I have some advice for you that I’ll break down into three areas:

1) training

2) technical skills

3) equipment.

Mountaineering is an endurance sport, with short, intense bursts of effort required from time to time. Ideally, you will rarely find yourself so winded that you have to take a breather, but you’ll often be pretty close, and that is a tempo that you’ll have to maintain for a long time. A day can begin before dawn and end well after dark, with no real rests to speak of during the climb. Thus, train accordingly. Start doing things to improve your staying power, like going for long runs, really long runs, topping out at three hours. Buy a bike and cycle to save your knees. Swim, if that’s an option. Whatever your activity, try to do it at around 70% of your max. To be able to cope with the short bursts I mentioned earlier, do interval training. Work at 95-105% of your max for 60 seconds, then cut it back to 30-40% for 3-4 minutes. Do that 3-4 times for starters, then try to increase it. You can also work at around 90% of your max for 10-12 minutes, then cut it back down until you’re ready for another go, a few minutes later. Try that 3-4 times. That would be a session. Try to have a hard session followed by an easier one then a third tough one, followed by a day completely off, or two or three days, if you bit too much off during your three-day work period. Watch the overtraining.

Climbing also involves pulling with the arms and pushing with the legs, so work on that as well. You’ll need to have a lot of brute strength, to pull yourself over that overhang, for example, but at the same time, you’ll need to have endurance, to keep pulling all day long. Shoot for being able to do 15+ pull-ups (palms out) with just your body weight, and hitting a 1-3 rep max of double your body weight. Lat pull-downs, all kinds of rows, curls—all that will help. For your legs, the same thing goes: every once in a while, you’re going to need to PUSH your ass plus that big ruck up a couple of meters of steep rock, but more often than that, you’ll just need to keep putting one foot in front of and slightly higher than the other foot. Squats and lunges, for strength and endurance.

That covers training, pretty much. As you move along, you’ll pick up tips as well, so talk to people, not just climbers but anyone into endurance sports, and adapt as you go. Only you can tell what works best for you.

Technically speaking, your wall classes should be fine. You should be able to do what you’re told (put on your harness and clip in, for example) and, more specifically, to belay a lead climber (who will tell you in more concrete terms than I can here what to do), rope up, remove any pro the leader may have placed and clip in at the next belay point. The rest of the technical know-how—how to plan a route, how to place protection, how to establish a belay point for the next pitch—will be stuff you’ll see other people doing, or they will tell you how to do it. For now, get the basics down—that will make it possible for you to start learning the more complicated stuff.

With regards to the gear, buy only what you need for now. If you’re doing indoor wall climbing, get a no-frills harness (which you’ll replace later, when you know what to look for in a harness), some decent shoes (but not the most expensive) and maybe a chalk bag. There may be a few other small items you’ll need, but for the time being, if you can get away with not buying something, that will allow you to acquire the knowledge necessary to allow you to know that you really need. For the time being, if you can borrow stuff, do so. It’s a shame to spend $130 on an ice axe only to realize that you liked a slightly different design better. Same holds true for all gear. Try to have an idea of what you’re looking for, what you want to do with it and what works for you before you drop that 3K.

That’s all I can think of. Hope this was useful to you.

 I'll have her read it and give her thoughts.