Questions

It's distance and climbing rolled into one number. Every 500 feet of climbing counts as one extra mile. So a flat 6-mile walk is 6.0 effort miles, and Little Si (3.7 miles with 1,300 ft of climbing) is 6.3. That's how a staircase and a mountain trail can be measured on the same scale.

Kilometres work the same way: about 95 m of climbing counts as one extra km. The flat walk is 9.7 effort km and Little Si is 10.1. You can pick miles or km when you start a plan.

How the numbers work has the rest.

No. Your plan is built from what you can walk to: sidewalks, stairs and hills near you. No stairs nearby? A single step is enough: you'll do step-ups on it instead. The plan will never ask you to buy anything, and you can finish every week with what you already have.

Where to find stairs has ideas, and who to ask.

When the “Take me to stairs” button can't find any near you, here are other places to look, and people who can help.

When you start a plan, the app works out the earliest date you could be ready and fills it in for you. You can pick a later date.

If you pick an earlier one, the app tells you how far short of ready you'd be. If the gap is too big, it won't make the plan at all. What it won't do is cram the training into fewer weeks. That's how a training plan turns into an injury.

Before your first week, your plan suggests one walk to try. When you've done it, tap “Check in” and tell the plan how it went. That fine-tunes week 1 so your training starts from where you actually are.

You can skip it. Your plan then keeps the week 1 it already has.

No. Sidewalk to Summit builds a plan from the numbers you give it. It isn't a doctor, a physical therapist or a coach, and it can't examine you or watch how you move. Please read Training carries risk before you start.

No. Every number in your plan comes from plain, testable code. An AI language model only writes the explanations. If it writes a number that doesn't match your plan, that paragraph is thrown out and you never see it.

One floor of a building, like the stairs from the ground floor of a house up to the next floor. That's about 10 feet of climbing (3 m). So when your plan says 12 flights, it means about 120 ft of climbing. Going up a tall building counts, and so do laps of the same staircase.

If your stairs turn at a landing halfway up, the two halves together make one flight. And a flight isn't a step. One step is only about 7 inches (18 cm), so a flight is about 17 steps. Steps vary, so treat that as a rough guide.

Elevation gain is all the climbing on a hike, added up: every uphill along the way. The highest point is how far above sea level the hike goes. A hike that starts high can reach a high point with very little gain, so the two numbers can be far apart.

Your plan is built on gain, and calls it climbing. It asks for the highest point only to tell you whether altitude is something to prepare for separately. Distances are round trip: there and back, or once around a loop.

• Build: a step up. Your long day grows by at most 12% and your whole week by at most 10%.
• Recovery: every fourth week is easier, about 75% of the week before. It comes on schedule, whether or not you feel you need it.
• Peak: the week your long day first reaches its biggest. The plan aims for that to be 80% of your goal hike, at least two weeks before the hike itself.
• Maintenance: nothing new. You're holding at the level you'll walk in on.
• Taper: the last weeks before your hike, which get easier, not harder.

When your plan talks about “the ramp”, it means this climb from week to week.

• Long day: the biggest walk of the week. Your plan suggests routes that fit it.
• Midweek: shorter sessions between long days. A brisk walk, stairs, a hill, step-ups or a treadmill, depending on what you told us you have nearby.
• Recovery walk: an easy, untimed walk. It doesn't count toward the week's target.
• Strength: a few core exercises, done on one of your walking days. It doesn't count toward the week's target either.
• Descent block: exercises for coming downhill, when your goal hike has a long way down. Leave a day or two between them and your long day if you can.
• Next-day hike: a second hike the day after your long day, on legs that are still tired. It's only in some weeks, and only when your goal is an overnight trip or takes more than one day.

Every week has at least two rest days.

It's sets and reps. A rep (short for repetition) is doing the move once: one step-up, one lunge. A set is a group of reps done in a row before you rest.

So “2 × 8 per leg” means 8 on each leg, a rest, then 8 on each leg again. A range like “2 × 6–8” means anywhere from 6 to 8 in each set.

“Building toward 3 × 10–12” names where an exercise is headed over the coming weeks, not a number to hit today. The words just before it, like “increase reps/sets”, say which one thing to change on the way.

You'll carry a pack on your goal hike, even if it's only a daypack. So later in your plan, some sessions ask you to carry one too, like “Walk 40 min with ~8 lb pack” (about 3.5 kg).

It starts light and goes up a little at a time, never straight to your full weight. If a session with a pack felt very hard, say so when you mark it done, and the plan holds back the next increase.

Any bag you can carry on your back will do. A litre of water weighs 1 kg (about 2.2 lb), so water bottles are an easy way to make up the weight.

• Stair repeats: climb a staircase, walk back down, and go again until you've climbed the total number of flights. Rest whenever you need to.
• Hill climbs: “12 x hill climb ~1 min up” means walk up a hill for about a minute, come back down, and do that 12 times.
• On a treadmill: you get a time and an incline, like “35 min @ 8-12% incline”. The incline is the treadmill's slope setting.

Coming back down counts too. Going down is where people get hurt, so take it slowly. Your plan says how.

Stand facing a single step, like the bottom stair or a porch step. Step up onto it with one foot, stand up tall, then lower yourself back down. Your plan says how high the step should be and how many to do on each leg.

Place the whole foot on the step, drive through that leg, stand tall and lower with control. If you have to swing or hop to get up, the step is too high.

Just Hyke's hiking strength videos show step-ups, along with reverse lunges and calf raises.

Exercises that get your legs ready for coming downhill. Going downhill and stepping down make your muscles sore in a way flat walking doesn't. These moves train the lowering half of a movement, which is what “eccentric” means: your muscles working as they lengthen, the way your thighs brake every step on the way down.

• Step-downs: stand on a step on one leg and lower the other foot to the floor, then push back up. Lower slowly and under control; keep the knee tracking over the toes.
• Reverse lunges: step one foot back and bend both knees to lower toward the floor, then come back up. Step back softly and control the lowering phase.
• Slow eccentric squats: squat down as if sitting onto a chair. Lower for about 3 seconds, then stand normally.
• Calf lowers: rise up onto your toes, then come back down. Rise normally and lower the heel slowly and under control.

Leave a day or two between descent work and your long day if you can. Just Hyke's hiking strength videos show reverse lunges and calf raises.

Your strength sessions are core exercises: a dead bug or a plank, then a side plank or a suitcase carry. A steady middle helps you stay upright on uneven ground and under a pack.

• Dead bug: lie on your back with your arms reaching up and your knees bent above your hips. Slowly lower one arm and the opposite leg toward the floor, keeping your lower back down. Bring them back and switch sides.
• Plank: hold your body in a straight line from head to heels, resting on your forearms and toes.
• Side plank: lie on one side, prop yourself up on your forearm and lift your hips until your body makes a straight line. Then the other side.
• Suitcase carry: walk tall holding something heavy in one hand, like a full bag or a water jug, without leaning toward it. Then switch hands.
• Pallof press or band chop: only if you already have a resistance band. Your plan never asks you to buy one. For a Pallof press, anchor the band at chest height, stand side-on to it, and press your hands straight out from your chest without letting it twist you. For a band chop, anchor it high and pull it diagonally down across your body.

Life happens. Tap “Missed this week?” on that week, and the rest of your plan is rebuilt from the last long day you actually finished. The weeks you've already done stay as they are. If that leaves too little time before your hike, the plan tells you instead of cramming.

Nothing here should be followed through pain. If something hurts, stop. That instruction has no exceptions and it outranks every number on your plan.

The app can't tell an everyday ache from a warning sign. If you tell your plan something hurts, it pauses and asks you to see a professional before you go on. None of your numbers change, and you can pick up again whenever you're ready.

From the “Train today” button on your plan. It finds a loop that starts where you're standing and fits that day's session.

Your location is used once, to ask a mapping service for the walk, and isn't saved. Only a loop you choose or mark as walked is kept.

The list of turns that comes with a loop the app makes for you. It's a list, not navigation: if you leave the route, it won't work out a new one.

Tap “Follow along” and it highlights the turn you're on, and can read each turn out loud if your phone has a voice built in. Your position stays on your phone.

Estimated is on routes we haven't walked in person yet, so their numbers may be a little off.

Machine-suggested is on loops the app made for you. Nobody has walked them, and they haven't been checked for lighting, sidewalk gaps, or how they feel alone at night. Use your judgment, especially after dark.

With your plan's link. There are no accounts or passwords, so the link is your key. Bookmark it. When you make your plan, you can also check the box that says “Email me my plan link”.

Anyone who has the link can open your plan, so share it the way you'd share a house key.

Anyone with your plan's link, plus the few people who run Sidewalk to Summit. To delete your plan, use the “Delete this plan” link at the bottom of it. Your data explains what we keep, who handles it and what deleting removes.