Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Altitude Sickness

On July 20th, about 2:00pm, our group of 5 was headed down from the summit. A short distance before Mt. Muir we encountered a woman sitting alone on a rock. Mike, the first in our group asked if she was OK and at first she said yes, then no, that she could not continue up.

JoAnne (the only name we got) had left the Portal at 3:00am with her husband for a day hike to the summit. Upon reaching Trail Camp, her husband could go no further and decided to go back. JoAnne had wanted to celebrate her birthday by summitting so she continued up alone.

Mike and our group helped her back down. It took us four hours to reach our tents at Trail Camp. Her husband was to be at the trailhead at 6:00pm to meet her and it was evident she would not make it. We sent a message to her husband with a few remaining dayhikers going down that she would be spending the night at our camp.

Mike gave up his tent and sleeping bag to her and spent a very cold night in his son's tent. The next morning JoAnne left early and at 8:00am as we cooked our breakfast Mike was still cold.

In our minds Mike was a real hero for his kind deeds toward JoAnne.

JoAnne, we all hope you made it out OK that morning (July 21) and do have some good memories of your birthday hike. We hope you try again next year.

Happy hiking, good weather.

Hi MTN Dreamer:
Not only Mike but all of you are the heroes.
Some people are not prepare.
When we summited in July, we met some people who had a small bottle of water and T-shirt and short.
We end up gave them our last bottle of water and the last sandwitch.

I hope people who are the first time day hike to Mt. Whitney will prepare well.

Do not underestimate mother nature. Most day hikers are to their limit: physical; food and water.

Kudos to you and your team - hearing stories like this make me proud to be a hiker.

Tom

Thanks for your replies Ray Kwan and back 2 school. Our trip pictures can be seen at

http://community.webshots.com/user/mtndreamer

I didn't make it to the top of whitney after my first attempt, I got altitude sickness at 13,500 feet. I was very disoriented and threw up so I went back down. I never have been to that altitude so who knew? I am very disappointed as my endurance was tops after all the training I did. I will try again and maybe try diamox, staying at a higher elevation, and doing it over two days. Does anyone know how often this happens and any other ideas I could use to make it to the top?

Taking more time to acclimate would almost guarantee you make it. I have taken several groups up the main trail and so far everyone (14 in all) have made it. My itinerary with a group is to camp at the portal on day one and do a day hike to Meysan Lake or up to Lone Pine Lake, hike to trail camp on day two and camp overnight, summit on day three and either hike out or stay another night and hike out on day four. Of course, the drawback is you are carrying a heavier pack for camping at trail camp.

I'll second spinefxr's comments about acclimation. Even on shorter peaks (13k and change), I can tell the difference between one day's acclimation and two (or more). I've felt woozy at the top of <a href="http://www.mtritter.org">Mt. Ritter</a> (13,150') with only one day at intermediate altitude, but had no problems on Whitney on a similar plan to spinefxr's. In July, 2001, my son and I spent two nights at Mammoth Lakes, about 8,000', with a dayhike up Glass Mountain to roughly 11k, then drove to Portal and hiked up to Trail Camp the next afternoon, summiting the following day.

Likewise, in 2003, we did our highpoints in ascending order, OK (less than 5,000'), then NM (13k and change), followed by CO (14,433'), with a night or two between each peak at successively higher altitudes (Taos, NM, about 7k', then Leadville, CO at 10k'). No altitude-related problems for either of us.

Spend a couple more days enjoying the mountains, work your way up in altitude, and you'll greatly improve your chances of success!

Josh K

the only person out of 6 not to summit on our July 30th trip was the guy who was taking Diamox. so go figure. he also did not join us our first night in lone pine, but came in for our second night at the portal. and on the day of the hike, he hauled a** up to trail camp trying to keep up with the super-athlete in our group. the rest of us crawled up at the slowest person's pace.

he was sick at trail camp, and in 4 hours did not get any better. he headed down and home a day early regrettably.

the rest of us spent the night at trail camp, two had headaches, but we were all fine the next morning and made the summit w/o altitude issues.

on the flip side, our superboy spent a night at the portal and then shot up the trail with a 40 lb pack, got to trail camp in 3 hours and decided to go ahead and summit right away since we were a good two hours (using walkie-talkies) behind him. he left for the summit at noon, made it, then got back to trail camp by 4:30. then he went home, taking our sick guy with him. he had no altitude issues at all, having spent just the one night at portal.

it's hard to guess how AMS affects us but I'd certainly be an advocate of the get-there-early and go slow approach. worked for most of us.

p.s. we did not plan on spending a first night at lone pine until we got our butts kicked going up baldy, and then had a healthy respect for altitude. that allowed us to get up to portal around 9 am the next day and spend the whole day adjusting to the thinner air.