Training?

No controversy IMO. Probably the toughest job I've had was on a roofing crew one summer. I carried bundles of shingles up 40 foot ladders all day long. Brutal.

Better training for climbing or backpacking than paddling though

As a forester, I have had all kinds of menial jobs to make ends meet between jobs on my career path. I was acutely aware of the hierarchy in construction jobs. Being a laborer, apprentice roofer, sheet rocker, are examples of jobs at the bottom. I was a commercial electrician once for almost 4 years. I had a logging company for awhile and a landscape company. I was happiest doing forestry work and being an environmental consultant where I could use my education.

It was not so easy to take instruction from a 20 yo when I was 35 with a Masters Degree. It taught me humility. Carrying tools taught me much more than I realized at the time. We worked around all of the trades and picked up things from all of them. I thought working construction was a waste of time until later, when I realized all of the lessons learned.

Logging and working construction are great ways to build upper body strength. They teach you to work past when you are tired.

Some of those rowing machines exercises look like they could be accomplished with a simple dumbbell row exercise.

Endurance/cardio is likely a better attribute than strength. Seems those two can be mutually exclusive. Never seen a marathoner or triathlete that looked like they spent much time in the weight room. Wife and I used to regularly do a Bodypump class at our gym. It’s an hour long, fast paced, high rep weightlifting session. Every so often a regular would drag their weightlifting significant other to a class. It would kick their butt. Seen many a jacked bro shaking their heads in disbelief as they start peeling weight off the bar each set.

Strength is a great thing to have on pushy fast rivers with big hydraulics. Good technique helps a lot. Rough conditions can wear people out. I always liked paddling and rowing with people that are pretty fit.

Backpacking, particularly winter backpacking, is a wonderful way to train. It has other benefits that apply very nicely to warmer weather paddling. It hones your camping skills, helps you to really learn about quality gear and dressing appropriately and makes you appreciate the longer daylight and warmer weather.

Winter backpacking is also just beautiful fun and great camaraderie when you find the like minded.

I’m curious about the paddle rower adaptation mentioned by @yknpdlr. I might have to look into that for my rower.

Regarding backcountry skiing, I can vouch for its fitness quotient. It’s absolutely the most fun winter activity I ever get to do. Unfortunately, because of where I live, that’s relatively infrequently.

It’s essentially going for a hike with ski gear. Skinning (ascending a hill on your skis with a temporary traction skin applied to the underside) is like hiking with weighted boots. When the terrain gets too steep for skins, boot-packing moves the ski load to your pack. Add in water, food, avalanche gear (shovel, probe and beacon), and extra layers and you carry a decent load.

As the saying goes, you “earn your turns.”

Relative to resort skiing, you’re generally alone in the stillness of nature and able to seek out untracked terrain long after each storm cycle, whereas the resorts get skiied out in hours.

Pseudonym said:

’m curious about the paddle rower adaptation mentioned by @yknpdlr. I might have to look into that for my rower.

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It's not a rower, it is a paddler. I first saw a dozen of these machines on display at the US Nationals canoeing in Syracuse a few short years ago. Half were set up for canoe paddlers, half were set up for kayak paddlers, with completely different attachment sysems connected to the base Concept2 machine, representing either a single blade canoe paddle or a double blade kayak padddle. They are not interchangeable without a major system hardware switch AFAIK. After trying out the canoe paddler for a few minutes, i was sold and i knew I had to have it to supplement my origial Waterrower machine ( which had developed a small water leak from the reservoir). I first bought the Waterrower in the fall of 2007, to prepare during the winter months for my first Yukon River Quest race in June 2008. I liked it for the feel of the catch in real water, ans also the watery sound that it makes when in use. I used it with the handle held vertically to better mimic a canoe paddle and had often thought about substituting a real paddle shaft for the C2 handle.

The Paddlesport trainer also has a very realistic catch feel, and the paddle very exactly conforms with the exact action and feel of very fast hit and switch racing strokes. I can recommend either training system, but most especially the paddlesport trainer.

yknpdlr said:

I liked it for the feel of the catch in real water, and also the watery sound that it makes when in use.

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This is what I love about my water rower too.

@yknpdlr, I'm very glad you shared the PaddleSports Training System. My reference to the "paddler rower adaption" was a poorly phrased attempt to highlight the fact that the PaddleSport training system is adapted to a Concept2 rowing machine. I'm intrigued that PaddleSport says it is feasible to switch back and forth between rowing and paddling modes in only "about two minutes." See here:


I wonder if I could jury-rig the Paddle Sports system to my water rower? Probably not elegantly, nor with as easily accommodated mode swapping (paddle/row), but in doing so I would save myself a grand, which is the base price of the Concept2.

@Pseudonym Earn your turns indeed! Far different from resort skiing with no cost other than gear and knowledge. In the Midwest, the knowledge isn’t as crucial as for those friends out west but it sure helps you understand more about the snow pack and weather. I’ve only been skinning for about two years, normally I’d snowshoe up and snowboard down. Man, I’ve been doing that for almost two decades. The skis have helped tremendously on the long ascents and traverses as well as taken me to new zones.

But I’m Altai 125’s, a Skishoe or approach ski. The shorter ski definitely helps with the tight trees for going up and down.

Rowing was mentioned above. I have never liked the idea of row rigs on canoes, facing the wrong direction. I can heartily recommend rowing a raft or drift boat facing down stream. One brain controls the boat. There is tremendous leverage available using the muscles of the torso and back pulling on the oars. Pushing the oars forward or Portege uses the relatively weak triceps. By angling a boat in the current, and pulling on the oars a back ferry can be executed to create apparent movement sideways in the current. Similar to a back ferry in a canoe but much easier to control.

Most of the forward momentum is created by the current, Back ferrying controls the boat. Compared to a raft which feels sluggish in the water, rowing a drift boat is like flying over the water. The extreme rocker makes control easy. Try it some time with someone that knows how to row.

ErktheRed said:

I’ve only been skinning for about two years, normally I’d snowshoe up and snowboard down. Man, I’ve been doing that for almost two decades. The skis have helped tremendously on the long ascents and traverses as well as taken me to new zones.

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Welcome into the light!

Sorry, I couldn't help but give a snowboarder at least a little grief! Truth is, I too had a snowboard for years, but it is definitely a sport that could only have ever caught on and evolved in the chair-lift era, whereas skis have been around at least 8,000 years (according to Wikipedia). I have snowboarding buddies with split-boards, but they complain that their split boards aren't as stiff, don't edge well and are a little fussy/fiddly. As the economics of skiing/snowboarding get more and more expensive and the user base isn't growing, backcountry skiing just might save the sport.

@Pseudonym let’s hope so! This winter is my 30th year snowboarding and 36th year total of being involved in skiing/snowboarding. I’m 39. I’ve seen every phase come through so far (minus the true beginning) and can remember not being allowed at certain resorts/hills, or having to walk uphill or even the mandated leash times. Snowboarding was better in the 90’s-00’s (it’s golden era), but backcountry will always be the real gem of it.

I’ve heard the same complaints about Splitboards but the tech evolves so rapidly that they have fine tuned everything better than it was last year. Next years will be better than this year. Plus they’re very expensive to get setup initially, so I’ll stick with my short approach skis.

But that light seems to be shining bright full of warmth!

I too am a BC skier, going on 20 years now...alpine skiing most of my life,
And agreed, it's waaaay different than lift served skiing, quiet, peaceful, strenuous, challenging. You have to be very accurate in your assessment of your skills, equipment and the conditions.
In the off season (off from skiing, that is) I'm a road cyclist. I enjoy the solitude and the suffering, especially big, long climbs.
Funny thing about both of those activities, some folks join me once after hearing of the benefits/enjoyment, but rarely accompany me again. Either the suffering is too much, or their abilities don't match with their aspirations. Both cycling and BC skiing are great ways to stay in shape for canoe tripping, I also still do free weight training year round.
Both of my kids were brought up skiing from age 3 or 4, and both switched to riding when they were 14 years old...they weren't raised that way!! My son still occasionally skis, and has come BC with me, but he still prefers his board.
I have also gone BC with some guys on boards, some split board guys, some on snowshoes, but they all have difficulties with undulating terrain, particularly when the powder is deeper than 2 or 3 ft. Yeah, yeah, we try to read the contours correctly, but deadfalls dictate the downhill route, and, well, sometimes we have to go UP while going down.

I’d like to add one more training technique. Yesterday I broke out the snow rake for the roof, it can reach about 2/3’rds on one side and just about all of the way on the other. The snow was heavy on bottom, light on top. If anybody has ever used a pole saw for any length of time, the manual version, it’s like that. A triceps burner A love/hate tool! Then I got up there and shoveled the rest, keeping my feet braced I planted the shovel like my paddle into the water. Beautiful strokes every time…. Except I didn’t go anywhere but to the next row of heavy snow.

Yesterday was about four hours of shoveling and using the snow rake. My arms and core were spent and thank god this isn’t a routing of mine.

My usual winter time allotment to be spent on my indoor Paddlesports Concept2 machine has been overtaken in this 1960's remembrance style winter is being spent on roof rakes and snowblower. My GPS says that I walk a bit over 2 miles while literally wrestling with my 24" snowblower on my lakeside camp hundred yard driveway and parking area. Currently snowing there (here) at a rate of somewhere near 4"/hour, same at home a half hour away where my wife is maintaining the wood stove. Make one pass, turn around and you can't tell where I just blew it. It doesn't help that when the town snowplow comes by that is rolling basketball size balls of ice as far as 10' feet into my driveway. Plus, I have a large shed roof at home and a small remote hunting camp in the middle of lake effect country east of Lake Ontario that I must ski into to shovel as much as 4 feet of snow from the roof. Lite snow years require one trip. Four times so far this year. So much for dedicated winter paddle training. Thankfully, at least at my home I have a tractor mounted snowblower that does it all in good time.

This is what the small remote camp looks like before and after my third roof saving trip last week. Looks like another 4 mile ski trip will be necessary later this week.

That's a lot of snow.

Rather than shovel that roof multiple times per season, year after year after year, if it were me, I would alter the pitch of that roof. Thereafter, you would never have to shovel ( or rake) again!!
But that is an impressive amount of snow…

Alreadfy thought of doing tha, under high pressure from the wife, I may well do that, At 74 this year, I likely cannot continue the high level of exercise to get in there to do the work in winter for many more years. however I do see other much more pitched roofs in the area, far too steeep to walk on that still need raking. The problem is, even with a lilght snow coating, whjen partially melts and turns to a roof gripping layer of ice, additional snow does not slide off unntil the ice layer is loosened or melts. We never had our usual annual fuill "January thaw" this year. Except for a couple of cold rainy days that quickly forze again we have been below freezing since the first snowfall the week before Thanksgiving.

I spent too long working in R&D, specifically in the field of applied tribology.
You could buy some Emralon dry film lubricant and spray coat the new sheet metal roofing to give you a very low coefficient of friction. Problem solved!

I had the 18 year old shingle roof on my 12’x20’ storage barn replaced with a standing seam steel roof and it sheds snow every time it snows. Great roof.