Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Kids and Whitney?

This summer my family will be joining me for my trip to Whitney, including my 10 year-old daughter Brianne. After hearing so much about my Whitney adventure last year, she insists that she's going to hike the MMWT with Dad (and maybe Mom) this coming July. I'm somewhat uncertain about the wisdom of her attempting this due to her age, although I'm aware that a number of kids have actually summitted in the past. She's hiked a number of reasonably strenuous trails with me in the past 3 years locally, as well as in the Cascades, Rockies and Black Hills, so she's a trooper - but all have been less than 12 miles RT and all under 11K' elevation. She's been above 14K' several times in Colorado for extended periods without showing any ill effects, but all those were the easy way, without a great deal of hiking to reach that elevation (the beauty of Colorado, where through-roads at 12K' are no big deal, and access roads above 13K' are common).

For several years she's watched Dad take off to places out west to hike and backpack the bigger stuff that was far beyond her, and now she feels like she's ready to do a "really big one" with me. I certainly don't want to discourage her, but I damn sure don't want to endanger her by putting her in a situation that's over her head. In all the hiking I've done over 10K' over the years, I've rarely seen kids as young as 10 on a trail that high (Scout troops excepted), so I really don't know if Whitney is over her head. Maybe I'm just being overly cautious, but the "death march" of the MMWT kicked my butt last year. We're looking at a one or two-nighter this time around.

So, any thoughts or direction on high-elevation, long-distance preparedness for kids? Does it differ that much from adults? I should mention that we'll spend at least a week hiking at 10-11K' and sleeping at 8K' in the Mammoth area before we attempt Whitney (good call Steve).

Sierra Richins did it at 10... and climbed Cirque, Langley, Discovery Pinnacle, plus a couple cross-country passes on the way. Oh yeah, she wrote a newspaper article about it too:
My Mount Whitney Climb, by Sierra Richins
She also went on to climb all of California's 14'ers by age 13. Her cousin Emma did the same route at age 10 also. See links from the article above.

My daughter also named Sierra, summited Mt Whitney last summer at 11 years old. We spent 5 days coming around the backside from Onion Valley. She has been backpacking since she was 8 and allmost made the top of half dome ( stoped at the cables ) when she was 7 in one day. She still had energy to run for pizza at the end of the day. She is very capable in the wilderness and has had many experiances with weather, darkness, and animals. I think what make it work when she was younger was to let her set the pace. My daughter is allways the pace setter, and can really get going when we have to make time. Prior to our Whitney trip she had several week long backpacking trips as welll as many shorter ones.

I think to do the MT spread over several days to adjust to the altitude might work fine. Kids have a harder time adjusting to altitude than adults. That would be my greatest concern. If you plan on camping along the way you can allways turn around if you need to.

Where we live we have our local training hill (Mt. St. Helena 4300) 2000 feet up in 5 miles (10 miles round trip) on a fire road. We do fastwalk/runs up it to train for trips.

Kids can smell the end of trip PIZZA from the summit.

My wife and I took our twin 9-year-old daughters up, with my 12-year-old son. We camped for a few days to help acclimization. Unfortunately, one of my daughters cut her toe playing around Lone Pine Lake, so I did not let her do the hike. But my other daughter and son made the hike in reasonably good condition. We all came down with a bit of AMS (nausea, headaches), but made the summit just fine. The distance was no problem, but the sick-to-the stomach feeling was a concern. However, we all revived at the summit. My daughter fed the fish two times on top, then felt great.

The one who hurt her toe? She was quite happy to stay behind with my wife. A few years later she reclimbed Whitney with her brother, and scaled Mt. Muir on the same hike. Now, all three easily out-hike and out-climb me--and enjoy mountain climbing.

At another time, my son and I had the pleasure of climbing with Richard Piotrowski and his 9-year-old nephew and his dad on the Mountaineer's Route. The yongster did great and made the summit just fine.

I highly recommend the father-daughter experience. For me, it was a wonderful life-time experience. As long as you go easy with your daughter and do everything to make it as enjoyable as possible, you may have a hiking partner for life. In hindsight, it worked best to refuse my daughter with the hurt toe, but she hikes lots of mountains now. I do recommend camping, rather than the one day march. Just be sure you think everything through for camping, eating, pack weights, her hiking pace, rest breaks, and so forth.

I wish you and your daughter the best! I think it is well worth it.

This question comes up regularly and my response is that kids nearly always surprise us with their abilities and resilience.

My son, Nathan, was 12 when we did Whitney in 2001. If you look around the rest of my web site, you'll see that he started backpacking with me at a young age (5), so our trip to Whitney was a natural extension of what we had already done.

Our rule for him was "hike your age," and he could always do that or better...8 miles when he was 5, 10 when he was 7, etc. The trick for us was learning to pace ourselves and not try to do too much too fast. For instance, trying to do Whitney as a day hike back in '01 would not have been within his capabilities, so we camped at Trail Camp (after two nights in Mammoth Lakes and a day hike to 11,000' for acclimation) and had nothing worse than a mild headache on our summit day on Whitney.

Of course, now he's 21, 6" taller than I am and he's my pack horse on the odd occasions where we still get to go backpacking together. I figure that's one of the good things...at least when he has time, he'll still put up with ol' Dad for a week.

I was 7 years old on my 1st Whitney hike, and my brother Ken was 6. What great adventures we had! My Dad was cautious with us, and we took our time – we took a week and went from the Portal to Whitney Summit, continued west as far as Crabtree Meadow, then back and over again. We had so much fun!

Bulldog, if your daughter wants to hike Whitney – good for her! I went on every backpacking trip with my Dad, and they’re some of my best childhood memories with my Dad.

I also find it surprising that there are so few kids on the trails in the Sierra, especially in the back country. I think the sad fact is that a lot of kids are more interested in video games, computers, texting, etc. Maybe it’s just that backpacking/hiking doesn’t sound “exciting” enough for kids…. but the population has certainly grown since I was young, yet I see fewer kids today on bikes than I did when I was in school. We ran, played, walked, rode bikes and horses everywhere, and it seems kids now aren’t even required to take P.E. in school.

It’s not just kids, though – Yosemite Valley is crawling with people, yet, once past Little Yosemite Valley or the Half Dome turn-off, you run into very few people – until you come to the next “convenient” site.

It will be interesting to see what the trails look like in another 20-30 years…will this younger generation start to look to the mountains “to get their good tidings”, or will actually “going up into the mountains” be such a foreign concept that hiking will become obsolete to most people. I tend to think it will be the former – there are a lot of the people on this board that didn’t start hiking/backpacking until they were adults. Maybe it will be the same for this younger generation…

I don't think it's the kids. It's the parents. They seem to have no idea what their kids are capable of. They try a short hike, hear whining, and turn back.

My kids aren't in any better shape than their peers. They whine, complain, and sit down in the trail. We dangle jelly beans under their nose, talk about the next stop, threaten, and sing to get them going again. Every time - backpacking (only 2 trips so far), day hiking, snowshoeing, or bike riding at day's end they can't wait to do it again. At age 6 & 8 they could hike 10 miles in the mountains or bike 30 miles- I think most kids could if they were given the opportunity and motivated.

In addition to no kids on the trails, I've also noticed a distinct lack of adults in their 30's and 40's. I think families are either too busy with the "expected" activities like organized sports or it's just too much trouble to drag the whole family out on the trail.

I think there's hope for the future though. 20-30 years ago when I was a teen through early 20's I seldom saw girls or women on the trail- and then it was either with an organized group (church, scout, etc) or along with along by dad or boyfriend. Now there are lots of women- young to old- hiking solo, with other women, or sometimes dragging dad or boyfriend along.

Kids have no issues with any of that. Mine keep running away from me and I have to slow them down. JMT at Age 10, JMT at age 11, now we'll do a yo-yo at age 12 and I am sure I will have to use the term "slow down" very frequently...

I don't think I ever noticed them having any issues with elevation.

You either know your kids' abilities or you don't. If you're uncertain, then spend more time with them until you don't have to ask. This holds true for just about everything that they will do through life, not just hiking----making you a better, more patient and trustworthy parent across the board...

...it works with dogs, too.

I don’t think it’s quite that easy of an answer. Part of what Bulldog was asking was the concern about altitude. Regardless how much time you spend with your kids, there’s no way that you can tell whether someone will have altitude issues until you’re at altitude. Kids (and older people) DO have a greater tendency towards altitude related issues, so it’s a legitimate concern.

I hope you’re not implying that by spending “X” amount of time with your kids, that it will take the uncertainty out of life and you won’t need to ask … if only it was that simple.

Precisely Rosabella, and thanks. I believe I outlined pretty clearly what we know Brianne IS capable of - (1) humping a daypack up to 12 miles and as high as 10,000 feet and (2) not affected by elevation at rest up to 14,200 feet. It's that gap in between the two that's the mystery, which we're naturally concerned about. If we lived in Colorado, California or other points west, we'd just go out on the weekends and find out. Unfortunately that's not an option for us lowlanders here on the East Coast (dammit!). I certainly don't expect anyone to tell me how my daughter is going to fare on the switchbacks, at Trail Crest or beyond - no one knows the answer to that. What I was seeking is other folks' experiences with young kids laboring at elevation that might give us some insight into the probabilities we'll be dealing with - as well as any tricks of the trade from those who've been-there-done-that in managing the process. As usual, the folks on this board have been very helpful in sharing their knowledge, and it's much appreciated.

I'm sure every parent who has seen their young child ascend past 12K' and 13K' feet on a trail for the first time has watched them like a hawk, and with a certain amount of apprehension and anxiety. What parent couldn't? I'll never forget last year rambling around Cottonwood Pass/Lakes and running across a group with a young kid suffering from AMS. He was maybe 16 or 17 and was a hurting puppy. We chatted for a while, mostly about what a PITA AMS is, and then we each went our own way. The next day I read that the kid had been med-evaced out a few hours later and didn't make it - the edema was too far gone by the time he got to a hospital. That's not a statistic to me - that was a high school boy I looked in the eye and spoke with, and he was dead a shockingly short time later from nothing other than being at 11,000 feet too long. AMS is no joke but, as you say Rosabella, it's a different devil with the young and the old. Also, I failed to mention that Brianne has very mild asthma (but then, what kid doesn't nowdays? You're not in the Cool Club unless you have asthma, it seems). It's a pill-a-day thing, no inhalers, and hasn't affected her in any hard endeavor up to this point - but it's always something to keep an eye on.

Again, I appreciate the responses on this, especially the PMs and e-mails (CMC, you da bomb!). I'll read posts on this subject all day!

Okay, someone has to be more of a "bad guy".

The wonderful experiences described here by successful parties with kids are cherished. Same here with my kids in the Sierras. I return for my 18th trip this summer. We started when the youngest was 7. That said, he could not get past AMS at 10,000 feet the first time, with symptoms worse than his old man doesn't get until 19,000 feet.

bulldogs description of a death at Cottonwood Pass (from not simple AMS, but a complication like HAPE or HACE)is fortunately uncommon in the Sierras, at least to most people's happy experiences. SARs and other medical folks can tell you plenty of stories, not to be bad guys, but to try to give caution for caution sake. I've had my share of evacuating sick, dying, or dead altitude victims. Fortunately in the moderate altitudes of the Sierras it has so far only been the first group.

The key is pacing, acclimatization, inborn susceptibility, luck of the draw, and some knowledge. It is said that kids cannot tell you when they are sick...well, adults can't do much better.
Here are two helpful rules:

(1)illness (symptoms) at high altitude is high altitude illness until proven otherwise.
(2) mountaineer's foot (can't put one foot in front of the other) may be more than fatigue, ie, AMS or worse.

I have posted here before this link to an AMS tutorial. Although intended for MDs, there is much for all to read. Be sure to read the AMS section and description of the Lake Louse score for estimating severity of AMS symptoms, a useful guide of when to stop and/or descend.

AMS tutorial

Hope this is helpful.
Harvey

That dialogue Jim and Rosabella have going about who ain't out on the trails is a good one - and very telling about where we're headed as a society. Just watching the Burns National Park series on PBS last fall showed how far The Great Outdoors has slipped in the national consciousness. If it weren't for the foreign visitors to our NPs, the numbers would be even more abominable. Try wandering a populated area of Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, Mt. Rainier or Yellowstone for five minutes and see if you can avoid hearing an Asian or European language being spoken. The rest of the world seems to have a very clear idea of the wonders we've got here, but fewer and fewer of us seem to. Of all the changes in our country the past 50 years, to me this is the saddest.

And it's also why our daughter has visited virtually every major national park in the lower 48 before her 10th birthday. It was a mission with my wife and I to instill in her early on a sense of appreciation for the wild and a love of the outdoors. I believe every kid has that in them - if modern techno-society and Saturday youth league games doesn't wither it first. Kids even as young as five now have a social calendar that makes it hard for parents who want to get their children away for just a camping weekend to manage it.

We faced the same problems with our daughter - teeball, soccer, basketball, gymnastics, blah, blah, blah. We kept the wilderness priority upfront, though, and headed there on a consistent basis. God only knows how much money we spent on trips to national parks in California, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, the Dakotas, Wyoming and Colorado before it really paid off. I recall it vividly - we were hiking Hurricane Ridge in Olympic NP in Washington when Brianne, age 8 at the time, finally GOT IT - almost a bolt from the blue. During a rest break she wandered away from us and just stared at those beautiful, rugged, snowy Olympics for a few minutes, not saying anything. Finally she dug her camera out of her pack - the one she had only used up to this point for childish photos - and began to measure out very careful shots of just the Olympic range. She had her back to us the whole time, spending maybe 10 minutes deliberately shifting from spot to spot trying to get a good frame. I don't think she took her eyes off those mountains that entire time. I remember turning to my wife and saying, "She gets it - she understands! It was worth it all". I think we both got a little choked up at that moment.

Now Brianne tries - with only moderate success, I'm afraid - to interest her friends in things like hiking, camping, mountains and national parks. She is so focused on Mt. Whitney right now - and has been for several months - that I'm almost burned out on the subject (euphemism - not really). It's the Big Thing in her life for 2010. How cool that is: a mountain - and all it represents - trumps all the techno-distractions of an American 10 year-old girl 2000 miles away in Atlanta. I have no doubt that once she's actually been there and hiked it, it'll be locked down tight in her psyche. She may not have time for it during certain periods of her life, but I know it'll always be in her heart. And ultimately, in her own children's as well.

Actually, here are a couple of shots of that moment:

here's some related writing - especially for those who still need to be convinced that being outside in the woods or Sierras is a good thing for kids:

http://richardlouv.com/last-child-woods

The one that got me was on our first backpack trip in 2008 from Red's Meadow. The kids were 7 and 5. Our second day was all uphill from Johnston Meadow to Rosalie Lake. Not really that big a day for adults- but the kids thought that 4.5 miles and 1500 feet climbing was a bit extreme. The mosquitoes were also horrendous.

After dinner the kids started climbing the rocky ridge behind camp. With overprotective gut reaction we called to them to come down. Then I followed them up. They reached the top and were just gazing across the San Joaquin trench. I'm not sure what they talked about but they were sitting calmly, pointing out mountains and not fighting. At that point they were hooked.


I started backpacking at 13. I had issues with AMS frequently all through my teen years- and that from living at 4,000 feet in the Owens Valley- it probably would have been worse if I lived at sea level. Plenty of first day or night misery with extreme fatigue, drowsiness, sometimes vomiting. Never beyond that though.

The solution is definitely acclimation. Any family with the time ought to take 3 days or so before the backpack trip starts with stays at Mammoth (8,000') or higher. Do day hikes - a bit higher each day. The Mammoth lakes basin, Duck Pass trail, Tioga Pass, even the Bristlecone Pine forest have plenty of day hike options with trailheads from 8,000 to 12,000 feet and reasonable dayhike high points from 9,000 feet on up.

Acclimation does work wonders though. I remember my first Whitney climb at age 16. I had been in the backcountry for 25 of the previous 35 days. From a base camp at Lower Crabtree Meadow I went solo up the Crabtree lakes drainage, then cross country up to Discovery Pinnacle, hit the Main Trail and climbed one of the needles on the way up, summited Whitney, climbed Muir on the way down, back past Discovery Pinnacle and followed the ridge to Mt. Hitchcock before heading back to camp, feeling like I was just getting started. Two days later I hiked from the JMT all the way home to Independence (about 25 miles).

Great Richard Louv reference. I've been a fan of his for some time. He has a lot of excellent work. Fatherlove and Childhood's Future are as good as Last Child in the Woods.

he spoke here in Madison 4 years ago - I still have the video from the event on our server, so I figure I can throw this on my 2010 Muir Trail page. 1 hour 22 mins.

Here's a quote from the middle of the talk,

"Is the spotted owl the leading endangered indicator species? Or is it soemthing else? I think it is something else. I think it is the human child in nature who is the leading endangered indicator species - because if children do not go outside in Ukaih, who is gonna care in 15 years about the spotted owl?"

Video here - 82 minutes long, but you can skip right to the beginning of his speech at ~8:00 into the stream

Video Link (silverlight plugin required)

Bulldog, I'm often a naysayer when it comes to kids and Whitney, however, that is because I so often see it done wrong.

You are doing it right. You are giving consideration to the problems, and to the child involved. You are not looking at jumping in to doing it in the most difficult way (1 day). You are doing acclimatization first. She has done extensive preparation for this. Doing this as a multi-day hike takes speed out of the equation.

What else can you do? Taking a page from our astronaut program, it makes sense to have a person go through all the phases and variables beforehand that are possible, so that the actual hike seems to be easier than the practice.

For the hike itself, there are four variables: distance, elevation, speed, carry weight. You want her to hike a distance longer than the longest hike on the mountain. Nothing you can do about elevation, but what you are. Speed is not really an issue, but it is: you want to SLOW DOWN. This really helps acclimatization. A simple way to do it is Bob's technique: a mandatory rest every hour of hiking. Weight should involve her carrying weight in excess of what she will actually carry on the mountain.

Oh, she also may not be used to starting hiking at O'dark-thirty, but should practice that.

You might also want to have her fool around with a WAG bag.

Whitney is actually a pretty safe place, because turning around involves all downhill, which really helps, and there's lots of people in case of need.

I wish more folks approached it as you have. I'm sure you'll have a great trip, whether or not you reach the summit.

Thanks for the input Ken - we try very hard to allow her to spread her wings, but under reasonably controlled circumstances. The goal is to have a memorable, educational and fun family adventure, so we want to keep it from being too much of a grind for her. The summit is completely secondary - almost peripheral. If she makes it, attagirl. If not, attagirl. Fortunately, with her camping and hiking experience she's comfortable with most every phase of what we'll be doing (she began using Wag bags at 4 - that was an experience . . .). One thing that I had completely overlooked in her preparation was the o'dark-thirty start - she's never hiked in anything blacker than dawn or dusk. Even though we'll try for a two-nighter, there'll still be some headlamp hiking - just not as much as the dayhike death-march. Good call Ken - she's in for some very early wake-up calls in the near future.

She also has her own copy of Doug's Portal Store Lore masterpiece (that makes 3 copies in our home) and is currently reading it - and asking lots of questions, which is a very good thing. She wants Doug to autograph it in July when we're there, so Doug you're warned - that'll be a 15-minute autograph if she has her way.

Hi Rosie,
Yes, it can be read more than one way and not specifically a critique of Bulldog. It sounds like he's much more in tune with his daughter's abilities than most are with their own kids. However, Whitney will be the next step in that journey. Can we answer for how his daughter will react to altitude and if she'll be fine? No. (And from latest research I've read, it appears that age and fitness have less to do with altitude problems than genetic predisposition.) My post was along the lines of "you need to find out together."

Bulldog, if your daughter has the experience you've noted and is gung-ho, then I'm sure she'll be more than fine on a multi-day hike (and probably fine on a day hike if you pace yourselves). Fortunately, I don't have altitude issues and neither do my daughters, who have been climbing/hiking since they could walk.

Yes, I sure as hell am saying that the more time you spend with your kids the better you will know what their abilities are and help them make better choices, regardless----as I said----making YOU a better, more patient and trustworthy parent. (I never said "X" time and all will be revealed.) However, that most definitely includes knowing when (and being able to) admit defeat, turn around and try again another day---not just for Whitney, but again, for many, many trials in life.

I wish Bulldog and Brianne the best, and it sounds like they are off to a great start spending time together outdoors. These are adventures and memories that will be more important and cherished than most in life.

But above all, even though it's hard work sometimes, make sure everyone is having a good time!

Cheers,
Jeff

(My 8-year-old and 13-year-old daughters coming down from a successful Mountaineer's Route summit in October):