As I’ve said before, I love urban hikes. They are accessible year-round and some are a great way to keep in hiking shape year-round! So imagine my delight to learn Beers at the Bottom have a new hiking book out all on urban hikes in Washington!
conditioning hikes
Off-Season Conditioning
If you have any big hikes or summits planned for this summer, keeping your body in hiking shape through winter can be tough! Here’s some tips that help me.
Cable Line
Tiger Mountain offers miles of trails, including my previous training hike at West Tiger 3. You can reach that same summit in a fraction of the miles–for a price.
Mailbox Peak

Mailbox Peak. The name alone has hikers all over Washington either shudder or cower in fear. But for MSH training, it had to be done!
Granite Mountain

In the midst of buying a house and moving, it seemed I’d never catch up to my blog! Luckily (?) a sick day has knocked me on my rear, unable to do anything but sip fluids and write.
West Tiger 3
It seems like forever ago that I was conditioning for Mt. St. Helens with challenging hikes in the greater Seattle area. After Mount Townsend, the next one on my list was West Tiger 3 near Issaquah.
Mount Townsend

Once I returned from my awesome Cali roadtrip in June, I knew I had to buckle down and hit the trails to prepare for an August summit of Mount St. Helens. Next up was one of the areas most-loved conditioning hikes–Mount Townsend.
Heybrook Lookout

Clocking in at two miles round-trip, this hike might seem like the perfect leg-stretcher on the way home from adventures in Eastern Washington. But be warned, it’s a quad-burner!