Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion recomendations for an acclimatization route up the summit?

Based on my prior two trips up Whitney's MT (one with AMS that started at around Trail Crest) and the second where AMS set in just below Trail Camp, I know that I have altitude issues with or without Diamox. I have tried aspirin, Diamox and everything else. Acclimatization is my only hope. Rather than acclimatize along the MT camping at Outpost and Trail Camp, I would like to look for a new backpacking route that would also achieve gradual acclimatization. I would like the trip on the trail to last three days and finish at the Portal. Any recommendations on where to begin and paths to travel?

Brent, this is not what you asked for, but my favorite mode of acclimating is to go up to Horseshoe Meadows and camp two nights prior to hiking up the Whitney trail.

Horseshoe meadows is at 10,000', and has walk-in camp sites. There are several easy trails to hike where you gain a 1000 to 1500', so you could do that to enjoy the area.

I am sure others will have some good suggestions, too.

Brent, I have to mirror Steve's thoughts on this. I don't have a route for you, but the last time I went to Whitney, sleeping at the Horsehoe Meadows area really helped. Only thing is, I didn't stay there for two nights. I stopped there after getting my permit. I started walking the area for a few hours before retiring in the evening. I woke up the next morning and headed for Whitney. I still got a headache the next day, but it was not debilitating.

I have issues with AMS as well. I went to San Jacinto the last two Saturdays and got monstrous headaches both times.

Baldy isn't too far from Orange County. You might consider overnighting up there one night for a couple of weekends before doing Whitney. That's similar to Steve's suggestion, but it won't require nearly the driving.

Brent, a couple of questions: what did your sleeping-at-elevation picture look like prior to those two AMS episodes? Were these dayhikes or overnighters? Some people are wired to go from sea level to 14K' without a hitch, but most of us need to sleep high to go higher without AMS. The body does it's real acclimation work while you're at rest for an extended period at elevation. Even something as simple as one night at the Portal (8.5K'), one at Outpost Camp (10K') and one at Trail Camp (12K') should have most people ready to get up to the summit and back down to the Portal without a problem on the 3rd trail day.

I know you said you'd prefer not to do this, but it gets you 3 nights at elevation and doesn't push the envelope based on your history. Virtually anything else in the area will have you sleeping that first night very close to the elevation where you've experienced AMS in the past.

Also, what was your Diamox dosage and schedule?

Not to be picky, but it is actually it is the best hope, better than Diamox anyway.

The official definition of threshold of altitude illness is "only" 8,000 ft.
In my family, two can just go, but two need those extra nights around 8,000 before they can get over 11,000.

BY THE BOOK (and some need even more conservative schedule, beginning at 8,000 ft rather than 10,000)
- you should spend at least one night at an intermediate elevation below 10,000ft
- above 10,000 feet, your sleeping elevation should not increase more than 1000-1500 feet per night.
- Every 3000 feet you should spend a second night at the same elevation.
http://www.ismmed.org/np_altitude_tutorial.htm#goldenrules

Brent, again this doesn't quite answer your question, but I've done this hike in preparation for another 14er before.

Go to the June Lake/Lee Vining area and sleep for the first night. Depending on which area you decide to sleep at, the altitude is in the high 6,000 to mid 7,000 ft. After a good night's sleep, the east side of Yosemite and Mt. Dana is literally less than 30 minutes away. Mt. Dana is over 13,000 ft. The elevation starts at around 10,000 and the round trip hike is only about six miles. You'll have a great hike and fantastic views.

Now, drive down South on the 395 and camp near the trail to White Mountain Peak. It's a long but relatively easy hike. Very gradual trail on a +14,000 ft. peak.

If your quads are up to it, you'll be fully acclimated I think. For me, instead of doing Whitney after WMP, I went to Bishop instead.

There IS another option not mentioned yet: Hike from Horseshoe Meadows, over New Army Pass or Cottonwood Pass, and then north on the PCT to Crabtree Meadows.

Then, climb Whitney from the west. You could probably do it in 3 - 5 days, depending on your hiking speed. By the time you got to Mt Whitney, you would certainly be well acclimated.

Permits are fairly easy for this route, but you would need the TrailCrest Exit permit to go out the main Mt Whitney trail.

+1

This is excellent advice and the trails are very scenic and you won't get worn out for Whitney.

First, let me thank the hiking commnity. Y'all are aweseome.

To answer the question about my first two experiences,
Trip 1: Day 1: sea level to Outpost--made camp at 3 pm or so, and slept there. No AMS symptoms.
Day 2: Outpost to Trail Crest--made camp at noon or so and slept overnight. If I had any symptoms, they weren't acute enough for me to recognize them.
Day 3: rose at 3 am or so to begin summit. Started pounding headache at Trail Crest. No appetite, but ate anyway to refuel at regular intervals along the trip. Foolishly pushed on and made it to the summit. Within minutes of arriving, vomited everything I had eaten since childbirth and feebly made it down the mountain. At around 10,500 feet, felt like superman after kryptonite was removed. I bounded down the mountain. No diamox on this trip.

Trip 2: Started Diamox 1 day before the trip. 125 MG (I'm fuzzy on the frequency, but it was either twice or three times per day). No side effects (still wondering if maybe I got a panacea). Day 1: The plan was Sea Level to Trail Camp, hike to 13000, and come back down and sleep at Trail Crest and summit the next day. I was hoping that the Diamox would help more than it did. In actuality, we went from sea level to 12000, just shy of Trail Camp. At about 11,000 feet, I started really slowing down significantly and began to be easily confused, once losing the very easy to find trail. After resting for a while and feeling like I could make it to Trail Camp, we trudged on to 12,000 feet, just shy of Trail Camp when when I vomited everything I had eaten since my last great purge on the Summit two years earlier. It was then that I noticed that I had double vision. (The brain does funny things when when swelling.)

We quickly descended the mountain. My vision and apetite were in perfect tact when we got down to Lone Pine.

I did Summit Baldy the week before with no problem, but didn't stay up there long. I really like the suggestion of trying to camp on Baldy for the two weekends before. My threshhold seems to be 10,000 feet or so. On the day or two before the summit, finding a place to hike a little above 10K and then the second day a little above 12K and then sleeping at 12K might do the trick.

It seems like your body (and others) just need more days to adjust at that intermediate altitude. You now have a good idea of where your threshold is.

Also suggest: back off on the eating. In addition to nausea being part of AMS, the need for fuel is often overexaggerated. The crazy, young marathoner might need 6000 calories, but most of us, especially going slower and taking more days, don't need to eat the whole pie. For a short trip like Whitney, you can lightly graze on some carbs, and burn your fat stores as needed.
No problem doing this unless you are on Denali for three weeks. Far, far, far more people who "run out of gas" on Whitney do so because of AMS, not hypoglycemia.

Brent, if your schedule allows, you might consider sleeping a 2nd consecutive night at Trail Camp to further aid your body's acclimation before heading for the summit. Maybe some Diamox as well.

I'm generally not a holistic kinda guy, but I've made a habit of going on ginko biloba for a couple of weeks prior to any high elevation trip. There are actually some mountaineering studies that indicate that it really does assist with oxygenation at elevation. I have no idea if it's truly worked, but it hasn't hurt.

One last question - were you well hydrated prior to starting up the trail, and drinking at regular intervals along the way?

Gary, thanks for the hydration reminder. That is the biggest thing that people forget. Dehydration can really increase the AMS problems. I find that I often forget to drink enough when I'm hiking.

On Ginko Biloba, there was some study that claimed it helped, but a few years later, a more exacting study refuted the first.

I forgot to mention hydration. I was very well hydrated--at least 8 ounces every waking hour on the hour beginning 3 days before both summits. I also did the aspirine regimen that others on the Portal Store board have recomended--the first time. I didn't do it the second time.

Regarding eating less, that is an interesting idea. Some have said that at altitude, the body doesn't put much effort or energy into digestion. I think that might be right. I certainly didn't stuff myself either time (and ate far less than the 1500 calories a day than I packed), but (turn an eye if you get grossed out easily), the peanut butter in a peanut butter and banana sandwhich that I ate 3 hours earlier didn't appear very digested.

In the final analysis, however, I don't think that eating less would be much help. It might reduce vomiting, but undigested food didn't cause double vision and sluggish thoughts.

Not that it matters much for AMS, but my physical fitness level is very good. My muscles and lungs felt great and I had almost no residual muscle soreness after the last summit attempt.

All these ideas from all of us

You just need Tincture of Time.

For rock climbers, Thiotimoline is magic.

Wow, Brent - it sounds as if you're doing everything right. It would appear that your body just has a tougher time than most adjusting to elevations above 10K'. I'm definitely with Harvey on this one - I suspect you just need more time in that 10K'-12K' zone before trying to go higher. A few nights on Baldy before your Whitney trip would certainly help the cause.

My wife has a similar issue. I can't count the number of times she's gone from 1000 feet (Atlanta) to 10K' within 24 hours, and never once experienced a problem. However, the first time she went above 12K', AMS slapped her silly. We eventually found that if she sleeps 3-4 nights at/above 8K', she does OK at the higher elevations. She still has Diamox just in case, but the extended time at moderate elevation seems to have done the trick for her. It could be the same with you, only the need might be to spend more time in that 11-12K' range.

Hope you get it licked - AMS is no damn fun! My one and only experience with it was at about 13K' on the Whitney main trail a couple of years ago. Eventually I realized my problem was that I was sleeping at 3600 feet in Lone Pine. Didn't matter that I was dayhiking to 12K' each day prior to Whitney - my body was not truly acclimated because I was never really at rest for any length of time at elevation.

That one episode really confused me because - like so many other numbnuts out there - I thought I was "immune" to AMS since I had never had it. Upon reflection, though, it was apparent why I had done Thirteeners and Fourteeners in the past with no issue - they were all in the Rockies, where you can't avoid sleeping high. That sold me. Since then I've been careful to always sleep high (2-3 nights) before attempting higher elevations, and have experienced zero issues. I've never taken Diamox, but always have it in my pack in case history repeats. AMS can be debilitating, but your kryptonite line was right on target - once you've descended below a certain elevation it can quickly go away.

Bulldog34, it sounds like you and your wife's experience both suggest that being at altitude isn't nearly as important as sleeping at altitude and staying there a while--for me, maybe multiple days. I seem to do ok at 10K. I think I'll try staying at 10K+ I really like the idea of sleeping a couple nights on a couple of weekends on Baldy in the few weeks before the summit.

Steve, I'm the same way. Even with a CamelBak, I'll forget to drink if it's not hot - sometimes it takes that initial stitch in the side to remind me that I need to hydrate. When I'm heading over 12K', though, I'm so freakin' conscious of AMS that I become a water bladder carrying a pack instead of vice versa. That isn't good either, as I tend to not eat much above 10K', and salts/minerals get flushed and not replaced. To combat that I try and drink 16 oz of Vitaltye or a sports bev every few hours.

On the ginko, I wasn't aware of that follow-up study, but I'm not surprised. Probably a placebo effect at work. This past summer in the Sierra I did the ginko thing as well as aspirin before ascending each day. Bottom line, 5 nights sleeping at Mammoth Lakes while dayhiking to 12K' (before tackling Whitney) was almost certainly the brass ring. The one night at Trail Camp before summitting probably didn't hurt, and I recall feeling just as good at 14,508' the next day as I do at sea level.

Us folks "back east" (or "down south", if you prefer) don't enjoy the wonderful privilege of having 10-12K' mountains around locally to train on and pre-acclimate with. Having a plan to deal with altitude and acclimation properly has to be Job One when putting together one of these hiking trips "out west". Someday I'm gonna take a stab at the Steve C Acclimation Program, and sleep on Whitney's summit. The problem there is that you get well-adjusted to 14K', but there's nowhere higher to go the next day!

If this study is true, sleeping at altitude adds several thousands feet versus being in the vertical position.

http://timberlinetrails.net/ClimbingAltitudeSickness.html

"Scientists at the Barcroft Research Station on White Mountain, discovered that when someone was asleep on the summit at 14,246 feet, they reacted physiologically the same as someone who was awake at 16,000 feet. This fact verifies why people feel better at higher altitudes when awake and walking around, then when lying down.

Adhere to the old adage of "climb high and sleep low." Remember when a climber is sleeping or lying down, he or she
reacts physiologically in the same way as someone who is active at one or two thousand feet higher. So sleeping at lower elevations really does help when it comes to feeling better, and acclimating faster."