The Six-Pack of Peaks was created as a part of a training regimen for a through-hike of the John Muir Trail (JMT). Our founder had been hiking in Southern California, first building up distance, then adding vertical gain, but to simulate the demands of the JMT, he needed to add higher elevation efforts. He scouted six progressively taller peaks in SoCal (Mount Wilson, Cucamonga Peak, Mount San Antonio, San Bernardino Peak, Mount San Jacinto, and San Gorgonio) and hiked them over consecutive weekends (in addition to mid-week conditioning hikes). He documented the Six-Pack of Peaks on our sister site, SoCalHiker.net, and soon others began hiking it to help them train for big challenges.
In 2015, we launched the first official Six-Pack of Peaks Challenge in Southern California. Today the Six-Pack of Peaks Challenge Series includes challenges across the country, with thousands of challengers answering the call to adventure.
Whether you take the challenge as a goal in itself, or as part of your training for a bigger challenge, completing the challenge in a single season is a feat that few can claim.
