up the ridge and to 5800′!. We still have to go back and go all the way up to Baldy.

Honorable mention:
Ascending Telegraph Peak via ridge from Telegraph/Thunder saddle (a pain, but short)
Baldora and Widco Mines (trail from saddle brushed over and washed out).
Sugarloaf from Falling Rock Canyon (unstable rock and scree)
SW ridge of Muir Peak (brush)
Brushed over ridge around Montara in the Bay Area

VO2 stands for volume of oxygen consumed, and is generally measured in liters per minute (L/min) and also scaled for different bodyweights (mL/min/kg). That is, the amount of oxygen that your heart can pump to your muscles. One can say that the larger the value, the better cardiovascular shape you are in, as your heart can pump more oxygen and so you can perform more work during exercise (move faster).

The test generally lasts from 10 – 15 minutes, and works by increasing the workload each minute. In my case, the grade was set at 14%, and the speed was increased 0.5 mph each minute until failure. I think I failed at about 7 – 7.5 mph. The clip only shows the end of the test.

There are plenty of specifics one could talk about in regards to exercise performance – such as the applicability of such a test versus a lactate threshold test – but I just wanted to point out this video as my colleagues were laughing at it (and me) recently.

Final stats

Max VO2 (L/min): 5.3
(ml/kg/min): 64
Max heartrate: 194

Don’t try to max out while hiking!

The Short Take

Water!

And:

The longer the hike, and/or the more intense pace you are gonna move, the more important breakfast becomes. And in that case it should be a few hundred calories, mostly fast absorbing carbohydrates.

The Long Take

The intensity of a hike can vary a lot. It may be to take a nice stroll, or it may be to push oneself nonstop for hours, gaining multiple thousands of feet of elevation. As we move to the latter, the more like other endurance activities hiking becomes.

I’ve talked a bit about what you should eat in a previous post. You should read that too.

There are many, many studies about the most important things to consume to do well during high-intensity or long duration exercise. The two most important:

WATER: You need to be hydrated. I can’t emphasize how underrated this is. When you wake up, you will not be fully hydrated. You may very well have a decent amount of dehydration. Dehydration makes you feel fatigued, drowsy, move slower, and for sure not perform as well during exercise. Cell function and neural activation depend strongly on amount of water and concentration of ions, so make sure you are set.

Since you usually hike not too long after breakfast, you need to be consuming a good amount of water at breakfast to “catch up” after spending probably 10 hrs not drinking any! Shoot for 2 full glasses before the hike.

Electrolytes are more of an issue after you sweat a lot, i.e. later on during exercise, so you won’t have to worry about them that much at breakfast.

Caffeine definitely has some beneficial effects on exercise, but this depends on the intensity and duration. And it also is a diuretic, so it acts to make you more dehydrated. So you need to be careful about how much caffeine you consume as it may just end up having negative effects

CARBOHYDRATES: Simply, you need to be eating a bunch of carbs to do well on a tough hike. However, most of that should be done in the days prior to the hike. Please take a look at this article, for example.

If your glycogen stores are low the morning of a hike, well, you’re probably screwed. Breakfast won’t save you. However, in all cases you want to eat a few 100 calories per hour (depending on your mass) mostly of high-glycemic index carbs that can be readily absorbed and used for energy. If you are really hungry the morning of, eat a bunch of food with high glycemic index ratings. Doesn’t have to be sugar, but bread without much fiber works well too, for instance.

If you are probably fed the days up to the hike, then eating something at breakfast probably won’t do much help for you. It is always good to have something to make sure your blood sugar levels are decent.

However, you do not want to eat TOO MUCH. Food in the stomach waiting to be digested takes up blood; blood that could otherwise deliver oxygen to muscles. This can cause cramps, and is the whole “don’t swim for 1/2 hour after eating” thing.

Now, if you are not pushing it intensely (not breathing at a high rate / high heartrate), this stuff won’t matter as much. Instead of using carb storage, you’ll rely more on fat metabolism. You won’t move as quickly though. And if you are not moving fast, you’ll use less blood, and you can eat a big breakfast without it bothering you. But of course, you’ll probably not need to eat a big breakfast since you’re not gonna burn that many calories.

Alas, breakfast is not the most important meal before a hike. You want to be prepared before the morning of. Simple carbs digest the best. Fiber will just make the food digest slowly, and make you more likely to share some special alone time with nature.