Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board First Time Advice

I am happy to say that my husband and I made our first hike on August 11. It took us 9 hours and 2 minutes to get to the top and 7 hours to get back. Thank you to everyone who gave advice. We were well prepared with every accessory and enough food to make it through the day. We spent several days in Mammoth to acclimate and the day before our hike at Horseshoe Meadow. You advice was spot on. Here are some suggestions I would love to share.
1. Eat! Eat a good meal the night before. Eat something before you start up the trail in the morning. Eat at Trail Camp. Don't just rely on snacks. You will be behind on nutrition and energy the minute you hit the trail. Hypoglycemia at 14,000 ft. is not fun. Even if you feel nauseous, eat!
2. Regardless of what you have read, the hike down is much harder than you can imagine. Excitement got us up the mountain and sheer will, hiking poles, the encouragement of strangers and ignoring the pain got us down the mountain.
3. Leave Base Camp with full water containers. We ran out before making it back to the spring on the switch-backs. It was shocking to see how many people were hiking with an empty water bottle and nothing to eat.
4. Stick to your plan. We planned to leave at 2:00 A.M. Half of our group decided to leave at 10:00 P.M. the night before. Since I am prone to motion sickness, and had read that vertigo can be a problem when hiking with lights, we decided to split up. Their decision was right for them. Had I hiked any longer during the night, I would not have made it as I definitely felt the effects of watching my light bounce around for the few hours I hiked in the dark.
The support we received from veterans on the trail was awesome. Your advice and excitement made our day. Thank you to the nice lady who told my husband to make me eat something at trail crest. That was the worst hyploglycemic crash I have had in years and you recognized it right away.
We can't wait to come back with our children. It is an awesome experience.

Congratulations to you both!

For me, the last 2.8 miles from Lone Pine Lake to the Portal is the LONGEST 2.8 MILES!

Gloat on! You two were up there.

Have fun...oops...you HAD fun.

This is a pretty stupid, basic question, but what is a hyopglycemic crash and what are the symptoms and cures?

Google hypoglycemia.

Have fun.

Hypoglycemia results when you have low blood sugar from lack of food or dehydration. The symptoms can be mild, feeling jittery, dizzy and faint, to severe: headache, fainting, vomiting, seizure and even coma. Since some of the symptoms are similar to altitude sickness, I was assuming the headache and nausea were from altitude. The nice thing about this problem is it can be fixed quickly. Eat something sweet and follow up with protein and it should go away within 20 minutes. It would have been better to eat throughout the hike as nobody wants to deal with someone fainting and having seizures on the trail.

The best way to learn about how nutrition works while out on a hike is to hike the with a diabetic. This has changed what I bring up the trail and when I eat...even when I'm not hiking with my personal diabetic, wifey.

As an example, we'd finish a hike at South Fork Parking Lot in the SGW, wife blood index would be in the 150s but by the time we'd reach the Circle K in Mentone, it would be in the 70s.

You've got to feed the machine.

It's actually more like 5.6 miles when returning from the summit...I measured.