Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board How do you compromise with your partner?

This seems like a funny post. But I've noticed many of my fellow backcountry enthusiasts have the same problem....we love adventure in the outdoors...but our partners don't! Well, I can't really say that my girlfriend doesn't like backpacking & climbing, but her allergies, sinuses, & migraine headaches make it very challenging for her to say the least. For instance on one of my hiking trips we went all the way to Owen's Peak from Walker Pass on the PCT. On the way back we were going to lose sight of the lower Sierras, so I told her "take your last look at beauty" & she said "THANK GOD!!!" I look back at that and tease her all the time. I've learned to be more considerate & when I go hiking with her I don't worry about reaching any summit or making it anywhere....just trying to make sure she enjoys our time. Do any of you guys go through the same problems? How do you compromise?

Fortunately my wife likes to run and hike.If she dosn't want to go on a particular hike have her stay in camp or at the lodge.Then go with a friend and meet her later.I guess that only works for dayhikes though.RR

All my friends tell me I'm nuts, 'What the hell would you want to do that for" I love adventure and the outdoors and drove by Whitney for years on my way to Yosrmite and Mammoth. All the friends i've hiked with over the years are all married and can't get the time to go, sad...Well I say to them, By...

Leo,
I met my wife in the jungle in Costa Rica while I was sailing around the world. So we both pretty much knew the other wanted something more to life then watching TV and reading People magazine. But she was not a climber as I was. I had done McKinley and other tall ones but that is not what she wanted. Or at least not at first. We started with short hikes, short climbs - always fun ones and if she did not want to go further or wanted to go down - no problem!! Wow - happy she went as far as she did. Little by little we went higher and stayed out longer. We are doing Whitney - main trail - this Sunday evening and she is really stoked. So my advice is too make it fun and compromise. Go for the long term - it really does get better !! We will be married 17 years next month. On our wedding day July 16 we will be backpacking Katmai (see tha bears in Alaska. Hope this helps and good luck !

Hi mountainhugger
Congrat on your dream-like family life, and also wish you guys a good Whitney hike on this Sunday.

Leo:

My problem is that my wife is a better hiker than me, she does Whitney in 9 hours flat with no running... she leaves me in the dust. I'm glad my ego is pretty minimal, so many guys would pitch a fit if their woman was better than them at any sporting thing. I'm happy she likes to hike and is good at it.

I guess you shouldn't hike with your girlfriend then, based on what you said. Go alone or take someone else with whom you're compatible with in hiking. I don't know how you do it, if I wasn't compatible with someone while hiking or bakpacking, I wouldn't go with them again, it's too much of a hassle. Or, try to compromise with her, but that's always dicey. Good luck in any case.

mountainhugger-
Thanks. Your story sounds like some romance novel (not like I've ever read any - he he)...finding your wife in the jungles of Costa Rica. Thanks for the input. My girlfriend was just telling me yesterday how she has longed to go out for another adventure. I normally do 2/3rds of my hikes & climbs by myself or with my buddies or my sister. The other 1/3 my girlfriend comes along. You're right...the times she has had the most fun is when we've taken it slow & steady. My biggest mistake was the first time I took her hiking. We went up Mt. Baldy via the Bear Flat Trail in SoCal. The elevation gain was 6,000ft in just 6 miles! Man, I was a bonehead! Not the best way to introduce someone to the wilderness. I can't help but laugh thinking of the experience. But now my girlfriend is loving the wilderness more & more.

Grand Canyon Hiker-
He he, it's always good to bring our egos back to earth (or better said, have them brought down to earth)! Ya, at first it was tough to bring my girlfriend along because my goal was to make it farther & higher...her goal was to just enjoy the outdoors with me. Now if I want to go farther & higher I normally wont bring her along....but every other week or so she will come along & we take it easy. It's not that she doesn't like the outdoors, but physically she is limited at times because she gets an unusual amount of migraine headeaches & sinus infections.

hey mountainhugger

darn, did you describe my wife to a "T." you won't find her out with the coyotes and marmots, but she supports my outdoors interest so I consider myself lucky.

however, if you ever do need THE LATEST from Entertainment Tonight/Access Hollywood/Extra, and in People magazine, just let me know and i'll have her fill you in.

norj (whitney jul 28 - 30)

Leo - My wife gets migraines after she busts her butt beating me in races, or hiking. She has had great success with a fairly new medication called Zomig. Now, we never go anywhere without it. Might be worth checking out, it certainly has helped her.

Leo,
A Romance novel? Cool !!
I wrote up my sailing trip for a Valentine on-line contest once but never heard anything. So as I already have your e-mail address (from the photos you posted) I will forward the Word.doc to you. Title is "An Alaskan Goes Looking for Love".
Hope you enjoy it.

Man!!! I gotta learn some tips from you! That story would make any woman's heart melt. If you don't mind I'm gonna read it to my girlfriend. Boy, I'm sure you're glad that those two monkeys at the beach weren't really monkeys. I'm sure it feels great to be one of those that jelously guards his woman in Alaska! I can't believe you didn't win that contest.

msmith
-thanks. I will look into that. Is that an over the counter drug?

She is very understanding of my mountain habit ( or is that an addiction?). She will go along now and then, but for the most part her attitude is along the lines of "if you die up there, at least you'll be happy" and there are far worse things I could be hooked on.

One compromise is to take short, relatively easy hikes/camping trips with her and to save the monster hikes/major excursions for when she does not go.

So, the flip side is that I like to hike and backpack, and my husband doesn't. He has no interest in hiking, backpacking, or even camping, so I go with my family, friends, or solo. He's not exactly the most supportive about my trips (especially when I go solo) but I try to balance it by doing special things with him that he enjoys on opposite weekends. I don't get up to the mountains as often as I would like - that's where the compromise lies.

Some years I'm gone longer than others - last year I was gone for 4 weeks (my JMT trip). He wasn't thrilled about it, but he understood that it was something I've looked forward to doing for years (plus he knows that I'm pretty determined, so didn't bother trying to argue).

Leo- No, it is RX. She'll have to see a doc. Another recent testimonial - she had good results with it Saturday, after Alta Peak.

Trip report: After climbing for almost 10 hours and with the hut in plain view I "compromised" with my partner. After Trail Crest I could tell something was going on as she was not steady on her feet and complained of nausea and dizziness - classic symptoms of HAS. Only another half hour or so and we could have touched the summit rock. But reaching the summit is always only an "option". Getting down is not. Leaving two other members of my team to continue onward I took my wife back down the hill. Going over the snow berm at Trail Crest and negotiating the many icy spots on the switchbacks with someone who is having a very difficult time walking was extremely nerve wracking. She did not start to feel better and act stronger until she was lying down in a shaded spot at Trail Camp (we were to wait at TC for the other two in my party). So my partner and I did not reach the "very, very Top!" But a day later she said that she feels that she can really trust me to take care of her and lo and behold she wants to climb Whitney again!! Wow - like I said in an earlier post I am happy she went that far. We have already reached our summit together.

mountainhugger, that's very cool of you. i wonder how i'd be if that were me and my husband with the symptoms. i've thought about it a lot. we've talked about me just finishing, but if it were that bad that he wasn't coordinated or something, i know i wouldn't finish. with my husband, it's hard to tell, though, because we've started hikes at 8k and he said he was short of breathe or dizzy and stuff within the 1st 2 minutes. if he didn't know about AMS i don't think he would've said or thought that. for him, i think a lot of it really is in his head, so it'll be hard to tell the difference between real life threatening symptoms or what's in his head.

for myself, i think i'd push myself even farther past the symptoms. 1/2 hr is so close!!! In the long run, though, your marriage is stronger and u did what was right and will never regret it. i'll certainly keep your story in mind if it comes to that-and, ofcourse, I'll bring my AMS score sheet!
I think he and i both meet the moderate level where u're not supposed to climb, anymore at 10k at it is! -headache, loss of appetite, headache that remains after aspirin. that's a 4 on the score. sounds like her symptoms were pretty severe. i'll be keeping an eye out. a lot of times the person with the symptoms doesn't realize they have them and that can be dangerous.

thanks for your encouragement!

Mountainhugger,
Congrats on your climb. You definitely made the right choice. Putting ones own desires aside to help someone is always a hard thing to do. But it seems like you had no trouble making the decision to help your wife out. I hope she is feeling better. You guys reached the summit in my book.
-Leo

I'll second that, Leo. I had to turn around at Trail Camp on a day hike a few years ago when my son started showing AMS symptons. The mountain was still there the next time we tried (and summitted).

But Kim, I know what you mean about questioning whether it was in your partner's head or if he truly was getting sick - I knew my son was getting really tired and didn't have his heart in it anymore, but I just couldn't take that chance.

Bravo, mountainhugger!!

Hye Kim - I just wanted to mention that I, too, spend the first 10/15 minutes adjusting to the altitude any time I'm above 8000 feet - whether I acclimate or not. So, like your husband, I experience shortness of breath, a rapid heart rate, and all of that fun stuff, until my body settles into the routine and moves forward. Is it mental? Oh, I'd say so. I'm starting off on something that I know if going to require a lot of effort and cause me pain. My rational self spends that 15 minutes calling me a fool. Fortunately my irrational self knows that a bit of effort and a little pain are definitely worthy sacrifices to make. And this is from someone who LOVES to do this kind of thing. My first 14'er was Mount Princeton in Colorado, and it was my first time above 11,000 feet. I had talked myself into quite a tizzy and was very doubtful about my ability to summit, when an incredible view caught my attention and made me forget that I was "dying". So, you might want to attempt to distract your husband and get his mind on something other than the lower oxygen content and the fact that he's about to embark on an epic journey. I'll bet once he's into it, he'll settle down and enjoy that journey. It is quite an accomplishment.