I tapped out the first post on my phone hence the choppy wording. Delayed for a flight so thought I could add some more.
I did Whitney 6 years ago and summited in 7 1/2 hrs. It was the first week of Sept and no snow to slow us down. More important I was in much better shape and had climbed to 12633 AZ high point the week before. We did the same Onion Valley 2 day one night acclimation with similar short hikes to over 10k. Faster summit and no real AMS but I was very buzzed from trail Crest on. We hiked some with a lady using trekking poles and she said she PRd using them- not me I said I like my hands free, I will never use poles
Fast forward to this 2019 7/15 trip and I had only done 6 or so 1500 ft gain hikes to 3k ft in the Phoenix area w a max of 10 miles. The week before our trip my lower back flaired up and I thought the trip was shot. I brought some trekking poles we had bought for a water hike. With stretching, ice Advil and a great night sleep at Onion Valley I felt good enough to try.
We started at midnight to allow extra time to acclimate and go easy. This was my 19 yr old daughters first 14er.
Moral of the story, if you go with two data points, was going slow and using trekking poles I felt better than the previous trip where I was in significant better shape and had more altitude training. It added ~ 4 hrs to our hike which isn’t free of its own exhaustion issues, but more importantly we had zero AMS symptoms and I was way less dizzy along the final summit. I shared a pole with my daughter in the snow sections (we also had ice axes for firm pole anchors) and for the trip down. We both agreed trekking poles ROCK!
I have done an Ironman and multiple half IMs where I learned a lot about nutrition and what works for me. For both Whitney trips, many Grand Canyon rim to rim and other 20 mile plus hikes I am a big believer in eating 150 + calories every 45 mins. When exerting yourself your blood shunts away from your digestive system and you can only digest 150-300 calories an hour. So every min your stomach isn’t working on some food you are going into a further deficit. If you wait until you are hungry you are too late, soon this becomes upset stomach and not hungry then the bonk spiral! So my daughter and I are religiously EVERY 45 minutes. What you eat needs to be tailored to your tastes and stomach. I have a rock proof stomach but I like variety so I alternate between a gel, candy bar, cliff bar every 45 mins. We brought 24 total each giving us 18 hrs of fuel. We also brought gatoraid powder to alternate w plain water and this is extra calories too. We stayed pretty true to the diet and had no bonk issues and were not starving at the end. My daughter doesn’t like cliff bar type food so she used jelly beans, stinger wafers, pretzels, chips... Find what works for you and eat eat eat. If your jaw is as tired as your feet then you are doing well!
We started w 3 liters of water in ea camelback and 1 liter of gatoraid each in a separate bottle. At Trail Camp we filled up to 3 liters ea again of water and made another 1 liter gatoraid. I think we only had drank 2 of the 3 liters on the way there as it was dark and cool- 60s. We topped off again at Trail Camp after the summit and made another gatoraid bottle which was like sweet sugar for the final miles!!!
We both hiked w camel backs - mine is the forteeneer serves me well allowing all the food water, fleece, light snow pants, med kit etc. we also had climbing helmets, ice axe and micro spikes. light gloves too. I was in shorts the whole time. My daughter put on her light pants at Trail Camp as it was still before sunrise and we stopped for water. She took them off at Trail Crest and stayed in shorts from there on. The fleece was on and off. As all mountains you never know hour to hour so better to have layers w you.
We sun screened 4+ times. Our hands got real red but I think that was the altitude??? They weren’t sunburned the next day.
We used Gaia? Phone App. Worked great for first part but then we realized my daughter didn’t download the map so there was less details. All the little switchbacks were smoothed to bigger ones. It still gave us the directional advice and we never got lost. The funny moment was we never did see the turn off to mirror lake in the dark so were missing that mileage time check. On the way down, in the light, we realized there is no turn off to mirror lake as you are walking right along it for several hundred feet! I guess we should have looked more side to side w our head lamps (we brought two ea)
We had great weather! No AMS but we’re slow on the decent- long night/day 20 hrs total. The only thing I would do differently was we booked a hotel 3 1/2 hrs away towards Vegas to shorten the drive back to Phoenix. This worked fine 6 yrs earlier when we were back at the Portal at 4pm. We should have stayed in Lone Pine. Luckily caffeine got me through. We got to see th Badwater 135 runners in Death Valley around 11pm so that was cool.
I hope your hike is great- slow equals safer, eat eat eat, give trekking poles a try!
