From Setback to Summit: Testing the Alpine Adaptation Method on Mount Shasta
How a blown winter race season turned into my best climb on Shasta — and what it proved about the power of a smart, consistent training plan.
Part One: When I Ignored My Own Advice
Last fall, I started a training plan focused on winter backcountry skiing and a few regional skimo races.
I’ve been backcountry skiing for nearly 25 years, ski guiding for over 15, and I’ve always worked to stay fit for big mountain days. But skimo—short for ski mountaineering racing—is a newer obsession for me. For those unfamiliar, it’s a sport that celebrates speed: fast going up, fast going down. Races are held mostly inside ski areas for avalanche control and safety. When I first started, I didn’t love the idea of training inside ski area boundaries. Now? I love the freedom of pushing hard without the weight of avalanche hazard management, route finding, and other decision making.
I’m no phenom, but for a late-40s newbie age-group skimo racer, I’ve stood on a few podiums. And like a few of the Casaval athletes I coach, my fall-to-winter focus has been skimo for the past few years.
That means that by fall, a strong aerobic base must be fortified before adding the intensity involved with skimo training. And last summer? I blew it.
After my spring guiding season, I let myself “just wing it” with casual runs, rides, and hikes. I told myself I was training, but in reality, I was coasting. Without the structure I thrive on, I slept in more, got bogged down in desk work, and used travel as an excuse to skip serious training.
By the time fall skimo training season rolled around, I had to make up for lost time. Instead of progressing gradually, I jumped into one or two hard workouts a week without the base to support it. I did exactly what I warn my athletes not to do: trained so hard I couldn’t recover, made my easy days too hard, and turned my training into a fatigue spiral. Eventually, I pushed myself into illness—bad enough that I lost nearly three weeks of winter training and missed my races entirely.
It was a humbling reminder: you can’t fake the base.
When it became clear the race season was a wash, I knew I needed a new goal—something big enough to keep me disciplined, and a chance to put my own training system, the Alpine Adaptation Method, to the test on myself.
That goal? A new personal record on the south side of Mount Shasta via Avalanche Gulch.
Next time: how I used my flagship training plan to turn a blown winter season into my best spring on the mountain.
Ready for your strongest winter and biggest spring yet?
I’m opening 3 coaching spots this month for men and women over 35 who want to build a rock-solid base this fall, crush their winter season, and carry that fitness into big mountain goals next spring.
If you’re ready to commit at least 4 hours a week to a proven, personalized plan — the same Alpine Adaptation MethodI used to turn my own season around — let’s get started.
Coaching begins this month so we can build your base before winter truly kicks in.