phydeux wrote:The most I can remember doing in a single day with a full backpack was the Mt. Whitney trail (California, Sierra Nevada Mtns), from the 8500 ft trailhead to the 14500 ft Mt. Whitney summit where we spent the night.
I think the best way to approach training is just by going out there and start doing elevation gains, and increasing the amount every week. I noticed about myself, is that I can go forever downhill with very little food or water, but start having considerable difficulty going uphill if I don't eat enough. Regular snacking is important to maintain energy levels which is tricky because at high altitude I tend to lose my appetite and go through long periods of deprivation as a result. While a lot of it is training, the majority of it is psychological and the ability to push yourself (wanting to go harder and farther), as the body is capable of much more than we think. What I've done in the past is use a 50 lbs. weighted vest (can be adjusted to lesser weight) to go uphill when training. I think running also has its benefits for improving speed/endurance.
Also, by "most amount of elevation gain in a day"....do you mean most amount of gain, overall, with no pressure to return to starting point? Because if you cut out the time it takes to return to starting point (trailhead), you could just do continuous elevation gain for 20+ hours and accumulate tons of gain that way, but that does not accurately represent real life wilderness circumstances. Another estimate would be most amount of elevation gain, and back to starting point in a day. There is more pressure here (because you can't simply focus on accumulating elevation gain alone). The measure is also limited, because there is only 24 hours in the day, and you are spending a good 1/3 of your time just returning to the starting point (time that could be spend acquiring more gain). Based on this criteria, the most gain I have managed to do is 14,000 ft. of gain (as an extended dayhike linking up two remote peaks (car to car), walking/non running) but it went over the 24 hour mark by 3 hours, so it was still a continuous 27 hour push. Muscle fatigue had set in and I had not eaten enough.