Mt Whitney Zone
Posted By: lisylu Mt. Whitney Experience 5/28/12 - 06/09/12 04:16 AM
We published a post on our hike 5/28/12. Sadly, we did not summit but had a great time! Visit our website www.pointA2Btravels.com to read about it.
Posted By: Steve C Re: Mt. Whitney Experience 5/28/12 - 06/09/12 06:47 AM
Good report, Alyssa. The icy spot at the cables was a good place to turn around, given your total time on the trail. Had you gone to the summit, the trip could have become an epic.

You can go back to Whitney this year, if you want to go for walk-in permits. There are lots of no-shows, and their permits become available at 11 AM at the visitor center each day.

Next time, get in some acclimatization. I think your "gungy" feeling was AMS. Stay two nights at Whitney Portal, or better, Horseshoe Meadows before the next hike. That will help greatly.

And your water intake and output was pretty excessive. All those stops surely slowed your progress. I'd cut the drinking in half.

If you prepare by doing several long hikes in the several weeks before Mt Whitney, I think the Whitney experience won't be as bad.

Good luck!!!
Posted By: amg Re: Mt. Whitney Experience 5/28/12 - 06/09/12 01:35 PM
Originally Posted By: Steve C
Next time, get in some acclimatization. I think your "gungy" feeling was AMS. Stay two nights at Whitney Portal, or better, Horseshoe Meadows before the next hike. That will help greatly.

And your water intake and output was pretty excessive. All those stops surely slowed your progress. I'd cut the drinking in half.


That "gungy feeling" could also could have been very early symptoms of an electrolyte imbalance. If you are peeing every 15-20 minutes you are drinking way too much water and are at risk for developing hyponatremia.
Posted By: Yury Re: Mt. Whitney Experience 5/28/12 - 06/09/12 05:17 PM
Originally Posted By: lisylu
We attribute our lack of altitude sickness to drinking a liter of water every hour, eating regularly...

We started feeling gungy just below Trail Camp and I blame the energy gels, Clif bars, and power bars (read: pure chemicals that didn't agree with our stomachs)

Originally Posted By: amg
That "gungy feeling" could also could have been very early symptoms of an electrolyte imbalance. If you are peeing every 15-20 minutes you are drinking way too much water and are at risk for developing hyponatremia.
I agree, it looks like a case of overhydration (Google for "water poisoning") and probably overeating.
I recommend tuning up your drinking/eating approach on any strenuous day long hike near your home town.
Posted By: MichaelRyanSD Re: Mt. Whitney Experience 5/28/12 - 06/11/12 04:45 AM
Disclaimer: I am no expert mountaineer, everything I say should be taken as just an opinion from someone who only did it once.

If you guys decided to do it again, you almost undoubtedly have to sleep at Whitney Portal the night before you hike, the difference in elevation from the town to the trail head is like 6000 ft alone, which is huge for acclimatization.

AS already mentioned, you drank and possible ate way to much and that grungy feeling may in part, have come from all the "power bar and gel " stuff you ingested, that stuff is meant to be a supplement, not a staple food. Eat when you're hungry, drink when you're thirsty.

Also, I hope you guys attempt it again, it is well worth it, I did my first time just a month ago, and plan on doing it again in about a month before I leave CA for good. And what I've told everyone who asked me back home, probably is worth repeating here, hiking stuff like this more mental than anything else. By placing limits on your guy's hike before you even left, you sort of set yourself up to not make it. I don't know what girls do to psyche themselves out, but the morning I started, I was thinking how I was going to destroy this mountain and very few things were going to stop me.

For reference in this pic, the guy in this photo was doing this for his first time, first hike up Whitney, first time doing an Alpine hiking up snow and first one up the chute in the morning and I can guarantee you, in that head was "WHAT THE FUCK HAVE I GOTTEN MYSELF INTO, WHAT THE FUCK I AM DOING" but what wasn't going through my head was anything like "If I feel unsure about something I'm turning around" Because after trail camp, I wasn't sure of anything I was doing...



Do it again soon, you wont regret it.
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