Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Need Advice re: Whitney Prep/Acclimatization

A group of seven are hiking Whitney for the first time this Saturday. (All members of the group are in good shape and have hiked Baldy, Jacinto and Gorgonio in the last 2 months.) To acclimatize, we're planning two hikes on Thursday. In the morning, we'll hike from the portal to Meysan Lake. After lunch, we'll hike to Cottonwood Lakes. This is about 19 miles of hiking and just under 4,800' elevation gain (total) for the day. The thought is to push in the morning and then spend as much time as possible above 10,000' in the afternoon without working too hard. Is this too much to tackle two days before Whitney? We would lay low on Friday. Thoughts? Advice?

Doing 19 miles with 4800' gain 2 days before doing 22 miles with 6000' feet gain sounds like a huge amount of hiking compressed into a very short time period. My personal preference is to do nothing but rest the entire week before. Of course, everybody is different. Good luck!

Richard is absolutely right.
Baldy etc is not like doing Whitney.
I have successfully summited Whitney several times and my regiment is to get fit first, the proceeding months.
Day before I attempt to summit i'll go up to the Portal, go up to Lone Pine lake, chill out and spend time at altitude but not hike my ass off. Then have a burger and fries....

Whitney is for most mortals a 13 to 15 hr constant hike. You need to give this amount of exercise the respect it deserves.
If you do 19 miles before you try and summit I would lay money on several of you not making it.

Just my views.....
My background is marathon and ultra running.

Ditto as above. I ran several marathons, including the Wild Wild West a couple of times, but never ever ran a distance longer than 6 miles the week before a marathon.
I just did the Marion Mountain Trail on Mt San Jacinto and will not be doing another long hike before I attempt Whitney next week. I'll do some short jaunts around my home in the low country and then take a short hike above South Lake three days before Whitney. Other than that, it's the gym, rest, eating right and hydrating. Good luck and let us know.
p.s. I recommend the Marion Mt Trail. An extremely steep hike and unbelievably beautiful.

Do some easy hiking at altitude, but save your legs for the main event. It will make the hike more enjoyable, and increase your chances of success.

I'll come at this from a different direction by asking you a quesiton:

How much hiking/climbing have you done above 13K?

If the answer is none, take it easy prior to your Whitney hike, because in most cases, that altitude will turn almost anybody who hasn't been there into a wimp. If you've got experience at altitude and know you can do multiple hard days up high, go for it.

Thanks, all, for the comments.

I think we'll bag the second hike on Thursday. We are well trained and prepared. The thought was not to cram six months of training into two hikes two days before Whitney. Rather, because we live at sea level, we wanted to make sure we did all we could to properly acclimatize (short of quitting our day jobs and moving to Lone Pine, which, by the way, occurred to a few of us).

I appreciate the very thoughtful posts.

Thanks.

Please let us know how it goes. I'm going up a week after you and really enjoy reading the stories. Good Luck.....and enjoy the moment.

Knowing that I have problems acclimating I did the following last year with great results:

Wed. set up camp at the Portal Campground then hiked to Lone Pine Lake and took a nap in the shade for an hour or so.

Thur. got a permit for the North Fork route and went as far as iceberg lake and had lunch up there.

Fri. hiked to Meysan Lake and had lunch there.

Sat. drove to Horseshoe Meadows and walked around for a couple hours. went to bed early and started the hike at 2:00 am on Sunday morning.

I felt great all the way up and down. I Ran from Lone Pine Lake to the Store because we were unsure what time they closed. One guy who drove up on Friday night had a lot of trouble so he slowed us down after the switchbacks on the way up.

Horseshoe Meadow is a great place to acclimate and a very beautiful place to be.

Based on what you've written I think that's a sound decision.

All I can add, and needless to say, is to thoroughly rehydrate yourself after your warmup hike.

OK,
We could start the Diomox discussion again.....lol

Seriously, are you guys taking or intend to take it?

I have taken it always because my acclimatization period has been so short. Does it work, who knows as I have never had an issue.

Although I did have a few issues 2 weeks ago when I went up, then again went up like a rat up a drainpipe and forgot all my pacing lessons of many years.

I am not an expert on this, but I think you get almost as much benefit just being at altitude as you do working your butt off at altitude.

Regarding Diamox, I have had good success. My son suffered severe AMS on 3 out of 4 forays above 12,,000" over the last 2 years. This year he did a regular Diamox regimen and had NO AMS problems.

Dear Levi,

Sorry to denounce getting fit, but the first time I summitted this mountain I was on the downhill slide to 50, could NOT run a hundred feet without nearly passing out, did a few hikes, nothing over 10,000 feet (San Gorgonio, San Jacinto), was coming from a living elevation of 1500', was so sure I would NOT make the Whitney summit, I wore tennis shoes and brought too heavy a pack.

But I kept chugging along until I got to the top in 10 hours, not the fastest, certainly not the slowest. It was simple mental fortitude that got me there. Everytime I got to a location station (Trailside Mdw, Trail Camp, Etc), I told myself one more location until I found myself at the John Muir Junction where I could see the summit. That was where I got a second tremendous boost (the first being Trail Crest where defeating the dreaded switchbacks gave me a tremendous rush! Not to mention the VIEW!)
I didn't suffer sore muscles on the trip as my mind was overcoming physical discomfort (Yeah, hurt the next day though!)

Not reccomending anyone does it like this. I have since started running and do several miles at a time, even though my times going up are nearly the same. Just saying mental endurance is a wondrous thing and will let you do things you didn't think you could.

I did the same routine as ValenciaBrit, that worked for me. 19 miles would wear me out too much before the main event.

My background is no marathons, no running, just plain hiking and surfing. Prep hikes were like bobcat.

You can do this. Whitney is 50% physical, 50% mental.

Just a quick P.S. I guided 2 newbies up to the Whitney summit, neither had ever been on the mountain, one early 20's, other early middle age, neither had ever been over 7,000' in their lives, both coming from less than 1,000' elevation. Both summitted because they were mentally "jazzed" and had made up their minds they'd do it. Neither suffered altitude sickness the first time, as if their mental strengths overrode it. I don't know. I know I somehow overrode altitude sickness first time also. By all physical laws I should have gotten terribly sick.

When they went back the second time, both succumbed to altitude sickness and I could tell the monster determination that was there the first time was not there. It had happened to me also. Had to psych myself up mentally as well as physically to do it again.

I'm happy to report that all 6 members of our group reached the summit (1 member backed out at the last minute) on Saturday, August 29. We started at 3:30 am and reached the summit at 10:30 am. We spent about an hour on the summit. The descent was more difficult than we anticipated (mostly due to fatigue), but we made it back to Portal at 5:00 pm.

Thanks, again, for the advice and well-wishes.