Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion whitney day hike food?

Must be....


DAH MOOSE!!!

Thanks for all the help gang. My hike was successful yesterday.

As reported by many, my appetite diminished greatly on the trail. I had planed for 8 snack stops and a small meal at the top and almost none of that happened. What did happen was the pop tart that I had started munching on at the start, to compliment the two Muscle Milks I chugged at 1:45am, was almost inedible. My mouth got dry and I could not drink enough from my hydration pack to wash it down. Keeping with my plan I opened the rice rolls and dried fruit at Lone Pine Lake junction and had similar problems. I think regular dried fruit and not the freeze dried would have been better. By SB 23 I ate the last of the dried food I could and abandoned any more planned stops. 4 of the 8 rice rolls and 6 of the dried fruit came back to camp. I switched over to the GUs. I consumed a total of 6 at various points along the remainder of the day. I also managed to eat 2 of the 3 cliff bars. I ate one Cliff Bar at the top. My mouth stayed pretty dry the entire trip and the sourness of GU really got my saliva going and saved the day. Total I ate less than half of what I brought. FYI I drank 6 liters of water on the trail.

Mike

Thanks for the followup, Mike. It sounds like the altitude affected you early on.

What, if any, acclimatization did you try?

I stayed at the WP camp for 36 hours prior to my departure.

I had no headache or nausea. I took 125mg Diamox twice a day for 2 days prior and the morning of.

The only noticeable effect of the altitude was the reduced appetite.

As I said in my earlier post, I'm a first time hiker (anywhere) and I am proud of my 15 hour round trip achievement. The only thing I would change is to bring more GU and savory foods and less really dry stuff.

fyi: I'm 57yo, 192#, 6'2"

Bulldog,

My first trip up I took everything including the kitchen sink. Neeedless to say, beside the alien trying to crawl out of my right eye, I had zero appetite from 12,000' back to 10,000'.

Also, the food I took, I liked but I would not take them hiking with me for years. I was so turned off by them after this trip.

Over the years, I have found I can eat over 12,000' when I do not push hard...those days are rare. There are many nights I have not had diner above 10,000' after a hard day. I will usually start snacking late in the evening just before tossing and turning time. My first meal usually in the morning.

Thanks for all the food replies I did my practice hike this weekend for whitney and think I got my food all set. Another question while you are all here is would you Consider the whitney hike a very steep incline hike or like a gradual hike?

Personally I'd consider it steep, but the altitude influences that answer. The switchbacks (and there are many of them) aren't all that bad and the backside is definitely an incline but it's nothing drastic. There are other sections with quite a few stairs however, and the lack of oxygen coupled with a pack makes every step a lot more work than it would normally be.

There's almost no level ground - you're heading uphill pretty consistently the whole way.