Melody and I figure that a trip around the Alps by foot and by paraglider probably requires some sort of training before hand. On our PCT trip a few years ago we definitely learned that the best training is the hiking that you do in the first couple weeks of your trip. But….Having a trip like ours on the horizon is also a wonderful opportunity to call all that outdoor stuff that we love to do “training.”

So we hike… Up mountains… In the snow. It’s lots of fun, really, and a good bit of adventure, too. We’re sharing a cabin on Donner Lake with some friends this winter. This puts us in Tahoe more weekends than not and that finds us on top of northern Sierra peaks quite a bit.

Ski touring (well, really snowboard touring) is a great way to get out into the winter mountains. So far this winter, we have climbed Jake’s Peak (2X), Hidden Peak, Silver Peak (3x), Rose Knob Peak, The Shallenburger Ridge (2x) and made a lovely circumnavigation of Castle Peak via a route the we call “The Lappening.” All this hiking in the snow in the mountains is certainly making us feel good about hiking up mountains in the Alps this summer. Of course, another really awesome bonus is that once we get to the top of each of these peaks we get to snowboard down! With the amazing snow conditions Tahoe has had for the past couple weeks and all through December and early January, this has not been so bad!

We’ll keep touring and “training.” With any luck we still have a bit of winter and powder riding left to do. Then spring and the famous Sierra corn snow should be coming our way. This part of preparing for our trip sure is tough!