8 Week Ski Mountaineering Hut-to-Hut Training Plan

The Uphill Athlete 8 Week Ski Hut-to-Hut Training Plan is designed for skiers bound for a multi-day hut trip and or ski traverse like the Wapta, Ortler, Hochtirol or Haute Route. This plan assumes that you have no strength training background but are fit enough already for long day tours. This plan is ideal for ski tourers who have never engaged in an organized training program or who have not done so for a long time.

This plan is based on scientifically sound training principles and a combined thirty years of professional endurance coaching experience and sixty years of world-wide skiing, climbing and mountaineering experience. In order to complete this plan it is important to keep a few concepts in mind: Rest when you are tired. If you miss a workout do not try to make it up. Move on to the next day. If you miss more than two workouts in any given week, then repeat that week. For those with more time to prepare and higher aspirations we strongly recommend using our 16 week Ski Mo plan. Following this longer program will give the athlete a chance to utilize a more advanced and effective periodization schedule.

The plan starts with a self-administered Aerobic Threshold assessment test, indoors or outdoors. From this you will establish the training intensity limit for most of the aerobic base training that will dominate your training. The first 8 weeks also include a simple, easy-to-apply strength program to develop what is called strength reserve, the ability to repeatedly execute strength-dependent movements such as taking a step while wearing a heavy backpack. During the last 4 weeks we introduce more intensity into the aerobic workouts in the form of weighted uphill hikes. Do not increase the intensity of the other aerobic workouts and hope to gain more benefits or to squeeze a 1 hour workout into 30 minutes.