Dr. Wagner sent me the following preliminary data:
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All of the data from the Whitney 2006 data collection is entered,
and I ran some basic descriptive stats. It might be some time
before we get any logistical regression data. The earliest that
Jamison can work on it is the end of October, and I'm trying to
finish up writing and/or responding to reviewer comments on other
manuscripts now. With some stat tutoring from the Psych Dept stat
wizards, I might be able to run the logistical stuff myself, but
this will probably take a little while for me to learn it.
Anyway, here is some stuff that might be of interest (or not,
hahahaha)...
1122 total subjects
236 (21%) made an ascent from the west (or a route that did not
start from Whitney Portal). The ascent times varied widely in this
group (30 h to 840 hr) with an average ascent time of 242.6 hours
(or 10 days). As might be expected, there wasn't much AMS on the
way to the summit with this group (17.8%).
Of the 886 (79%) that attempted Mt. Whitney from the east (Whitney
Portal), 722 (81.5%) were successful at reaching the summit.
However, 42.6% met the criteria for AMS (higher than the 33% we saw
on the summit in 2004), and more than half of all attempting the
summit from the east (57.1%) reported a high-altitude headache (3%
had a headache rating of "3" -- severe or incapacitating). Thus,
some of our suspicions that there would be a high summit rate but
also a high AMS rate seem true (many people just ignore the symptoms
and continue on to reach the summit). 63% were taking some type of
medication (analgesic, diamox/ginko, or combination) for the ascent;
this was almost identical to the percentage of summiteers taking
meds from the 2004 data collection.
The average age of east side climbers was 37.6y with a big range
(8-74y), and 24% were female (very similar to the 26% that we
reported on the summit in 2004), and 5.8% were smokers (identical to
what we found in 2004 summiteers). Only 4.4% lived at an altitude >
1500 m. 27.5% had reached the summit of Whitney in the past. As
might be expected, the sample was leaner than the US average; BMI =
23.9.
Of those who did not summit, 24.8% gave AMS as a reason, 22.4%
stated fatigue, 21.7 said other (injury, lost, etc.), 21.1% said
partner failure, and 9.9% weather. Remember that the high success
rate (and low weather-related failure rate) was due to the fact that
we had "ideal" weather conditions for the entire data collection
period.
Ok, that's the basic stuff; There are some things that still need to
be worked out. For example, if you look at the minimum ascent time,
it is only 30 minutes (not humanly possible). But closer inspection
of the data should show that ascent time is for a person who did not
go very far up the hill (not a summit time).
Dale Wagner, Ph.D.
Assist. Prof., HPER
Utah State University
Logan, UT 84322
