Sarah,

Congrats on your ascent! I'm more concerned with the old farts, besides myself, that would be leading this crew. Unless they ant to pay for a guide on the trip.
Teen boys are walking balls of hormones that just have to be pointed at something besides video games and girls from time to time!

sarah.simon wrote:Wiley,

I summitted Whitney this summer. I live at 7,600 feet and spend most every weekend at altitude, so I had zero problems as was the same case for my Colorado partner who lives above 9,000 feet.

However, within our group were many women from sea level, including several from coastal California and a super bad-a$$ in her 60s from New Orleans. We spent a few days approaching Whitney (backpacking) from the backside, ascending from a basecamp at Crab Tree Meadows. All but one woman made the summit and, honestly, this was due to her own lack of physical fitness. Yes, even the woman from New Orleans, a few feet below sea level, made it with no problems.

I think the "several days of hiking and sleeping at altitude" factor of the backpack trip helped immensely. We also took a quick jog en route up 12er Mount Guyot as a warm-up. I cannot speak to the conditioning that the sea level ladies conducted before the trip, though I know several of them are runners/racers. Me personally, my "conditioning" was my normal weekend activity: Summitting peaks in Colorado.

Good luck!

Sarah

Just wanted to reinforce the point that as long as you are fit enough to hike 21 miles with 12'K+ elevation change, what's most important to happily summiting Whitney (i.e., without a pounding headache and nausea) is that you spend a few days at altitude, ideally getting some exercise while doing so. As far as I can tell, and what most experts seem to think, is that great conditioning is not a substitute.

As one personal data point, a few years ago I did a dayhike of Whitney with a half-dozen members of my running group + 2 friends. All of us (except the 2 friends) had run sub-4 hr hilly marathons in the past six months (Big Sur, San Francisco, Napa Valley), and some of us (not me!) sub 3-hr marathons. The guy who looked and felt the worst on the summit was the fittest and fastest marathoner at sea level, who routinely competes in 50K+ ultras, but had driven up from SF the day before the hike and spent the evening in Lone Pine. The rest of us had spent four days hiking and sleeping at altitudes ranging from 8K-13K feet. Other than the fact that we all made it, as far as I can tell there was no correlation between fitness level (at least as measured by marathon time) and how good we felt on the summit, and in fact the 2 non-runners appeared to be the least fazed by altitude of any of us.

One hypothesis that might explain this observation is that runners, especially long distance ones, get used to running dehydrated and with a calorie deficit, at least until they bonk, whereas non-runners eat and drink when they need to, which is what you want to do when at altitude.

WileyCoyote wrote:Teen boys are walking balls of hormones that just have to be pointed at something besides video games and girls from time to time!

Pointing boys at the mountains doesn't help. When in Boy Scouts, I chased girls up Longs Peak, through the Grand Canyon, around the Tetons, etc. We always managed to find girls! (Video games hadn't been invented yet, so we had to find girls.)

mconnell,

That's true. But if they don't see any girls half the battle is over!

While hiking White Mtn, I met several groups doing the same to acclimate to Whitney. Trail head parking and camping for White is at 11,700ft.

I forgot to mention that the Mt. Whitney main trail, is (IMO) much more pleasant to do as a 2+ day trip than as a single day hike. On a two day you can start from Whitney Portal after sunrise and enjoy the hike through Lone Pine Canyon, which is really pretty. You can then camp at Trail camp at 12K, where there's reliable water, and then get a sunrise start up to the summit and back. If you want a really leisurely trip you can camp again at Trail Camp, or just pack up and head out. If you're doing the trip as a day hike you need to be leaving Whitney Portal around 1AM, and hike by headlamp through the canyon. You will hit Trail camp around sunrise, as the two day hikers are just getting up.

If you don't like pooping in a bag, do it as a day hike. I prefer to sleep in Lone Pine in a motel the night before; but if you are worried about acclimatization, consider sleeping at Horseshoe Meadows (~10k') the night before.

Ask for conditions; but usually you can get water on the switchbacks and treat it with ClO2 so you don't have to carry a huge amount.

And if this hasn't already been mentioned, visit:
http://www.whitneyportalstore.com/forum/ubbthreads.php

MoapaPk wrote:Ask for conditions; but usually you can get water on the switchbacks. . . .

Yes. In summer, the highest reliable water on the Whitney trail is above Trail Camp, on switchback number 24 of 98, counting from the bottom. The trail crosses the drainage of a melting snowfield at this point.

MoapaPk wrote:Ask for conditions; but usually you can get water on the switchbacks and treat it with ClO2 so you don't have to carry a huge amount.

Definitely treat any water on the switchbacks. Last time I went that way (after sleeping at trail camp, so I was well rested and alert ) I noticed how often I smelled urine or worse.

JHH60,

Ursa urbanus species spoor on the trails??!!

Worse than that - on one trip down Lone Pine Canyon I saw a heap of trash dumped unceremoniously on the rocks between the trail and the creek. At least poop is eventually biodegradable.

I've pulled the water directly from below a snowbank -- but have used chlorine dioxide (or iodine in the old days).

Dingus Milktoast wrote:Water.... is life. Drink it. A lot - before during and after. At every rest stop, DRINK. Every single one. When you pee? DRINK! Every time. (not the pee, drink water or something).

Drink about a liter before you set foot on the trail. No, coffee is not a substitute, it dries you out.

Water. Its a simple recipe, H2O. Drink it.

DMT

What I learned a while back:

Drink when you're thirsty. Drink when you're not thirsty. and drink in between!

Go slow––that's the trick to getting up whitney, aside from the obvious task (and often neglected) of drinking lots of water.

I haven't ascended on the main trail since I was nine, but I've come down it many times (having come up the west side) and oddly enough, I've seen more young guys, than old, that look totally fit, having to turn around because they blasted up the trail and got somewhere in the switch-backs and suddenly, end of the game––time to turn around, while the old guys just plod on up.

Take advantage of your age (and that turtle-hare thing) and just go slow and if you're not already prone to altitude sickness and you're fit enough––you'll make it.

And obviously the same goes for the scouts, young and sturdy as they may be––nothing will bring them down like a dose of altitude sickness. (or half-cooked dehydrated peas, thanks dad)

WileyCoyote:

Did the the scout group get permits in the permit lottery? Without those, the trip is pretty much out of the question.


Reading through this thread, I get the feeling the scout troop might have some serious difficulty on the trip. You have leaders AND scouts without much hiking experience.

If they are going to do an overnight (or two) backpack, they need to make several pre-whitney overnighters just to shake out the bugs.

And they need to do several hikes with major distance and altitude before Whitney, too. That will show everyone which members are up to the grueling conditions Whitney will throw at them.

For altitude acclimatization, it would be best if the troop would head up and camp at Horseshoe Meadows at least two nights before the Whitney climb. They could day hike to the Cottonwood Lakes area (it is beautiful and easy), and the light hiking at 10 - 11k altitude would help with the acclimation.

If the troop and the leaders are not up to doing the preparatory hikes, the trip will definitely have some unexpected outcomes.

And finally, let me put in a plug for the Mt Whitney Hikers Association forums at http://www.whitneyzone.com/wz/ There are several members there who are involved with scouts and major hiking, so posting there might get you some helpful info.

And the site carries a huge amount of beneficial information for Mt Whitney beginners in the Feature Topics box, especially the Orientation notes for Whitney first timers and What can go wrong on Whitney topics.

Hope to hear how it all goes.


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