I am curious how people handle the extreme heat when hiking. This can take on a couple forms: very high temperatures with low dewpoints, such as that found in the deserts of the Southwest, or "warm" temperatures with very high dewpoints such as the deep south, eastern seaboard, etc.
People can train to hike long distances in temperatures about 110 F (44 C), but this is an extremely demanding environment. The Badwater-Whitney race is a good example. So are the cases of people crossing 50+ miles of desert in summer from Mexico to the US and somehow surviving it. So obviously, it can be done.
A lot of people hike the local Phoenix-area peaks (Piestewa, Camelback) all year, even in the hottest part of the say, and we can get up near 120 at times. The reality is very few of them actually encounter trouble. My personal record is about at 112 F, both times on rescues, carrying big packs and setting up rope systems to get someone off a ledge. I have deliberately hiked the local peaks a few times at about 105-108 F just to see how well I do. There's a small peak nearby ASU (Hayden's Butte, or "A" Mountain) with 350 feet of gain in 3/8 of a mile that I'll do in the dead of summer. But it's close enough to town so if I lag or get into trouble, there are about 20 places nearby I can duck into for a drink. My wife and I once hiked to and from the pools at Seven Falls in the Sabino Canyon near Tucson in 107 F heat, covering nearly 5 miles total. That's my record for combined heat with long distance, and it was brutal at the very end. Another mile, we may not have made it...
Does anyone here train in the extreme heat, and what tricks do you use?
Has anyone ever found themselves in a situation where they must hike a long distance in the heat (e.g. flat tire, other unplanned situation)?