"the previous two days we slept at 5,000 ft & 10,000 ft"

Which indicates to me that they drove from Sea Level (The Bay Area) on Friday eve to the T/H PL @ 5K, slept a couple of hours and then climbed to 10K the following day, Sat and then were to summit on Sunday. All this with 24 hours, plus or minus a couple of hours after leaving Sea Level.

Many do just this when doing Whitney in a day. They leave So Cal Friday after work, drive 4-6 hours to Whitney Portal (8K) sleep 3-5 hours at best and then head on up to do Whitney, 14,946. All well within 24 hours of leaving Sea Level.

I am assuming that this is the same basic schedule/scenario that Mark and Tom followed.

MikeTX wrote:cheers to neophat48 for starting a completely useless but highly entertaining thread.

Absolutely NOTHING useless about it at all Mike from TX.

Many learning points here for those that plan on heading up to altitude and what can in fact happen if the proper pre climb protocols are not followed correctly.

Many important lessons can be learned Mike from TX, if people would only stop taking things on a personal level and start looking at things objectively in the contexts of this particular event/incident which ultimately led to a young mans death due to HACE.

By your admission in the new Article, Reflections and Lessons from Mt. Shasta., you all went from Sea Level to 10k in less than 24 hours.

True?

Isn't that pretty normal though? How long to most people living in coastal California (or Oregon, Washington, etc.) usually take to go up to 10,000 feet?

Most people do peaks like Hood on a weekend or Rainier in 3 days (or two). Isn't the same true of Shasta?

How about weekend skiers from the coast?

FAA requires that airline cabins are pressurized to 8000 feet so 10,000 doesn't seem unusually high, though problems can still occur in some people. Getting to the nearest IMAX Theater or Toys R Us from here requires driving to over 11K.

Acclimatization always helps and is recommended, but going sea level to 10K isn't unusual and problems are pretty rare. Apparently, about 1% of people ascending quickly to 10K are susceptible to HAPE:

http://www.altitude.org/altitude_sickness.php#HACE

So what do y'all think about global warming, Muslims, gun control, gay marriage, and illegal immigration?

Scott wrote:Acclimatization always helps and is recommended, but going sea level to 10K isn't unusual and problems are pretty rare.

Wanna bet?

78 recorded AMS related helo evacs last season alone from the Whitney Region.

My Client died at 10.2K from the most rapid onset of HAPE on record, 3.7 hours from T/H to being pronounced after I gave him CPR for 1.2 hours on our way to descending back to the P/L.

My point, people these days are not taking the acclimatization protocol serious these days. There are many recorded AMS related SAR evolutions here alone in the Eastern Sierra that are never in the media.

Sea Level to 14+K in less than 24 hours.... c'mon!

I usually climb 14ers the day after driving in from low (1000-ish) elevations. Feel fine. Different people probably react differently though, and Mike's point about stress is interesting

Bob Sihler wrote:So what do y'all think about global warming, Muslims, gun control, gay marriage, and illegal immigration?

Where's Enjar when we need him?

dskoon wrote:

Bob Sihler wrote:So what do y'all think about global warming, Muslims, gun control, gay marriage, and illegal immigration?

Where's Enjar when we need him?

Probably banned.

Bob Sihler wrote:So what do y'all think about global warming, Muslims, gun control, gay marriage, and illegal immigration?

Global Warming- I love it, I sell ice cream. Muslims.......uuhhmm leave that one alone. Gun Control--- we have a constitution, Gay Marriage, against, Illegal im-- means illegal!!

I've stayed out of this shitfight because I greatly admire PellucidWombat's restrained reaction and articulation noted above, and I respect the terrible situation he is in of losing a friend. However I'm with Raving Rick Poedtke on this one, re: alti gain. Just because a lot of people do something and don't die like flies does not make it OK, or right. People get away with stupid shit all the time, which is what makes it so dangerous. Too many people 'just make it', or wonder why they are so slow, or get sick, or get into trouble, or are too weak to help others, or whatever. You see it time and time again on Aconcagua, Vinson, Denali, Rainier etc etc. People trying to make medicine and mountains conform to their holiday schedule - be it a weekend in CA or Gasherbrum II.

Scott wrote:

... but going sea level to 10K isn't unusual and problems are pretty rare.

Not unusual in the US, but stupid nonetheless. Going that quickly to 3300m is pretty much against convention in most mountain areas of the world. When you fly into LaPaz at c.3500m people are usually advised to spend a couple of days resting before climbing anything. When you trek to Everest BC you take a couple of days to walk to Namche at this height, then most take a rest day to acclimatise before going higher. The only thing that saves more people from not dying in the western USA is that they can quickly drive down again. Most of the "I went straight to 10K and felt fine" examples on here are not proof of you being OK. They are proof you got down before your body took the full hit.

Apparently, about 1% of people ascending quickly to 10K are susceptible to HAPE:

http://www.altitude.org/altitude_sickness.php#HACE

Actually that link mentions HACE, not HAPE, but it is particularly badly worded - dangerously so. What does 'apparently' mean? How fast is 'quickly'? How do they define HACE? They note it is a 'severe' form of AMS. But AMS can impede you severely - dangerously - before it gets to full-blown cerebral edema. What are their figures based on? Medically diagnosed cases of HACE? How did they do that? The truth is that ALL people (except maybe Sherpas etc) are "susceptible" to HACE if they ascend to 10K quickly. Whether they get it or not depends on various other things. Whether it kills them or not depends on even more things - all unsaid in this article. The loose and unscientific wording of that site, on a serious medical subject, leads me to not trust a word it says - whomever is behind it.

Useless post removed, and there are no useless posts on this thread.

twoshuzz wrote:

He and I were both stronger and felt better ascending the Whitney Glacier Saturday than we had Friday when we climbed the Bolam Galcier to ca 14,000 ft.

http://www.summitpost.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=52497&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=195

My bad.. they drove up on Thursday eve? Started climbing on Friday to 10K?

Still appears to be within 24-30 hours from leaving Sea Level to 10K which is my point...proper safe acclimatization protocols not being adhered to by many in this day of getting summits done in a weekend.

A very valid point that was brought up by ericwillhite in his reply...

"3) You chose to camp near the summit above 14,000 feet without proper acclimatization."


Mark...

The Chief wrote:Many important lessons can be learned Mike from TX, if people would only stop taking things on a personal level and start looking at things objectively in the contexts of this particular event/incident which ultimately led to a young mans death due to HACE.

No doubt, but there is a right way to approach the issue, like pretty much everyone is doing here, and a way to do it that is not actually helpful, which is what Eric did. Could be hard to for some to look at it objectively, and not take it personally, with his poor approach. Its clear even he thought it was poor, having deleted his initial comment.

twoshuzz wrote:Also, though I've never climbied Whitney, it is my understanding it stands at 14,505 ft ASL, not 14,946.

Why do folks criticize typos and spelling? This isn't a major news publication.

BTW- I've never seen a tread with so many edited posts, seems like every other one.

Bob Sihler wrote:So what do y'all think about global warming, Muslims, gun control, gay marriage, and illegal immigration?

Palin!!! What about Palin!!!

mrchad9 wrote:BTW- I've never seen a tread with so many edited posts, seems like every other one.

You misspelt 'thread'.

Damien Gildea wrote:

mrchad9 wrote:BTW- I've never seen a tread with so many edited posts, seems like every other one.

You misspelt 'thread'.

haha! Well, I'm not going to edit it!