If you don’t start your birthday by puking in public you are just not having a good time. Right? That may be what I told myself as I froze my ass off at the top of a fourteen-hundred-foot mountain yesterday. Maybe I was just trying to distract myself from the biting wind chill in my workout skirt and a tank top; summertime clothing. It was August 20th, my forty-fourth birthday and it was not feeling like summertime on the Mt Whitney Trail. It was feeling like a chilly autumn day at over 14,000 feet. Why was I at least not wearing a beanie? I had been on the Mt Whitney Trail since three thirty a.m. and oh yeah, I had just realized my skirt had been on backwards all day.
Well, that is what happens when you get dressed for a twenty-four-mile hike in the dark of your motorhome because you are trying not to wake everyone else in the camper up at such an un-Godly hour. As I shivered uncontrollably at the summit of the tallest mountain in the continental United States, I just prayed, dear Lord, let me hike out of here. AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness has interrupted many a day hikers ultimate outdoor adventure as they trek up the Mt Whitney Trail. I never expected it to happen to me. I’m not going to say I’m an expert on hiking the Mt Whitney Trail but I happen to be friends with one! My friend Debbie has now summited Mt Whitney over thirty-seven times! I personally have been on the Mt Whitney Trail ten times over the years. Sometimes our summit days were disrupted by wildfires or too much snow on the trail. This would be the fourth time I would successfully summit Mt Whitney, eventually and with a raging case of AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness) I had been training with my boyfriend for a fun and successful day on the Mt Whitney Trail for months. We trained so hard and we planned for all kinds of different scenarios. We thought we were fit, healthy and ready to summit, no problem.
But that’s not how my day on the Mt Whitney Trail began. At two a.m. as I chugged my coffee in the motorhome and prayed I woul
d only have to use a wag bag (A backpacker’s portable toilet, yea) one time (It was such a well-laid plan) I woke up more refreshed than I ever have any of the other ten times I have set foot on the Mt Whitney Trail. Even before I sipped on a cup of Joe, I felt awake and refreshed. I felt at the peak of health and as fit as I could be to climb this Bitch of a mountain, again, at forty-four years old.
Let’s do this
My boyfriend’s daughter dropped me at the trailhead at just after three a.m. I was shocked there was hardly anyone else on the Mt Whitney Trail at this hour. Three a.m. seems to be a pretty typical time of the early morning for people to start up the trail. As I made my way up the trail in the dark, the path ahead lit only by a vivid Blue Moon and my headlamp, I just couldn’t believe there was no one on the trail.
We had trekked up the Mt Whitney Trail as just a little practice hike the morning bef
ore and also had seen hardly any day hikers. I had to ponder, is hiking season done for the season on the Mt Whitney Trail now that the schools and colleges are back in session? Or can nobody afford a Mt Whitney vacation in Joe Biden’s America? With the economy being such a dumpster fire, who can afford to take a vacation even if my vacation includes hiking up a mountain in the dark and pooping in a bag. These are all the thoughts running through my head as I trekked up the trail in the silent night under Orion’s Belt.
I foraged for wild Elderberries trailside in the dark as the moonlight led me up the trail. The mountain was silent in the early dawn as I made my way past Lodgepole Pines covered in bear claw marks. I could see old bedrock Native American relics in the stones on the sides left over from the Shoshone tribes, one of the four Native American tribes that roamed this area for centuries.
As I entered the Mt Whitney Zone marmots screamed at me in the dark “Don’t leave you wag bag!” I know, local marmots, my favorite of all the rodents. Calm down, I told the wild pika as they flit across the Mt Whitney Trail ahead of me.
Happy birthday to me
My boyfriend and I had plans to summit Mt Whitney on August 20th, my 44th birthday. I know, I know, most people don’t plan to hike for twelve hours to celebrate their birthdays but I’m a wanderlust-filled weirdo! The plan was for me to start at least two hours before him, because well I’m a bit slower than I was ten years ago trekking this monster of a trail!
This was my 10th time on the trail and my 4th (Just barely) successful summit. We trained so hard for this hike. We checked the weather religiously before the big hike. We planned out the perfect combination of trail snacks and how many liters of water to carry (Five liters for me, plus one liter of Chia seed water with electrolytes) My hike started just after three a.m. like a dream under that magnificent Blue Moon. Orion’s Belt led the way and the stars and the moon-lit mountain were magnificent.
The photos I took were stunning. I snacked on a few wild Elderberries along with my favorite almond butter snack. I shoved a few wild currants in my mouth in the dark as I powered up the trail. I enjoyed nature’s version of a breakfast PB and J and I felt healthy and as fit as I could feel for this hike being that I was now 44 years old. Life was good.
Until Trail Crest.
It got cold. So cold and windy. We think the wind gusts must have been forty-five miles per hour. The NOAA did not predict this. We should have packed more winter clothing but we had big plans to trail run back down to the Whitney Portal so we packed light.
The morning before on my little practice hike two miles up the Mt Whitney Trail at 9 a.m. the day before and I was sweating and hot. The early morning I began my ascent up the mountain, I was literally in a workout skirt and tank top ten minutes into my hike at 3:30 in the morning. I was not expecting a freezing cold wind at Trail Crest in late August! The last time I had been on the mountain was four years prior, on the same date and we summited in T-shirts and shorts.
Past Trail Crest the wind was intense and it got cold. So cold. I decided to just power up that last two point eight miles to the summit. I had Summit Fever. Trust me, you do not want Summit Fever. I stopped eating my snacky-snacks. I stopped drinking water and I got super nauseous the rest of the way up the mountain. Less than a mile past Trail Crest I puk
ed on the side of the mountain. I had AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness) and I had it bad.
That damned Summit Fever had me rushing up the mountain, so desperate to be done with the hike and out of the unpredicted severe cold. I could see my boyfriend up the trail well ahead of me. At this point, I was stopping to sit on rocks every quarter mile.
The Summit Fever Shit Show
Don’t be like me. Are you planning to summit Mt Whitney this season? Summit Fever is a sure recipe for coming down with that dreaded altitude sickness that every hiker worries about!
If you are summiting the Mt Whitney Trail this hiker’s season, make sure you take it slow that last section past Trail Crest. It is, in my opinion, the most gorgeous part of the hike! The views overlooking Sequoia National Par are just stunning! Enjoy the beauty of the mountains above Trail Crest. Drink your water. Keep fuel
ing your body.
I literally took one photo at the top of the Mt Whitney Trail. I did not enjoy the summit at all. I felt nauseous all the way back down past Consultation Lake. After all the planning, all the training we did and all the experiences we have had over the years on the Mt Whitney Trail, I totally dropped the ball the last few miles of the adventure.
We had an amazing day on the mountain but anyone going up this week, the last in August should be prepared for this incredibly cold for late summer weather. We are on our way to Mammoth Lakes now for more high Sierra shenanigans and other is actually snow forecasted for tonight? What is going on in this world? Well, I guess if Comrade Kamala can be president, then I guess it can also snow in August in Mammoth Lakes!
Mt Whitney or bust!
Are you headed up the Mt Whi
tney Trail this coming week? Bring warmer gear than you would expect to need. We barely saw any day hikers on this day (Weird) All the backpackers were dressed appropriately but obviously they were carrying a lot more gear than we were. All my previous hikes up Mt Whitney we dressed appropriately. Just a lesson that NOAA may forecast the weather but that is just a guideline; You never really know on the Mt Whitney Trail!
One thing about the Mt Whitney Trail, she always throws a curve ball at ya!
