Skyscraper stair hiking

[HalfDomeRick]

I often get inquiries from folks in the flatlands asking how they can prepare for the Half Dome hike. The almost 1 mile vertical rise is the massive challenge on this hike … not to underplay the cables and Sub Dome. The Stairmaster will become your best friend over the months preceding your hike. But if you live in the Central Valley or the Midwest – there just aren’t too many convenient hills available. I highly recommend doing the fire escape stairs at the local high rise hotel. Up and down the stairs is a great way to get those legs in shape. Now to take it to the extreme, enter James Shibley, a Sunnyvale, CA chip engineer. In the mid 1990’s he did the Half Dome trail and found that he was running out of gas. Overweight and in need of a motivational goal, he decided that he would use the parking garage staircase near his National Semiconductor job as his training ground. He estimates that he’s done the 3-story steps over 100,000 times. Yup, that’s no typo. A hundred grand. Whew. He’s now in tip-top shape and glides up Half Dome – 13 times to date. But he’s taken this stair thing to the extreme. He’s become a world class competitive stair climber. Didn’t know there was such a thing? Mr. Shipley has been in races to the top of the Empire State Building and has also done skyscrapers in Chicago, Seattle and Los Angeles. In January he did the Empire State building in 17 minutes 20 seconds. If you can’t imagine how high that is … try 86 flights of stairs with 1,576 steps from the ground floor to the observation deck, a quarter-mile above up. If you need a kick in the tush to get in shape for your Half Dome hike – give this fete a few minutes reflection!

Rick D
www.HikeHalfDome.com (http://www.HikeHalfDome.com)