By Melanie Michaelchuk, NASM Certified Personal Trainer & Hiking Coach
Founder of Just Hyke | Co-Founder of Sidewalk to Summit
You have a big hike on your bucket list.
Maybe it’s Kilimanjaro. A Colorado 14er. Mount Whitney. A trek in the Andes. Or another adventure that will take you higher than you’ve ever hiked before.
But there’s one problem:
You live nowhere near the mountains.
How do you train for 10,000, 14,000, or even 19,000 feet when most of your training happens close to sea level?
The good news is that there is a lot you can train before you ever reach altitude.
You can build endurance. Strengthen your legs. Train for hills and downhills. Practice carrying your pack. Prepare for long days and back-to-back hiking days.
You can even use stairs, bridges, treadmills, and hot-weather training to add extra challenge.
But there is one thing you cannot completely reproduce at home:
Acclimatization to altitude.
Understanding that difference is one of the most important parts of preparing for a high-altitude adventure.
Training prepares your body for the hike. Acclimatization prepares your body for the altitude.
You need both.
What Is Considered High Altitude?
You don’t have to be climbing Mount Everest before altitude matters.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), travelers who are not acclimatized can be at risk for altitude illness when they reach a sleeping elevation of around 8,000 feet (2,450 meters) or higher. Some people may experience symptoms at lower elevations.
The Wilderness Medical Society gives similar guidance.
So if you’re planning a Colorado 14er, Mount Whitney, Kilimanjaro, or another high-elevation adventure, altitude needs to be part of your preparation—not just mileage and elevation gain.
Why Does Hiking Feel Harder at Altitude?
As you climb higher, air pressure drops. That means your body gets less oxygen with each breath.
At approximately 10,000 feet, the CDC reports that inspired oxygen pressure is only about 69% of what it is at sea level.
Your body notices.
You breathe faster. Your heart works harder. A pace that feels comfortable at home may suddenly feel difficult. You may walk more slowly and need more breaks.
That’s normal.
Expect your pace to change at altitude.
Walking more slowly doesn’t mean your training failed. Your body is doing hard work with less available oxygen.
Fitness and Acclimatization Are Not the Same Thing
This may be the most important thing to understand about high-altitude hiking:
You can be extremely fit and still get altitude sickness.
The CDC states that physical fitness does not determine your risk of developing altitude illness.
But fitness still matters a lot.
Research involving Himalayan trekkers found that people with greater sea-level fitness experienced a lower sense of effort while trekking at altitude. However, being fitter did not protect them from acute mountain sickness.
In simple terms:
Fitness can make the hiking easier. It cannot make you immune to altitude sickness.
That’s why your preparation needs two parts.
Train your body before the trip.
Then give your body time to acclimatize once you reach elevation.
How Do You Train for Altitude When You Don’t Have Altitude?
Don’t worry about perfectly reproducing 14,000 feet at home.
Instead, train for the parts of the hike that you can reproduce.
1. Build Your Aerobic Base
Walking and hiking should be a big part of your preparation.
Gradually build the amount of time you can comfortably stay on your feet.
For a long trek, being able to walk steadily for several hours is often more useful than crushing one extremely difficult workout.
Walking, hiking, cycling, incline treadmill work, stairs, and other steady aerobic exercise can all help build endurance.
Not every workout needs to leave you exhausted.
You’re building an engine that needs to keep running for a long time.
2. Train for Hills Even If You Don’t Have Any
If your goal hike includes thousands of feet of elevation gain, flat walking alone isn’t enough.
This is where Hill Training comes in.
If you have hills, use them.
If you don’t, get creative.
Stairs, parking garages, bridges, incline treadmills, stair-steppers, and repeated step-ups can all help prepare your legs for climbing.
Your body doesn’t care whether the uphill came from a mountain or a staircase.
It recognizes the work.
Start where you are and gradually increase how long you can climb.
3. Don’t Forget the Downhill
We spend a lot of time training to reach the summit.
But there’s something easy to forget:
You have to come back down.
Downhill hiking can be hard on your legs, especially your quads. Each step asks your muscles to act like brakes, slowing your body as gravity pulls you downhill.
Controlled step-downs, split squats, lunges, squats, and other lower-body strength exercises can help prepare your legs for descending.
Strong downhill legs can make a big difference late in a long hiking day.
4. Build Practical Strength
Strength training should support your hiking—not compete with it.
Focus on movements that look and feel like the work you’ll do on the trail.
Think step-ups, step-downs, squats, lunges, calf raises, loaded carries, and exercises that strengthen your core.
You don’t have to train like a bodybuilder.
You’re training your body to step up, control the descent, stay balanced on uneven ground, carry weight, and keep moving.
5. Train With Your Pack
If you’ll carry a daypack on your adventure, don’t wait until the last few weeks to start wearing it.
Begin with a lighter pack and gradually build.
Whenever possible, use the pack you’ll take on your trip. Training with it gives you time to adjust the fit and discover rubbing, pressure points, or other problems before you’re halfway up a mountain.
6. Practice Back-to-Back Hiking Days
If you’re preparing for a multi-day trek, you aren’t just training for one big hiking day.
You may hike all day, eat dinner, sleep, wake up and do it again.
Occasional back-to-back training days help your body learn what it feels like to move when your legs aren’t completely fresh.
Your second day doesn’t have to be as long as your first.
The goal is to build your ability to recover and keep going.
Can Training in the Heat Help Prepare You for Altitude?
This is especially interesting if you live somewhere hot.
Maybe—but heat is not the same as altitude.
Researchers have been studying something called heat-to-hypoxia cross-adaptation.
That’s a complicated name for a fairly simple idea: when your body learns to handle one environmental stress, such as heat, some of those changes might help it handle another stress, such as lower oxygen.
A 2024 systematic review and exploratory meta-analysis looked at nine human studies examining this idea. Researchers found some promising benefits during exercise in low-oxygen conditions after heat acclimation, including lower heart rate and body temperature and improvements in resting oxygen saturation.
Earlier research also found that after 10 days of heat acclimation, participants experienced less physical strain and improved exercise performance when they later exercised in moderate hypoxia.
Why might this happen?
Repeated heat exposure can lead to changes such as increased blood plasma volume, improved temperature control, and a lower exercising heart rate.
Those adaptations could potentially be useful when your body encounters another stressful environment.
But Heat Does NOT Equal Altitude
This distinction matters.
Training in hot weather does not acclimatize you to altitude.
Heat cannot reproduce the lower oxygen pressure you experience high on a mountain, and it cannot remove your risk of acute mountain sickness.
Research in this area is also still developing. Many studies have involved relatively small groups, often trained men. We need more research involving women, older adults, and recreational hikers.
Humidity adds another challenge because it makes it harder for sweat to evaporate and cool your body. But most of the cross-adaptation research has focused on heat—not humidity itself.
So don’t call your hot, humid summer walk “altitude training.”
Instead, think of it as another environmental challenge that may create some useful adaptations.
And remember: heat brings its own risks. Dehydration and heat illness can become serious quickly. Heat exposure should be increased carefully, not used as an excuse to push through dangerous conditions.
What About Altitude Masks and Altitude Tents?
Be cautious about anything that promises to “simulate altitude.”
Specialized hypoxic tents and environments that actually reduce available oxygen are different from a mask that simply makes breathing harder.
Some forms of hypoxic exposure may help with pre-acclimatization when used correctly. The Wilderness Medical Society discusses hypoxic exposure as one possible strategy, but the protocol matters and research is still evolving.
A training mask that restricts airflow does not recreate the reduced atmospheric pressure you experience at altitude.
For most recreational hikers, your priorities are much simpler:
Build your fitness. Train specifically for your hike. Then allow time to acclimatize when you arrive.
Your Itinerary Is Part of Your Training Plan
One of the most important parts of altitude preparation doesn’t happen during a workout.
It happens when you arrive.
How quickly you travel upward—especially how quickly your sleeping elevation increases—matters.
The CDC recommends avoiding travel directly from low elevation to a sleeping elevation above approximately 9,000 feet (2,750 meters) in a single day when possible.
Once above approximately 9,850 feet (3,000 meters), the CDC advises increasing sleeping elevation by no more than about 1,600 feet (500 meters) per day, with an extra acclimatization day for every approximately 3,300 feet (1,000 meters) gained.
Spending two or three nights around 8,000–9,000 feet before going higher can also substantially reduce your risk of acute mountain sickness.
That’s why your itinerary matters.
Sometimes the smartest strategy isn’t going harder.
It’s giving your body more time.
Could Being an Older Hiker Actually Have an Advantage?
Here’s something I especially want women in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and beyond to know:
Being older doesn’t automatically put you at a disadvantage at altitude.
In fact, the CDC reports that people over age 50 have a slightly lower risk of acute mountain sickness.
A systematic review examining age and acute mountain sickness found mixed results among individual studies, but concluded that older age does not appear to be a reason to avoid high-altitude travel.
That doesn’t mean age protects you from altitude illness.
And research hasn’t shown that older hikers acclimatize better simply because they may hike more slowly.
But there is an important lesson here:
Slower isn’t necessarily worse at altitude.
A steady pace, gradual ascent, adequate rest, and enough time to acclimatize are strengths on a high mountain.
You don’t get extra points for reaching camp first.
If experience has taught you to listen to your body, pace yourself, and let the mountain set the rhythm, those are valuable hiking skills.
High mountains aren’t reserved for twenty-something athletes.
Know the Warning Signs of Altitude Illness
Altitude illness should always be taken seriously.
Acute mountain sickness, or AMS, commonly involves a headache along with symptoms such as nausea, dizziness, or unusual fatigue.
More serious illnesses include high-altitude cerebral edema (HACE) and high-altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE). Both can be life-threatening.
One rule is especially important:
Do not continue ascending to a higher sleeping elevation when you have symptoms of altitude illness.
If symptoms become worse despite resting at the same elevation, descent may be necessary.
If you have heart, lung, or other medical conditions—or questions about whether high-altitude travel is appropriate for you—talk with a healthcare professional familiar with altitude medicine before your trip.
Your High-Altitude Training Checklist
Before your adventure, ask yourself:
✓ Can I comfortably walk for several hours?
✓ Have I gradually increased my hiking endurance?
✓ Have I included Hill Training?
✓ Have I trained for downhill as well as uphill?
✓ Have I built practical leg and core strength?
✓ Have I trained with the pack I’ll carry?
✓ If I’m doing a multi-day trek, have I practiced some back-to-back hiking days?
✓ Does my itinerary give me enough time to acclimatize?
✓ Do I know the early signs of altitude illness?
✓ Am I willing to slow down—or stop ascending—if my body tells me something isn’t right?
Train the Things You Can Control
You may not be able to train at 10,000, 14,000, or 19,000 feet.
But you can train the legs that will carry you there.
You can build your endurance.
You can train for the hills and the downhills.
You can strengthen your body.
You can become comfortable carrying your pack.
You can prepare for long days and consecutive days on the trail.
You can learn to move steadily instead of rushing.
And when you finally reach the mountains, you can give your body the time it needs to acclimatize.
You don’t have to live near the mountain to start training for the mountain.
That’s the idea behind Sidewalk to Summit:
Start where you are. Train for where you want to go.
Sources & Further Reading
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Yellow Book: High-Altitude Travel and Altitude Illness.
Wilderness Medical Society. Clinical Practice Guidelines for the Prevention, Diagnosis, and Treatment of Acute Altitude Illness: 2024 Update. Wilderness & Environmental Medicine.
Rossetti GMK, et al. Greater Sea-Level Fitness Is Associated with Lower Sense of Effort During Himalayan Trekking Without Worse Acute Mountain Sickness. High Altitude Medicine & Biology. 2017.
Gatterer H, et al. Research examining the relationship between age and acute mountain sickness.
Cross-adaptation from heat stress to hypoxia: A systematic review and exploratory meta-analysis. 2024.
Lee BJ, et al. Research examining heat acclimation, physiological strain, and exercise performance during subsequent moderate hypoxia.
UIAA Medical Commission. Recommendations and educational guidance concerning acclimatization, altitude illness, and high-altitude travel.
This article is for educational purposes and is not a substitute for individualized medical advice. High-altitude travel and exercise in extreme heat can involve serious health risks. Consult an appropriate healthcare professional if you have medical conditions or concerns about your ability to safely participate.
About the Author
Melanie Michaelchuk is a NASM Certified Personal Trainer, hiking coach, and founder of Just Hyke. A three-time Kilimanjaro summiteer, she helps everyday hikers build the strength, endurance, and confidence to take on bigger adventures.
Learn more: JustHyke.com
