Fixit and I were looking at the Postholer chart of snow levels in Colorado–appears it was a more or less average year up there on the Divide.\u00a0 And it isn’t just the snow that concerns us a bit (like “should we mail ourselves some snowshoes??”) We were also thinking about the ALTITUDE.\u00a0 Being 76 and 68 years old means that like it or not, we DO have to think about altitude and how it will affect us.<\/p>\n
When we did the PCT in 2005 and 2010, we happily hiked over Forester Pass and all the other high passes with nothing more than extra huffing and puffing.\u00a0 The altitude was not a problem.\u00a0 Then for the next 2 years, we climbed Whitney every year and Fixit did the whole John Muir Trail, again with nothing worse than huff ‘n puff.<\/p>\n
But in 2013, all that changed.\u00a0 We were doing our annual “climb Whitney\/do the JMT”.\u00a0 As usual, we parked our car at Horseshoe Meadows, hiked up to Cottonwood Pass, camped along the way, and the next day reached our “base camp” on the next “level” down from Guitar Lake.\u00a0 (The reason we use that location for base camp is that it’s outside the “no poop zone” where you are required to carry a wag bag.\u00a0 If you camp at Guitar Lake, you’d better not be digging catholes, or you are BAD!!)\u00a0 At dinnertime that night (no cook, of course–we don’t like bears visiting at night) we found we just were not hungry.\u00a0 Strange.\u00a0 Even stranger, all during that night, though I was lying down, I found my heart was pounding as if I’d just climbed a steep hill.\u00a0 It was weird and I worried a bit about “what is happening to me?”<\/p>\n
Next morning, dark and early at 5:00 am, we got up to eat breakfast and start the Whitney climb.\u00a0 To\u00a0our surprise, neither of us could face eating anything.\u00a0 I managed to force myself to eat a bit, but had to choke it down.\u00a0 We packed up camp, left our packs hidden in a group of stunted trees, and began heading up.\u00a0 Fixit of course was soon far ahead of me.\u00a0 The higher I went, the sicker I felt.\u00a0 Pretty soon I thought I was going to “lose my cookies” and had to stop and sit by the trail, fighting against the nausea.\u00a0 I knew then what was going on.\u00a0 “Altitude sickness!\u00a0 This totally sucks!”\u00a0 But I did not have a headache or any really scary symptoms so I was determined to push on, and I did, all the way to the top, but way more slowly due to having to stop every now and then from feeling so nauseous.\u00a0 I met Fixit as he came down, and he was looking a bit green, too, but determined to begin his journey to Yosemite Valley on the JMT.\u00a0 At the top of Whitney, I felt so sick that all I could do was sign the register, look around a bit, and head down.<\/p>\n
On the hike back to our car, though I slowly felt a bit better, I still basically couldn’t eat.\u00a0 But when I reached Cottonwood Pass and the turn down to Horseshoe Meadows, the magic began.\u00a0 As I went down, down the switchbacks, I felt better and better.\u00a0 When I reached the flatlands of the Meadows, the nausea was totally gone and I was hungry!\u00a0 What a wonderful feeling!\u00a0 And at the trailhead, TRAIL MAGIC!!\u00a0 A group of PCT thruhikers were there–they had just come from a zero in Lone Pine and were having a little picnic before heading back up to the PCT.\u00a0\u00a0 I yelled, “Hey, hikertrash!\u00a0 How’s it going?” and ended up having a beer and sharing trail tales with them.<\/p>\n
So….the CDT in Colorado spends a lot of time at altitude.\u00a0 Serious altitude.\u00a0 Fixit and I are wondering how it’s going to work out.\u00a0 We have solved our Mt. Whitney altitude problem by taking 3 extra days of just resting at around 11,000 plus feet, drinking lots of water and\u00a0eating lots of carbs\u00a0before continuing on.\u00a0 But on the CDT, what will we do?\u00a0 Our tentative plan at this point is to hang out at Cumbres Pass for at least a couple of days.\u00a0 That’s up pretty high, and we’d have the fun of watching trains go by.\u00a0\u00a0 I am a total sucker for trains–love them!\u00a0\u00a0 On the PCT, I was in heaven at Cajon Pass, with all the trains!\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Anyway, we will see how we feel.\u00a0 I’ve learned my own “early warning system” for altitude sickness–heart pounding even when I’m resting, and not feeling hungry\u00a0 when I should be hungry.<\/p>\n
Hopefully all will be OK, and if we really start feeling altitude sickness, the cure is so easy–just head downhill!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fixit and I were looking at the Postholer chart of snow levels in Colorado–appears it was a more or less average year up there on the Divide.\u00a0 And it isn’t just the snow that concerns us a bit (like “should we mail ourselves some snowshoes??”) We were also thinking about the ALTITUDE.\u00a0 Being 76 and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-preparation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions\/37"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}