Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion HST & general advice please!

Hi! We're headed out on the HST next week (August 15-23) and after lurking on this board for weeks (gleaning all sorts of useful info :thanks: ), I'd like to trouble y'all for some specific advice.

Sorry if some of my questions seems amateurish. Everything I know about hiking/packing/climbing I've self-taught and learned the hard way. Just happy to be alive to tell the tales! I've always been solo, but finally have a partner who is fit and eager - but less experience than me.

So I have long distance backpacking experience (4 months of 1000+ miles total on 2 Camino de Santiago excursions), some primitive camping experience (around Texas), and peak experience (non-technical, 13+K dayhikes). But I've never put all 3 of these things together, in bear country no less! So the HST will be my biggest challenge yet.

1) Bears. I understand we keep all "smellables" in the canisters, and leave those away from the tent at night. But aren't we, and our packs, "smellables" too? We, and our packs and clothes, are gonna smell like bug spray, sunblock, lipbalm, food, etc. while we're sleeping in our tent. Am I overthinking this? How OCD do we need to be about our personal odors?

2) Water. We will each carry 2 one-liter bottles, and have a steripen. I understand water is regularly available along the HST, even in this low snow year? My concern is for when we leave Guitar Lake on peak day. Between Guitar Lake, up to the peak and back down to Trail Camp, I'm thinking that 2 liters each is inadequate. If we also bring a 3L platypus - would 7L total be adequate for 2 people for that stretch, including the peak ascent?

3) Warmth. I expect to hike in light pants and a teeshirt. And we have a shared tent, insulated pads and 20 and 30 degree bags, so hopefully that will be fine for sleeping mid-August. But for camp evenings, as well as altitude (Kaweah Pass & Whitney), I'm not sure how we should pack. I have lightweight silk top & bottoms, midweight smartwool top & bottoms, a windshirt and a down vest - as well as a wool hat, fleece turtle, gloves and a rain poncho (and an emergency blanket). Is this adequate for the HST & Whitney in mid/late August?

4) Lightning. I've never camped above tree line. We intend to spend the night before the Whitney ascent at the 11,900 tarns above Guitar Lake. What do you do if a thunderstorm rolls in when you're that far from cover? Just assume the lightning position and pray?

5) Diamox. I'm a sea-level (Houston) girl, but never had any problems at altitude (13+K max on Mt Wheeler & Walker dayhike in NM). I'm hoping the HST itself will provide the necessary acclimation time for a Whitney ascent. Along with the fact that I'm a slow hiker and obsessive hydrator. But we are going to take precautionary Diamox too. My doctor prescribed 250mg 2x daily to be taken from 2 days before we head out until 2 days after descent. My partner's doctor gave him a 500mg/2x daily prescription (even though our weights/heights aren't radically different). We'd like to know however, from other hikers' experiences, what is the lowest practical, effective dosage for our itinerary?

6) General HST or backcounty backpacking info and advice. Any and all appreciated!

Sorry for the long, wordy post! Always been terrible at editing myself :grin:! Thank to everyone!

~Adrienne (Caplen)

caplen,

Regarding the Diamox dosage, that's one of the funny things about being a mountaineer who lives in a place without mountains. The doctors are not always familiar with this application of Diamox. I used to live in Houston and I see it here in Oklahoma too. The 500mg 2x daily prescription is not uncommon. Others on this forum have more knowledge than I do, but what works very well for me personally is 125mg 1x daily, unless I perceive the beginning of symptoms in which case I'll take another 125mg. It's effective and the side effects are minimal to non-existant. One note, though, I always include at least some amount of natural acclimatization, like camping one night at 8000' or more and day-hiking higher the day before going in. For me, that applies to hitting the Sierra on the eastside. I haven't been on the HST, but there should be very little worry since the daily route works up in elevation gradually. If it was me, I'd stay overnight in the park at 6000 to 7000' before hitting the trail, but I might consider only carrying the Diamox along in case it's needed.

As long as you stow scented things in the cannister you should be fine for bears. Try not to spill dinner on your clothes, but you knew that.

On summit day from the tarns above Guitar Lake, I've taken two liters of water and stopped to fill-up at Trail Camp. That's been enough for me, but maybe pushing it a little. I like to do the ascent in the dark so I can see the awesome sunrise from the summit (or the notches along the ridge), so I'm not hiking the uphill part in the bright sun. Bringing, maybe, one or two liters more in the platypus is a good idea to be safe.

The warm clothes you mention are good, but I'd probably not bring the silk-weights, and I'd add a fleece or synthetic-insulated sweater or jacket. It might be summer, but it's high and in the mountain weather, so one needs to be prepared. Also, a poncho can blow around in the above-treeline environment where the wind can be strong. A simple rain parka and rain pants can be very lightweight and they are much more effective - they don't have to be fancy. They can also double as wind breakers when it's not raining.

Looks like a fun trip!

Wow, we've seen a lot of trip reports here of people getting sick, really sick, from that much Diamox. That may be the dosage for glaucoma...the doctors on this board may opine.

A high-altitude specialist prescribed Diamox for me (female, 140 lbs) at 62.5 mg twice a day. Through trial and error, I found even that reduced dose to be far too much for me. Now, for the Eastern Sierras, I take 62.5 mg before bed on the first one or two nights sleeping above 11,000'. I do not otherwise take it. (On Kili, I ended up taking more when we were at 16,000', but that's a different story.)

I also carry heavy duty electrolytes. Sometimes, even at that reduced dosage, I run into trouble (excessive peeing) and one or two does of electrolytes fixes the problem real fast.

A male friend of mine (180 lbs) takes 125 mg Diamox once a day before bed. That's what he took on our Onion Valley-Whitney hike (6 days), worked well for him. He started out at 125 mg twice a day, but, yes, ran into electrolyte trouble and then halved his dosage to 125 mg once a day.

These are our experiences. Your experience may differ, of course. Take this and anything else you read on the internet with a healthy dose of skepticism.

It seems that 500mg is the standard "look up" (Physician's Handbook) dosage...for all things other than altitude. I have seen people become violently ill on HALF that dosage for hiking. Please, PLEASE test yourselves with varying dosages before you find yourself on the mountain having a very bad time of it. (excuse the overreaction, but that 500mg cumulative intake can get someone in severe trouble)

One really attractive feature of the HST is its built in acclimatization. Unless you are really blitzing it, you will only go from about 6500 at Crescent Meadow to 8300 at Hamilton the first two days. Hamilton is lower than Whitney Portal. Then to about 10,700 at Kaweah Gap on the third day, and right back down into Big Arroyo. Unless you hang around Precipice LAke, Nine Lakes Basin, or upper Big Arroyo, you don't even have a really high camp until you climb out of Kern Canyon a few days later. Your Highest camp before then will likely be Moraine Lake at 9300. So you have plenty of time to work up to your 11,000+ camp around Guitar.

There is frequent water along most of the route, with two exceptions. First, There is NO WATER at the Crescent Meadow trailhead, and for the first few miles, which is of course also the hottest segment. Fill up and drink up at the Giant Forest Museum area before you go in to Crescent Meadow.

Second, You should expect it to be bone dry from your Guitar Lake Camp to Trail Camp. Two litres each is below the usual recommendation of 3. I would at least take an extra quart zip lock bag (to be consumed first) for this stretch.

Another interesting strategy on this trail is bear canisters. Check the rules on this, but as of last year, they were mandatory only in the Whitney zone, and recommended on the rest of the trail. If you camp only at established sites, you can use the food boxes all along the trail until Guitar, where there are none. This means you can use smaller or fewer bear canisters, taking only what you need for the last couple days food. Double check this, as some boxes on the JMT/PCT are reserved for JMT/PCT through hikers, but if you plan right you should need less than half of your food in canisters.

Oh: the bears know the difference between you and food.

In certain places, such as Hamilton, the marmots and deer will be more of a problem than bears. Deer at Hamilton will go after anything salty/sweaty: hiking poles, clothes, wallets.

Have a great trip

> 4) Lightning. I've never camped above tree line. We intend to spend the night before the Whitney ascent at the 11,900 tarns above Guitar Lake. What do you do if a thunderstorm rolls in when you're that far from cover? Just assume the lightning position and pray?

Actually, you can be just as vulnerable among trees in a lightning storm. Fortunately, the thunderstorms are mostly an afternoon event, so you should be up and moving, and able to find the most protected area possible.

Thanks for all the replies so far!

Wow, I thought something was a little funny about our Diamox prescriptions, but I didn't realize they were that high! I was thinking I'd take 125mg twice daily, but perhaps I'll even split that in half, at least at first.

I did just starting taking Ginkgo too.

Doing everything "right", according to my doc - hydrating well in advance, regular calorie intake, not overexerting, acclimating before high altitude days (Lodgepole and the HST itself, before Kaweah) - should make the Diamox unnecessary. And based on that, and my prior easy experiences with altitude, I'd rather not take it at all. But my understanding is that it works best as a prophylactic, and if I wait til problems arise, it will be too late. So I'm torn, since by the time we approach Guitar Lake, we have to go over Trail Crest just to get out. Even if we don't summit, we can't just turn around like on the main trail, if we're having problems.

Akichow~
So Diamox can cause electrolyte problems - excessive peeing? That should be fun, since I'm already on a mild HBP med that's a diuretic. We're carrying Vitalyte, but eight days worth is pretty heavy. There's a more concentrated chew or tablet or something, isn't there, that might help with that?

(By the way, what's a girl to do, above treeline, on a crowded popular trail? Does any shred of modesty I might have left at that point just go out the windows up there? :blush:)

Glenn~
Thanks for the water and clothes advice too. I did forget to mention that I have a light fleece halfzip too. I'm waffling on the silks - I hike warm, and on chilly but otherwise fair days, they are such a comfortable balance worn under my pants & t-shirt. Also, I have tried the rain jacket & pants thing, but just can't make it work for me. It is inevitable that as soon as I decide the rain is bad enough to hassle with suiting up, put my pack back on and start hiking, rain stops and I'm miserable and sweaty. When I give in and stop to un-suit, as soon as they're packed up, the rain starts up again. And so on. It's my curse. After much waffling, I've embraced that I'm a poncho girl. It just wouldn't be a true hiking trip without at least one pic of me looking like a giant two-legged blueberry. A couple of well-placed binder clips help some with the wind.

Bee~
Thanks for the stern warning! I'm so glad I asked here before we started popping pills!

saltydog~
I actually hiked the section from Crescent Meadow to Merton Creek, about 6 miles out, last year - mid July 2011. And y'all know what the conditions were like then. I was solo, and I know my limitations. I knew in advance that I wasn't going to make it all the way to Whitney (still had ice and winter conditions at Hamilton), but after a very scary and painful fall at Merton Creek, I turned around even earlier. I'm glad to have a partner this year, and much easier summer conditions and water crossings. Also, we'll have a full day and night at Lodgepole before we head out to start acclimating, and to get water for the trailhead.

I did cross a lot of small creeks on the way to Merton - were those all seasonal and likely to be dried up now this year?

We are planning to camp at Nine Mile Creek, Hamilton Lake, Big Arroyo junction, Moraine Lake, Kern Hot Springs and the JMT junction/Wallace Creek, prior to arriving at Guitar Lakes. I've heard there are bear boxes at (at least) Nine Mile & Hamilton, which would make packing the Bear Vaults easier. But are they reliable? I'm worried that there will be lots of other hikers, and since I'm so slow, they might fill up before I arrive.

Thanks all!
Adrienne (caplen)

Diamox is a diuretic. I don't go crazy with the electrolytes ... by keeping the Diamox dosage as low as possible, I often avoid this problem. But it does occur, and when it does, I drink a pint of Cytomax and, within an hour, I seem fine (also worked for my friend). I also carry Nuun tablets and tend to use one tablet a day prophylactically. If you compare the ingredients for Nuun and Cytomax, the electrolyte replacement is pretty similar if memory serves. The extra sugar in Cytomax probably gives me a little boost, which can feel good at that point....

People are often strung far apart on the switchbacks going up the backside of Whitney, so you can find privacy there. Don't expect to find any privacy from the JMT junction to the lower part of the Whitney summit plateau. Once you hit the summit plateau, it is not hard to find a place with reasonable privacy. Or you can do what I did on Shasta ... and use this device. Takes practice, and I don't recommend it, except as a last resort if you are planning to travel for hours at a time through truly exposed terrain....

The rain tortures you like that too? I thought it just did that to me. Anyway, it sounds like you have everything under control. Have a great trip!

I was just ahead of you last year. Check the local beta, but I would not be surprised if everything before Mehrten is dry this year. Oh, the climb from Lone Pine Creek after Bearpaw is pretty dry too, so tank up at Bearpaw, and don't even think about trying to water at Lone Pine Cr.

SAme for wallace Creek:SOuthern exposure and dry. Tank up when the trail separates from the Kern, and don't expect access to the creek as you climb.

There are normally bear boxes at Mehrten, Nine Mile, Buck Creek, Bearpaw, Upper Hamilton, Big Arroyo Crossing,Moraine Lake, Kern Hot SPrings, Junction Meadow, Tyndall/JMT, Wallace/JMT and Crabtree ranger Sta. See SEKI Bear Boxes http://www.nps.gov/seki/planyourvisit/bear_box.htm. There are multiple boxes at the most popular sites. I wouldn't worry about space: the boxes seem to be underused and very well matched to the campsite capacity. Double check on the JMT only rule at Tyndall and Wallace.

Get an early start from Moraine Lake and you should be able to stake out space at Kern HS, but by the time everyone else rolls in, you may not want to stay. Its popular.

Adrienne,

I think you will have a fantastic trip. My experience in researching AMS on Whitney is that people coming on the HST don't really have altitude issues, compared to people coming from the east. You will have quite a few days of acclimatization, with sleeping at altitude, and that really matters.

I would not take Diamox, and I say that as a person who is very prone to AMS. When I prescribe Diamox myself, as a physician, I recommend 1/2 of 125mg taken with dinner or at bedtime. While it is true that it works BEST if started a couple of days before the real push, it also can work if taken at bedtime for the next day.

I am not one to think that drugs are without side effects and issues. I think people are generally better off without them, if possible. For example, while Diamox is not used for blood pressure treatment, because it's a very mild diuretic and has little effect on BP, when you combine it with other BP meds, it might have an unexpected synergy with the BP meds, and drop your BP, or cause an electrolyte shift. By itself, a few dosed are not likely to do either, but when you mix drugs, fun things can happen.

I also recommend taking a dose or two AT HOME, where side effects are relatively easy to handle, compared to out on the trail.

So in summary: I'd not worry too much about AMS with your schedule. I would NOT take Diamox, unless you actually have a problem when you get to guitar lake. If you do, take a small dose at dinner or bedtime.

BTW, in the unusual situation of getting AMS, it is probably obvious, one doesn't have to actually climb Whitney to get out. With AMS, the extra 4 miles at altitude could be excruciating and even dangerous. Just going over Trail Crest, then down, should be doable for almost anyone.

Steve ~ Thanks for your lightning reply. Honestly, I think lightning worries me the most, as there doesn't seem to be any perfect safety answer when out in the backcountry.

And snakes. I'm getting a little worried about snakes.

On an unrelated note, I think I read in another post that you have started using the Esbit stove. We're trying that for the first time - are you happy with it? How many pints of water will a fuel cube boil at higher altitudes? (hard to test in Houston!)

Akichow ~ Great suggestion on the Nuun tablets - just picked some up for our trip. I love Vitalyte, but the Nuun will be so much more convenient.

I've seen that, ahem, personal "device" before too, when I crossed paths with another lady hiker last year. She didn't speak too highly of it either..... still, I'm almost tempted to try it anyway just to see if I can use it effectively without giggling like an idiot.

saltydog ~ Excuse my ignorance, but what do you mean by "Check the local beta"? Is this a site I can check about water availability?

Thanks for the trail info about water and bear boxes. Very helpful! I'm feeling much less stressed about having food/smellables outside our canisters for the first few days now. Now I'm just stressed about all the weight we're carrying - food for 2 people/9 days really adds up!

As for water, is 2 liters each generally safe/adequate between those dry stretches you mention?

I do expect Kern HS to be crowded - Aside from getting a good tent spot, I just hope we'll get a turn in the hot tub!

Ken ~ Thank you!!! I'm strongly leaning toward no Diamox and just taking it as necessary on the trail. If we do take it in advance, we'll definitely keep it at the lower doses Akichow suggested. I figured the HST was its own acclimatization plan. I was most worried about still having to go over Trail Crest (13700?) - even without a summit attempt - to exit if we get in AMS trouble. But it is sounding pretty low risk at this point. I really appreciate your advice!

5 days and counting!
cheers!
Adrienne (caplen)

I took diamox last year. I took it at home at first, a couple of weeks before Whitney. I believe I was told to take 2 x 125 daily, which was too much for me (185 lbs). I ended up taking 62.5 before bedtime after scaling it back a couple of times. I seemed to do okay with that doseage and had less problems with AMS (or what I perceived to be AMS) on Whitney than I did on San Jacinto (10,800 ft).

> I think I read in another post that you have started using the Esbit stove. We're trying that for the first time - are you happy with it? How many pints of water will a fuel cube boil at higher altitudes? (hard to test in Houston!)

Happy? I won't carry any other, unless it's a snow-camp where we need to melt snow to drink. I don't understand people's obsession with Jet Boil and other canister stoves. The canister itself is dead weight, and the rest of the stove is relatively heavy, too. The Titanium Wing Stove is practically weightless (0.4 oz), so the fuel is the major part of the weight. I use a Snow Peak 600 mug as my drinking cup and cook pot. Esbit tablets weigh 0.5 oz each. The stove, tablets and wind screen made of several layers of aluminum foil all fit easily in a sandwich ziploc.

I can heat two one-person dinners with a single tablet. This site reports that a tablet will boil a pint of water in 6 minutes, and a tablet will burn for 12 minutes.

But I don't boil the water first. I just put the dinner in the cup, add water, put it on the stove and heat it. No sense wasting all the heat and time it takes to bring the water to boiling. I just hold the cup and stir the stew frequently.

As for the residue that Esbit tabs leave on the pot -- that residue is water soluble. Just get it wet and rub a little, and it washes right off.

Just wanted to pop in here to say this thread has been hugely informative for me. It's answered questions for me that I didn't even realize I had, haha. (A group of 4 of us plan to do the HST in Sep 7.) I'd love to hear how your trip goes, too, Adrienne! Have a brilliant time and I wish you a safe trip.

To answer your questions...

1. Smellables...Yeah, you are over thinking this. I rarely throw the lip balm and sunscreen in the canister, mostly because I forget to. I have never had a canister attacked by anything other than a chippie. I have had elfin bears go after GORP I left in a pack pocket.

2. Water to the summit and back...3 to 4 L depending on how much you drink. I'd need as much as 5 on one trip from Trail Camp...thank God for snow.

3. Warmies...If you get on the wrong side of a cold front, you will freeze your rear end off. I have been on the summit in August when the temperature was less than 10* F...according to my pack thermometer plus the wind was at a solid 30 MPH. My normal Sierra core set up is a 15* F bag, summer weight down jacket and Driclime wind shirt...sometimes this is not enough.

4. Distance to Cover...Yeah, you are well above the treeline at the Tarns. The treeline ends at about Timberline Lake.

5. Diamox...Taking 2 X 500 mg. your extremities will tingle the whole time you are out and it will take 3 or 4 days to get it out of your system. My guess is you will be ok without it because of your history and that you be will going to elevation gradually. I only take it the few days out and at a much lower dosage.

6. Other advice...Be on the summit at dawn. You will not be disappointed. The hardest part of this is staying on the trail from the Tarns to the west switchback...just keep you eye on the trail and you will be ok.

saltydog ~
BTW, I love your signature ~ Wherever you go, there you are has always been my hiking mantra...

Steve ~
Thanks for the Esbit info! Really glad we're making this part of our gear. We're still using a little Optimus .6L pot, and 2 lidded, insulated mugs. Thought we were doing pretty good there at 10.5 oz. But that 3 oz. Snow Peak you linked is one fine mug, isn't it ~ Hot Lips, indeed! Covet!

pBerg ~
Thanx for your good wishes ~ right back atcha! I hope to make it home safe and sound, and post a trip report & photos.

wbtravis ~
Elfin bears? Wassit? I thought, according to saltydog, our main wildlife concern would be deer stealing our wallets.
Summit at dawn sounds like lovely advice! Start hiking at 3-ish am to make that happen?


but wait, there's more.....

Do others here use a SteriPen? We're using one for the first (extended period) of time for this trip. Do y'all find it reliable? Should we carry some back-up chem treatment?

Finally, if anyone has the time, patience and inclination, I would much appreciate some Hiking 101 advice on both lightning and snakes. Seriously, feel free to dumb it down for me. Despite years of hiking, much about this HST trip will be new to me, and I'm in the 3-days-pre-trip anxiety zone right now. Some basic safety procedures, general how-to's, recommended snake hiking radii, personal anecdotes about what you do when caught in a thunderstorm on the trail or in camp..... Much obliged!

cheers!
Adrienne

Snakes: striking distance is a lot shorter than your hiking pole. When I was doing field biology in college, the accepted technique was to carry a stick to move the critter off gently if it was too close to the trail to walk around.


Don't know if that's still the accepted practice for that kind of field work, but it is effective.

Snake page Here's some advice I like

Water: last year I dipt and sipt the whole west side of Kaweah Gap, from Mehrten on, and had no problem.

Lightning: seems to boil down to get low, don't be the highest point around, and don't be near the highest point around, and that includes in an overhang under a prominent point, a lone or unusually tall tree, a prominent rock or outcrop: there's plenty of discussion on the two Whitney sites and other reliable places such as USFS and NPS sites for the area you are going into.

Snakes on the trail:

Just do the 12-step program. 4 steps to one side, 4 steps parallel to the trail, and 4 steps back. Easy.

That's pretty sound advice. Usually. On the HST, however, in a lot of snake-prone areas those four steps to the side are more like two steps to the side and 2000 straight down

saltydog ~
Good snake link, thanks ~ was reading an HST thread on the other board, and report was that snakes were spotted as high as 10,000' ~ thought Kern Canyon would be the worst of it! Moment of panic, as I am supremely unobservant of snakes - been pulled back from the brink of encounter at least 3 times. Guess the boyfriend will be hiking front & center. Which he owes me anyway, since he has repeatedly pointed out that though he may not be able to run faster than a bear, he can, in fact, run faster than me.

I was following a lightning thread on the other board too. This link was posted - Backcountry Light Safety technical paper - and it just made all evasive action or safety measures seem so hopeless. But after a good night sleep, and some light googling over coffee this morning, feeling much more relaxed and less control-freakish!

wagga ~
I don't know if this was intentional or not..... but when I read... ... my mind leapt to Snakes on a Plane.

Henceforth, that is my new hiking mantra.
I have HAD IT with these mother******* snakes on this mother****** trail!

Thank you for making my morning!

cheers!
Adrienne

So, you're three or four days from any trail-head and you get a good wet rattler bite. What do you do? Haven't been able to get any advice except to get to an emergency medical facility that stocks anti-venom as fast as possible.

I am by no means a snake expert, but.......

There is only one kind of venomous snake in California (other than a very rare sea snake that I don't think we have to worry about in this context). And that is the rattlesnake. Rattlesnakes are very easy to identify. So if you see a snake and it isn't a rattlesnake....Don't Panic!!

I hike in the Santa Monica mountains a lot. I see rattlesnakes on the trail all the time. They are almost always very considerate and let you know that they are there with a quick shake of the tail long before you are close enough to do it harm.

From my experience, rattlesnakes are slow. The only time they are fast is within their striking range. Which I would guess is somewhere around 3/4 of their body length. When I encounter a rattlesnake, I simply give it a wide berth when I walk by and put my hiking pole between it and me. If there isn't a whole lot of room, I've used my hiking pole to encourage them to move on.

I worry a lot more about bees than I do snakes.

Well "one kind of snake". The bad news is that there are 7 species and a couple of subspecies, totalling 10. The Good news is that only one of these, the Western (crotalus viridis) is common to the Sierra, and it is not one of the largest and fiercest. The bad news is that the largest and fiercest, the Western Diamondback, crotalus atrox, is common to the Southern San Joaquin valley, and if snakes are creeping higher this year . . . . The good news is that Its still unlikey that this big guy would go as high as 6000 feet, the start of the HST. Too cold at night.

More good news is that striking range is only 1/3 to 1/2 body length on the flat and level for any of these guys, more only if they are striking downhill. So pass em on the uphill side if you can, and farther downhill if you can't.

Oh: and in six days on the hottest part of the trail last July, we saw zero snakes.

I'm going to have to disagree with you here. I see rattlers in the local mountains at least once every other week during the summer, if not once a week and they are dumb as hell.

I have never, ever had one rattle ahead of time. The sequence usually goes like this:
1) I see a rattler laying on the trail and can't get by.
2) I kick dirt at it and nothing happens. I kick more dirt and nothing happens.
3) I throw little pebbles at it and nothing happens.
4) I find a long branch and poke it from far, far away or a rock the size of a dollar coin and throw it at the body. I'm not trying to kill the thing, that would be easy.
5) HISSSSSS, rattle, rattle, rattle.
6) I stand there exasperated for about 30 seconds as it lets me know it's pissed off.
7) It now starts to slink off into the bushes or I repeat step #4.

I've had one guy slink off without ever rattling. I've also had one guy lunge at me multiple times. It just did not want to move off the trail. I have never had one warn me ahead of time and I've had more snake encounters than I have fingers and toes.

I worry about ticks and lions.

Adrienne,

Elfin bears...chippies and marmots. These are the varmints that will make you life a living hell, if you don't do what you are suppose to do with your food.

I once made a mistake at Trail Camp that cost me all my breakfast foods. Some marmot hit the stinking jackpot that day.

I have seen 1 bear, 2 snakes and 0 mountain lions in Sierra wilderness in the last 17 years. I do not believe I am atypical. Bears are a bigger problem at Whitney Portal than the trail. Don't sweat the snakes above 8,000'...although one of the snakes I was in the Sierra was above Upper Crabtree Meadow at about 11,000'.

Caplen
I use a Steripen Classic and love it. Best money I ever spent. Would never go back to using regular filter. I thru hiked the JMT last summer and used it for the whole trip filtering approx 4 liters water/day. Only used 1 set of Lithium batteries (4 XXA).
Major plus is not having to filter water at the source. Late afternoon I would fill bottles, then filter them after finding camp site for the night. I did carry pills as a back-up but never used them.

I, too, am a fan of the Steripen Classic. Good to practice at home before going on the trail. It is easy to use but if you dunk it in the water before the green light starts blinking you're in for a world of frustration. But once you've got the sequence, it's a breeze.

And for another opinion regarding water treatment...

Ever since I read the Giardiasis paper by Robert Rockwell, PhD, I have never treated or filtered Sierra water. It is ok with me if you want to carry a filter or Steripen or chemicals, but just so you know, there IS another option.

The water treatment discussions and links to additional studies are in threads listed in the "Links to important Whitney information" topic in the Reference forum:

Thanks to all of you! Just got home about 3am today. What a remarkable trip! A magnificent hike on the HST, culminating with a successful summit on the 23rd.

This was beyond my expectations, and honestly, way out of my league. But worth every minute.

Thanks again for all the advice, tips and encouragement. Trip report soon.

~Adrienne

Congratulations!

Out of your league? I think not. It sounds like you made it and had a great time! Looking forward to the trip report.

Not any more!