Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Acclimation question

We are going to do a one day Whitney hike in mid July, and I had an acclimation question for someone that has attempted to do it this way. We don't have allot of time to come up early and spend multiple days at high elevation prior to the hike. Our hike is on a Monday leaving early in the morning. We are planning to drive up either late Saturday night, or very early on Sunday. Go immediately to a location of at least 8,000' and hang out. Thinking maybe Mammoth main lodge, Whitney Portal, or Onion Valley. Go down to Lone Pine in the evening and try to get some sleep before heading to Portal early Monday morning for the hike. I know this is not allot of time, but it's all we are going to be able to do. Hopefully with all four of us being fit, we will be o.k.. Two of us have done the hike before, one of us has experienced sickness on one of his attempts. My main question is this, if we descend from 8,000' to Lone Pine at 3,500' do we lose what little acclimation that we gained from spending the day at 8,000?

Hanging out at any elevation will help, just try to stay as high as possible, for as long as possible. Your best bet is horseshoe meadows road for some dayhiking. Since there has already been some altitude problems for your group in the past, i would skip lone pine, and camp high. Dayhike horseshoe area Sunday, camp at the portal Sunday night, summit monday, good luck!

yes

sleeping altitude is the main determinate of acclimatization.
(It has to do with exposure time, respiratory rate, and lower oxygen saturation levels during sleep.)

see this link that I frequently suggest. Harvey

High Altitude Tutorial

Here is a pertinent section:

The key to avoiding AMS is a gradual ascent that gives your body time to acclimatize. People acclimatize at different rates, so no absolute statements are possible, but in general, the following recommendations will keep most people from getting AMS:
- If possible, you should spend at least one night at an intermediate elevation below 3000 meters.
- At altitudes above 3000 meters (10,000 feet), your sleeping elevation should not increase more than 300-500 meters (1000-1500 feet) per night.
- Every 1000 meters (3000 feet) you should spend a second night at the same elevation.

Remember, it's how high you sleep each night that really counts

I do a one-day hike also, always planning to spend most of the previous day at altitude. Since I want to save my legs a little, I just drive up to Horseshoe Meadows or Onion Valley (both 9500+) and simply hang out for the day. I do like to wander out into the stream area at HM, you can watch some tiny Golden Trout darting around in there. I've often done that plus sat in the back of my truck reading for a few hours before summiting the next day. One year we drove over to the Bristlecone Pine forest too. I start to really notice it at Trail Crest, but for that it's pretty difficult to find that elevation anywhere else in the area. Well, at least in a few hours...
Of course everyone is different how they react to elevation, this might just be a psychological boost along with the pasta dinner at Pizza Factory the night before. For sleep I have stayed in Lone Pine Dow Villa or at Lone Pine Campground but the last couple of years I just parked out in the Alabama Hills.

the key here is not an anecdotal report that you can get away with sleeping low (I have,too, on Whitney and elsewhere, but not always, and some people never ever, especially those who have had previous AMS or worse before).

The key to improving the odds of your success (and your AMS partner) is to do as much acclimatization as possible. Is it ALWAYS necessary - no. Does it improve your odds- yes.

The simple answer to the poster's question in his last sentence is - yes ( although any acclimatization is better than none)

The best sleeping altitude is the highest altitude at which you don't get sick. Period.

I don't want to start yet another Diamox debate here, but you should search other threads to see what has been said about it.

I also highly recommend Horseshoe Meadow. An excellent place to spend time getting ready for the hike.

Do you have to make reservations to stay camp in the Horseshoe Meadows area?

My 2cents...
A healthy body is pretty quick to respond to the lack of oxygen present at higher elevations. One way it responds is in producing more red blood cells. As most of us know, our bodies do the vast majority of bodily maintenance at night while we sleep. This is the main reason why sleeping as high as possible (while actually getting sleep!) is most beneficial to acclimatizing. If you simply go to elevation during the day, hike or hang around, you will start sending the signs to your body to make those adjustments, but that does not necessarily mean that your body will be able to make enough changes (while awake and active) to make a difference until you sleep. How quickly your body switches on and off those signals to make those adjustments, I don't know, but my experience has been that it is pretty responsive,, meaning that if you come down and stay down at a lower elevation, it switches the urgency to make those adjustments off. going to elevation during the day and descending is almost more like a work out, than acclimation. It is my belief that you are only acclimating to the elevation that you sleep at. My recommendation is to sleep as high as you can in the days before your climb.
.. ok, that was more like $1.02 then 2cents, but hope it is helpful.

Nope.

A rousing "Amen!" to that. Last year I got AMS for the first time in my life while dayhiking Whitney, despite having been much higher in Colorado on several occasions without even a hint of a problem. I had four acclimatization days prior to my permit date, so I was between 9000 and 12,000 feet for much of those four days, with only a nagging headache coming out of the chute the first day - yet AMS hit me on Whitney at about 13,000 feet, and hit me so hard I had to turn back before Trail Crest (I was solo as well). The difference? In Colorado I would hike high each day, but I was also sleeping high at between 8K' and 9K' (you can't NOT sleep high in the Rockies). During Whitney last year I hiked high for 4 days prior to my permit day, but I was sleeping in Lone Pine - at about 3600 feet I believe. I'll never make that mistake again - guaranteed!