Training for hard (for me) alpine climbs

I'd like to climb big routes in the mountains starting in the beginning of August (and continuing until the season ends). Goals include classics up to 5.11- in places like the bugs (border issues pending of course), cirque of the climbables, tetons, elephant's perch, etc. I am hoping to solicit some advice from anyone who has experience preparing for this type of trip so that I can be intentional about how I spend the next 2 months. Even better if you can suggest any good websites or books on the topic!

It seems like one approach would be to follow a general climbing training plan and focus on going to the gym during the week and cragging on the weekend. The alternative approach would be to focus on getting mileage in the mountains: lots of hiking and easy solos around socal and the sierra eastside during the week, and objectives in the Sierra on the weekends. Seems like the latter approach would risk losing climbing fitness and might make those harder pitches problematic. Probably best approach is a hybrid?

Cheers!

It depends on what you are good and bad at - how strong a climber are you, and how strong a hiker?  Lets looks at two end-member cases: If you are an ultrarunner who can slog up and down mountains all day, but get pumped on 5.10a, you'll want to focus on the climbing. If you are a 5.13 sport climber who can cruise 5.11 no problem, but have twiggy legs and get tired walking uphill for 20 minutes, you'll need to focus on hiking and work capacity. Most people will fit somewhere in the middle, and need a hybrid. 

There is probably some overly complicated per iodized plan out there you could follow, but realistically you just need to do a bunch of climbing and hiking this summer and you'll be good to go. Don't overthink it. Probably the most helpful thing is to just get a lot of  of climbing mileage on the weekends that is close in style and difficulty to the objectives. I.e. alpine granite. This will help not just from a fitness perspective, but also regarding skills and experience. If you spend weekends in June and July climbing alpine granite in California, once you go to Cirque of the Towers you'll feel right at home. So, the weekends go for objectives in the Sierra, or on closer to home granite like Idyllwild. Then during the week you can fill in the gaps from what you missed the previous weekend (training hikes, gym climbing, local cragging/bouldering, etc).

Don't over-do it and burn yourself out by the end of July. Better to under-train by 10% than over-train by 5%. Give yourself some chill time before the trip to recover and go into the trip fresh.

Check out the book  Training for the New Alpinism and also the website uphillathlete.com

I don’t know if this is good advice, but I love climbing routes that require a healthy approach so it’s kind of up my alley. Also a big fan of granite climbing.

I doubt that gym climbing is that relevant for your goals at this point. I find that gym climbing can translate to many types of climbing but I don’t really see a strong connection to long granite routes at the grade you are talking about. I doubt you are going to fall off a 11- route on granite because of lack of finger strength.

You need fitness. If you don’t have it, start working on it. Try for long days with lots of elevation where you keep your heartrate low. 

As for climbing, start bouldering and climbing a lot of routes on a similar rock type. Try and get mileage on all crack sizes. Ideal if you can find a stiff 5.10 or 5.11 with sections of fingers, hands, fists, offwidth.

My advice will not really be that great if you don’t have easy access to granite and mountains…

Only chiming in to say don't neglect the mental aspect. Success on long trad routes in my experience requires only one thing that is actually hard to simulate, which is a long period of sustained good decision-making (routefinding, fast and only-when-needed gear placement, etc.) combined with a long period of being at a medium-high level of challenge and stress. I'd say go climb a bunch of trad pitches onsight back to back in the grades you're hoping to climb in the alpine, and pay attention to how well you make decisions as time goes on. For seasoned trad climbers this is off-the-couch, but for people (like me) who don't get into the alpine frequently, this can subtly thwart what looks on paper like an achievable goal.

Two months is a really short window to create, implement and taper from any type of training. You should absolutely narrow your focus, and train only your weaknesses. My guess (as written above, maybe you're an ultra marathoner and this is incorrect) is that you should focus on walking uphill with a big backpack, and just do enough outdoor trad climbing to maintain your strength. Twice a week at home max strength work is really good for maintenance of upper body/core strength, without wasting a lot of training time.

With two months, your training will have to focus on optimizing your current body and abilities, not significantly expending those. If you're in SoCal, start hitting Tahquitz and do some linkups. One long day out there will show you what to work on. I'd set up a progression (both in terms of difficulty and total pitches) for climbing once a week at Tahquitz. 

You don't have to answer these on here, unless you want to, but I'd think about:

What is my current biggest day, in terms of percentage of my goal climb? For instance, if the longest route you've climbed Whodunit, and your goal is climb X, then you know what it is like to do a day with 60% of the technical climbing, 20% of the vertical gain on the approach, two number grades easier than your goal. (made up numbers obv) Personally, I set my goals no more than 50% of what I've done previously, and that is with a full training cycle to get ready (6-12 months for me). I am super cautious about being too far outside my wheelhouse because I climb by myself. I might push myself more if I climbed with more experienced partners.

What will/could make you fail? For this one, read trip reports, and image yourself doing the climb. Some routes have famously heinous approaches that turn people away before they get there. If you're doing overnights, put your backpack together right now and see what it weighs. That alone might refocus your training.