How to train for Mountaineering ?

[Sub7]

Ok, a friend is asking for advise and thus I turn to you. She is a rock climber basically and rather good at it. The problem is that on long expeditions, the team has to walk for hours sometimes -with heavy backpacks, and often going uphill- in order to reach the rocks to be climbed. My friend's main problem is that she has a hard time during these walks and is trashed by the time they reach the rocks.

What is the best way to train in order to increase endurance for such long walks (which include but are not solely comprised of uphill walks), so that she will still be somewhat fresh when she is done with the walks and reaches the rocks? It would be best to replicate the sport and train by doing exactly the same activity, of course, but it is not feasible to strap on a backpack and walk in the wilderness as she lives in a major city.

Thanks
PS: She will be starting a weight training program for the coming season, so my question what can be done in addition to the resistance exercise.

 

[Spartan-JS]

Why is it not feasible to walk with a heavy backback in a major city?, I understand it looks kinda stupid to walk around with a 160 litre backpack, especialy for a woman, But she can just go with a 30 litre dayback, and load sandbags in it to duplicate the weight of her climbing gear.. And just walk, or one of our favorites: Speedmarch, 2 mins, 1 min off. With a weighted backpack. Not all that good for your knees,back,ankels and shoulders, but it WILL make you though and conditioned for the longer walks. Make sure you speedmarch with the shoes you do the long walks in. Be wary of shinsplits.
Hoorah

 

[dg806]

Rock climbing takes alot of endurance. Anything that will help endurance will help. I do alot of backpacking. You can do training in the city, but believe me, when you get in the mountains and gain elevation, it is a different world. It gets alot tougher. Any training she can do in those conditions will help. I would get to the mountains as much as I could and train in those conditions.

 

[Sub7]

what I primarily meant by "not feasible" to do it in a big city was the fact that the terrain where she lives is extremely flat and the major issue out in the countryside is the hills. One can always try to replicate that by using stairs but that is quite abusive on the knees with a backpack on your back...