Does anyone have any information about the red algae that grows on snow in the Sierras in the summer? I heard years ago, not to eat pink snow, because it was explained to me that you would have the worst diarrhia you've ever had in your life. I have found it to be true. And that it seems to also give people "fish bowl head" and pneumonia...I would like to find out more about it, but can't seem to find much info so far...????

If you agitate it (slide on it, mash it up, etc...) it has a strong scent of watermelon.

tahoecedar wrote:Does anyone have any information about the red algae that grows on snow in the Sierras in the summer? I heard years ago, not to eat pink snow, because it was explained to me that you would have the worst diarrhia you've ever had in your life. I have found it to be true. And that it seems to also give people "fish bowl head" and pneumonia...I would like to find out more about it, but can't seem to find much info so far...????

Hey Cedar, "Redwic" has a great article on this phenomenon. Here's the article:

http://www.summitpost.org/exploring-the ... now/640549

enjoy

Thanks you guys! But now what I am wondering, is how do you get rid of the diarrhea that comes back every 2 weeks or so??? The organism seems to be traveling around with me...

tahoecedar wrote:Thanks you guys! But now what I am wondering, is how do you get rid of the diarrhea that comes back every 2 weeks or so??? The organism seems to be traveling around with me...

That's odd! Have you seen a doctor for that? It seems to me if you just get rid of it, it shouldn't be coming back.

I did several years ago when I first swallowed some pink snow while faceplanting on my teleskis. I hit the snow on my chest and my mouth filled up with surface snow. Before I could think, I accidently swallowed to gasp air. I don't need to describe the next morning, but my head felt like it had a fish bowl on it and several of the climbers at Cave rock had the same thing. There was a doctor in South Shore trying to treat them with antibiotics. I ended up with pneumonia and almost checking out. A few years later, I had to walk through a long patch of it in the snow. It seemed just breathing the spores gave me the same previous symptoms. And now this year, I ran out of water on a hike and had been reading about how there was no giardia in the Sierras and so thought the water was safe. On the way down, I noticed a gigantic pink patch right above where I had stopped to drink and now I have the same symptoms and it seems like it goes away, then comes back every couple of weeks. I know after a few months it will go away again, but if there was something to cure it, I was thinking I should find out...it seemed like only people who spend some time outside in the mountains would know...
The antibiotics only seemed to help the pneumonia, but not the "fish bowl head" or loose end...Really the doctors I have talked to about it in Tahoe are clueless on the subject. It might be that I am getting it being around the spores all of the time. I have been out in Desolation a lot this summer and always having to walk through pink snow on my way, until just this week.

I don't know if I would blame it all on the snow just yet- I am not very careful about running water (and especially not careful about running water near pink snow which I encounter at times on Shasta- Hidden Valley has lots of it). Have not had any issue to date.

Obviously the doctors do not seem to be much help (as is often the case). Try to avoid stress, take your mind off of it, and you may find something as simple as that to be somewhat helpful. I tend to believe that much of sickness is mental as much as it is physical.

mrchad9 wrote:If you agitate it (slide on it, mash it up, etc...) it has a strong scent of watermelon.

I've read a lot of books about the Sierra, so I don't remember where I read this, but I know I read somewhere that if you eat the red algae snow, it's harmless and will taste like watermelon. I've never been even remotely tempted to try this...

tahoecedar wrote:And now this year, I ran out of water on a hike and had been reading about how there was no giardia in the Sierras and so thought the water was safe.

It sucks what you've been going through. ...and the symptoms do sound like giardia. I read that the symptoms of giardia will last long after the infection is gone (wonderful, isn't it?). I can testify to that fact... I never had it diagnosed by a physician, but I'm pretty sure that that was what ailed me after drinking untreated water from the Merced River in LYV many years ago. My friend, who was new to Sierra hiking, also got the disease. We were day hiking Clouds Rest. I probably told him something like, "Yeah, it's safe. I drink this stuff all the time." He never hiked with me again.

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Hmmmmm....


...sounds like an 8 letter word that starts with an H and ends with an A


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I have thought before, that this creature came from space and enters our bodies through our drinking water, only to control our minds...but that was because I had been out for a few days alone and was probably lonely. And if it is my mind, then why do I keep getting it every couple of weeks, when I forget about it entirely until the gurgling starts...

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And that gurgling....is in the large bowel, yes?



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Steve1215 wrote:.


And that gurgling....is in the large bowel, yes?



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Well at least it sounds like it is only coming out the rear end.

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I try to stay away from the lemon snow.