Whitney

Thursday night after work Jeremy and I hit the road and headed to Mt Whitney. We got in late, set up a tent at 10,000 ft and got a few hours of sleep to start the acclimation to altitude. The next morning we got up and headed to the ranger station. Normally to hike up the Whitney trail you have a put in a request in February. But by 11 am enough people had canceled that we were able to get two permits.

Soon after getting our permits and bear boxes and wag bags (oh, there are some smelly stories to be told about the wag bags, but I'll skip those on the blog). We started off at Whitney portal at about 8,300 ft and hiked our way up to our first camp site at 10,000 ft. The walk up was tiring, but I assumed it was the minimal sleep the previous night. That night I had to force myself to finish my dinner - if you know me, that should strike you as a very strange statement. The next day I really struggled to make it up to the next campsite at 12,000 feet. At times I had to stop and lean against the mountain because I was feeling light headed. Once we got to camp I started feeling nauseated. So I rested for the rest of the day. The next day I took things slow getting up and packed up while Jeremy headed up to the summit. The whole walk up and time at camp I wasn't feeling great physically and was in a terrible mood.

Once I got packed up I started heading down the mountain. Around 9,500 feet I was getting low on water so I found a place to rest while I waited for Jeremy. Jeremy flew down the mountain so I was only resting for about an hour. By time he got there I was breathing well, had my appetite back and most surprisingly was in a pretty good mood. Since after 3 days I wasn't able to acclimate to 12,000 feet I think I'll be setting my sights on lower altitude adventures. While it is possible that if I wanted to I could push through the physical effects, the bad mood kind of ruins the point.

On one hand that was a bit of a downer, but on the other hand I wanted to know how I would do at altitude and now I know.