High-altitude expedition
High-altitude expedition training plan
A high-altitude expedition, months out. Hiking and easy volume, progressive pack carries and muscular endurance — with a last block that is about sleep, food and packing, not one more hard carry.
Included in €19/month. 14 days free, no card.
- Full build
- 40 weeks
- Easy weeks
- 22 weeks
- Closer to the date
- 14 weeks
- Last weeks
- 4 weeks
What a week actually looks like
A week from the same engine that writes the real plan — including the minutes, not a template.
Easy weeks
- MonStrength · 40 min
- TueUphill walk/jog · 55 min
- WedHike · 90 min
- ThuEasy walk/jog · 55 min
- FriRest
- SatLong easy · 200 min
- SunRecovery walk · 45 min
Closer to the date
- MonRecovery walk · 25 min
- TueMuscular endurance · 55 min
- WedUphill walk/jog · 25 min
- ThuEasy walk/jog · 30 min
- FriRest
- SatPack walk · 300 min
- SunHike · 165 min
This sample uses a typical setup for this objective. Your days, hours and terrain change the week. Wrecked, missed or travel rewrites it.
Expedition training is a long game played mostly at low intensity. The work that matters is the ability to carry a load, day after day, at an effort that leaves something in reserve, while eating enough when altitude has quietly removed your appetite.
Twenty-two weeks of base come first: hiking, easy aerobic volume, and strength established early. The specific block adds muscular endurance and loaded carries on hiking days, building the tolerance that rotation days will demand.
The last weeks are the part most plans get wrong by adding volume. Here they get quieter on purpose. Arriving at base camp already tired is a common and entirely avoidable way to lose an expedition, and the plan will keep telling you that fresh is the goal.
Altitude itself is treated as logistics and medicine, not as a training variable you can train away at home. Sleep lower than you climbed, eat on a schedule because thirst and hunger both lie higher up, and descend for worsening symptoms. Ridgework does not diagnose altitude illness and will not pretend to.
How the block is shaped
These are the suggested lengths. A shorter window cuts base first and keeps the specific block and the taper, and the plan tells you when the window you chose is thinner than the objective wants.
Easy weeks · 22 weeks
Twenty-two weeks of hiking, easy volume and early strength. Patience is the training.
Closer to the date · 14 weeks
Fourteen weeks adding muscular endurance and progressively loaded pack carries on hiking days.
Last weeks · 4 weeks
Four weeks. Sleep, food, permits and packing — not extra altitude and not extra load.
Strength in this plan
One strength day a week while the plan builds. Use the column you have the kit for — the home version needs a step, a chair and a backpack.
At home
2–3 rounds, a minute's rest between
- Step-up with a pack10 each leg
- Slow step-down8 each leg
- Backpack row10 each side
- Suitcase carry40 s each side
- Single-leg calf raise12 each leg
- Tibialis raise15
In a gym
2–3 sets of each, 2 min rest on the heavy lifts
- Trap bar deadlift6
- Dumbbell step-up8 each leg
- Lat pulldown or pull-up8
- Farmer's carry40 s
- Seated calf raise12
- Slow step-down8 each leg
Built for
- Climbers with a high-altitude objective and a departure date
- Anyone who needs the load progression written rather than improvised
- People whose last expedition went badly because they arrived tired
Not for
- Anyone looking for an acclimatisation protocol or medical guidance — that needs a qualified human
- People without prior multi-day mountain experience
Ridgework prepares the body for this objective. It does not replace a qualified guide, acclimatisation, technical training, mountain experience or a medical check — and on the day, the guide's decision stands.
Why a plan that adapts
A printed plan assumes every week goes as written. When one does not, you skip and fall behind, or cram the missed work back in and arrive tired. Ridgework rewrites the next days from what you logged, keeps your date, and says what changed and why.
Kit this assumes
- Boots and crampons matched and walked in
- Pack loaded to expedition weight
- Sleep system and stove you have already used
- Permits and contacts on paper as well as a phone
Questions
How long should I train for a high-altitude expedition?
This block runs 40 weeks: 22 base, 14 specific, 4 weeks of easing off. The length is the point — carrying capacity and durability accumulate slowly, and there is no compressed version that produces the same thing.
Can you train for altitude at sea level?
You can arrive strong, well fed and rested, which materially helps. You cannot acclimatise in advance at home. Acclimatisation happens on the mountain through rotations and sleeping low after climbing high.
How heavy should training carries be?
Load ramps across the specific block on hiking days and comes back down for the final weeks. The plan names the weight for each carry rather than leaving it to guesswork or ego.
What should the last month look like?
Quiet. Sleep, packing, food you have tested and logistics. If you feel undertrained in the last weeks and want to add a big carry, that urge is the thing the taper exists to resist.
Start this plan
No card needed. You set the date, answer a short setup. Your week appears. The next two are written ahead.
14 days free, no card. On day 15 your plan pauses unless you add a card: €19/month, cancel anytime.
Ridgework writes training weeks for trail and mountain. It is not a medical device, not healthcare, and not a substitute for a clinician, a guide, or rescue. Research citations inform the week structure; they are not prescriptions. You remain responsible for safety in the mountains and in training.