So here's the skinny on Mt. Whitney: it's f'ing hard to summit in one day. No surprise there, right? And we even had perfect weather (aside from the freezing, gusty winds). A twenty two mile round trip hike with a 6,000' gain in altitude from the trail head, coupled with the fact that we started at sea level only the day before-- I'd say, making it to the summit and back again is a pretty big deal. A deal I didn't realize was that big until I was smack dab in the middle of it. Literally. At the summit, 14,500 feet up and only halfway finished--that's exactly how it felt. My body was halfway finished. Halfway between being and not being. I'm sure that's overly dramatic, but it feels dramatic when you need to breathe and every inhale is harder and smaller than the one before it.
So in case I haven't made myself clear, my friend and I got altitude sickness. But to get a sense of the whole adventure, let's start at the beginning...
Day before "The Hike": we visited the trailhead and wandered around at 8,360 feet for about an hour. Not nearly enough to do any sort of acclimating, but it gave us a good chance to study the map below and watch a number of people stumbling off the trail with severe nausea and headaches from altitude sickness and dehydration.
If you can see it above, Trail Camp is at 12,000'. This is where most people, the smart ones, camp overnight to give their bodies a chance to acclimate to the altitude. My friend Matt, an avid mountaineer, told me that anything above 12,000' is considered the "Death Zone" because the atmosphere is so thin "anything can happen." It was comforting to know that we'd be wandering around for a good 10 miles in said "Death Zone." (Not.)
We began our adventure at 2:30am on Sunday. Each of our 30lb day-packs were crammed tight with a gallon of water, first aid kit, water filtration supplies, extra warm clothing, emergency gear for an overnight stay (if necessary), and lots of food, namely: Corn Nuts, 2 bananas, 2 PB&Js, 5 Gu packets, ginger cookies, trail mix (only appropriate), and granola bars. (Sidebar: all of this food tasted like shit once we needed them. I mean serious s.h.i.t.) After talking to many experienced Whitney Day-Hikers, we learned that staying hydrated and eating--especially when that's the last thing you feel like doing--is the only way to keep altitude sickness at bay. I do believe following those orders kept us feeling better than many of the people we saw along the way attempting to do the same climb. (Though the argument could probably be made that we looked and felt exactly the same as the other "sickies" too...there's really no way of telling because the brain is a bit... floaty...for a few hours up there.)
So, back to 2:30am with our gear and headlamps. Pitch Black. Scared. That's about all I remember about hiking in the dark. Scared. Scared to look too far ahead on the trail, for fear of what might be looking back. Scared of looking off the sides of the trail, for fear of what might be looking back. And scared for what weather the rising sun would bring. Weather is a crazy thing on mountains.
We survived those 4 hours of darkness by saying loudly "Hey yoou guuuuuys" (from "Goonies") to warn bears and cougars of our approach and by playing "Would You Rather" between sharp intakes of breath. I knew, it would be a long day when we were struggling for breath before the sun even came up all the way. At 6:30 we were greeted with the red mountain peaks you see below and the marmots who began crawling out from the moonish rocks to yell at us for stomping around and gasping for air...they were probably like, "Every f'ing morning these pervs wake us up with their heavy breathing...can't a rock pig just sleep in already?"
So, we're going to skip ahead 3 hours to The Switchbacks. This is where the magic happens. The bad, dark, evil, cold, cold, cold magic. In a little over an hour, we crawled from 12,000 to 13,700 feet. We moved from feeling constantly winded to feeling constantly winded and barfy and headachy and like the mountain and gravity combined were pulling our day packs backward in an attempt to drag us back down to the bottom. The following video is us only halfway up the switchbacks.
Sorry if the video doesn't work...Never uploaded one before. It wasn't that great anyway.
For the next hour, walking became stumbling. Stumbling became shuffling. And sentences turned into, "Word (breath) Word (breath) Word (breath)," and there was still two more miles to the summit with 1,000 more feet to climb.
We did eventually make it and I can only say that water, food and years of long distance running is what made it possible. My thighs burned the way they burn at mile 20 of a marathon. My lungs ached like they do after 10 sets of strides. So, thankfully, I was used to these feelings. They were like old, comforting friends who were there to remind me that I'm still alive and doing my job: moving forward. And I pulled the old mantra out of the daypack as well, "I feel good, I am strong." And I was. We both were.
The Summit ShackTo conclude, I'd just like to say that I by no means now consider myself a "mountaineer" or claim to understand anything about the mysteries of the mountain. But I do know, that if--
when-- I climb Whitney again, (because I already miss it) these are the changes I will make:
1. I will carry less water and refill more from the lakes and streams.
2. I will camp overnight at Trail Camp to acclimate and enjoy the sunrise
sans barfy-feeling.
3. I will sign the visitor's book at the summit shack myself, instead of making my friend do it for the both of us.
4. (In the words of Bryson), "I [will] shit in the woods."
5. I will make sure my pants are tight enough at the waste so that I don't have to hike them back up over my ass-crack every five minutes. Oh the chaffing.
That's that. Check.
The Summit:
This one probably didn't work either. But, it sucked too.
If the videos didn't work, and you want to see either of them, shoot me an email and...
Keep on truckin'
