Just wondering what people do out there to recover from alpine climbs?
I find that when I'm out climbing an alpine route in say, Rocky Mountain National Park with a 3-4 mile approach and 2000ft of climbing--be it ice, snow, or rock or a combination thereof---that I'm strong on the approach and climb, and a little tired on the descent, but very very worn out the next day. I'm getting out about once a week but even when I was getting out more, I was even stronger in the mountains, but still didn't recover well.
What can I do pre-climb, during the climb, or immediately after to enhance recovery? I can't afford to sleep all day if I climb all day the day before--I'm in medical school, so that just won't work!

I've noticed that nutrition and hydration play a huge part in my recovery after similar types of adventure climbing. Proper nutrition and hydration prior to and during my exercise also has a very noticeable effect on performance and recovery later. Packing a few 1000 more calories may help out.

I eat a high protein meal immediately after each climb. Your tearing down muscle fibers during exercise. The extra boost of protein will help your muscles rebuild faster and you'll receive an overall greater benefit from your excursions. I've noticed bigger gains in strength and endurance doing this.

Food, beer, sleep. then repeat.

Hydration for sure is key, I dont recover nearly as well if I am dehydrated on climbs. Do some endurance training sometime (biking, running, etc. stacked on top of a workout) and mess around with your water and food intake to see what works best for you, everyone is different. I also have scrapped the bars and gu's for leftovers. I usually make a big dinner the night before and bring the leftovers. I think my body can process the types of food it is used to eating more efficiently. Also as much as I enjoy a beer (or several) after climbing it doesnt help recovery much, if any. Hope this helps.

one thing that helps me be strong on a given day is to eat well, and a lot, the day before. You're in med school, so you probably know more about this kind of stuff than most of us, but it seems that having a bunch of carbs recently digested to fuel you on the day of the climb will help prevent the body from getting so depleted. It seems to work for me, where trying to eat a ton, on the go, the day of the climb doesn't. Also, if you're camping and not sleeping at home, make your sleeping setup extra comfy and wear your earplugs so you can get the most out of your horizontal hours.

i try and take a gallon with and drink half before the approach then drink like 2 nalgenes during the day depending on what climate, alpine 1 desert 2-3 and then i drink the other half when i get back to the car and then try and drink lots of liquids the next day and i dont usually drink a lot of water so you might want to up it. and then i've found more climbing is good too the next day to stretch out those muscles...easy climbing i should say or bouldering for a bit.

Whatever the amount protein you are eating, double it. Generally, when people are excessively sore after physical exertion that fixes the problem.

Are you training for recovery? Do you have longer training days that mimic long days in the mountains? Or back-to-back training days? If you ask your body to do something outside its normal adaption, you should expect to be sore.

The challenge is that once a week is not enough training stimulus to adapt to your current level of training. By the time you go out again you have super compensated and lost your peak and are back to status quo. Try adding an additional hard workout once a week, maybe something short but with high intensity. If you are already doing that all I can say is that it takes time for your body to become accustomed to alpine days unless you do them more frequently. Age actually seems to help if you can believe it. Maybe that has more to do with experience in how to moderate your intensity during an alpine day so you have more left at the end. I call it my secret weapon....I can actually get a full day of work in the day after a long alpine day where in my 20's I was a worthless sack of potatoes.

Animal protein is good for post workouts, but I have found a vegetarian meal gets digested more easily before and during long climbing days. I too abstain from bars and try to eat more nuts, fruits, and chocolate. If you are not eating much on long days that is also probably why you get super worked....an alpine day is likely to burn over 10k in calories...which would take close to 100 goo packets......don't try that BTW unless you want serious stomach issues. Find foods you can stomach and try to keep eating all day if possible. Spiking your water with a protein/carb mixture also can help.

It's really hard to carry enough water to stay hydrated, yet move fast. The trick is to dip a bottle from little streams and use the purifying tabs. My normal day looks like this:
Approach with a liter and consume it on the way. Dip just before starting the climb, consume that during the climb. Dip once more for the walk out. That's 3 liters and not enough for real hydration, but it makes a good compromise for speed and weight. Bringing real food like a sandwich is smart.

I'm pretty sure dehydration is the culprit for most of the run down feeling, but for the muscle pains you could do a lot more hiking during the week or start running. Other than that, ibuprofen. Of course, if you skip the drugs you'll save your liver.

Pick up Mark Twight's books, Extreme Alpinism. It has some really good tips about what to do before and after a climb.