The best way to prevent altitude sickness when mountaineering over 10,000 feet is to drink lots of water so as not to get dehydrated and to hike slowly, letting your body adjust to the high elevation.
I drank more water in one day on Thursday than I have ever consumed before in one day in my life.
One of the guys with us drank six liters of water in a sixteen hour time period.
The problem with drinking water none stop on the hike up the mountain was that all of us were nearly out of water on the way down.
Yet even with all those liters of water that we consumed, every one in our group besides me got altitude sickness.
There symptoms ranged from pins and needles in hands and feet, legs completely numb, hands turning blue, to my good friend who had to stop the hike completely at Trail Crest. She had a terrible head ache and could barely walk.
I did not get altitude sickness but my brain was not working clearly at 14,400 feet, just nearly a mile below the summit. I had drunk about three liters of water on the way up and I had to stop to pee nearly every half hour.
It sucked. I could have summited in eight hours, instead of nine if I just had a bigger bladder.
What really was a pain in the ass was after we crossed into Sequoia National Park at Trail Crest we were up on a red rocky ledge of the mountain and there was no where to hide.
I mean no where.
There were two people in our group about a mile behind me, slowly slugging there way up the mountainside and I tried to discreetly pee on the side of the trail, but one of the guys in our group came around the corner at just the right instant and definitely saw me.
Not only was that slightly em-bare-ass-ing but than he got ahead of me on the trail!
Because of this little urine situation I was the second person to summit the mountain and not the first!
I still finished the hike up in nine hours and five minutes, but I am just so annoyed with myself that I was barely number two! ( For more about Number Two, or that horrible thing that happened when I was descending the mountain please read How to Properly Use a Wag Bag)
I drank more water in one day on Thursday than I have ever consumed before in one day in my life.
One of the guys with us drank six liters of water in a sixteen hour time period.
The problem with drinking water none stop on the hike up the mountain was that all of us were nearly out of water on the way down.
Yet even with all those liters of water that we consumed, every one in our group besides me got altitude sickness.
There symptoms ranged from pins and needles in hands and feet, legs completely numb, hands turning blue, to my good friend who had to stop the hike completely at Trail Crest. She had a terrible head ache and could barely walk.
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| We are heading up to that peak! |
It sucked. I could have summited in eight hours, instead of nine if I just had a bigger bladder.
What really was a pain in the ass was after we crossed into Sequoia National Park at Trail Crest we were up on a red rocky ledge of the mountain and there was no where to hide.
I mean no where.
There were two people in our group about a mile behind me, slowly slugging there way up the mountainside and I tried to discreetly pee on the side of the trail, but one of the guys in our group came around the corner at just the right instant and definitely saw me.
Not only was that slightly em-bare-ass-ing but than he got ahead of me on the trail!
Because of this little urine situation I was the second person to summit the mountain and not the first!
I still finished the hike up in nine hours and five minutes, but I am just so annoyed with myself that I was barely number two! ( For more about Number Two, or that horrible thing that happened when I was descending the mountain please read How to Properly Use a Wag Bag)