Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Hydration ?

I see a lot of talk about loading up on water the night before and during the hike to the summit. Does loading up on Gatorade the night before count as much towards preventing altitude sickness as water does?

Loading up on any fluids the night before will just make you have to get up in the middle of the night. If your kidneys work as they should, they'll merely keep things in balance. Doesn't mean you should go to bed thirsty, either...then you start out with a deficit the next morning.

You need to replenish as you lose...your body doesn't have enough of a resevoir to help that much.

Also, using only Gatorade (or your favorite substitute) is asking for an upset stomach. You're better off drinking mostly plain water and supplementing with an electrolyte-replacement drink intermittently. Generally, I'd drink no more than one liter of Gatorade per three to four liters of plain water that I drink.

THe best thing to do to keep your body well hydrated is to start drinking the amount of water that you will consume while hiking two weeks before your actual departure. I think many people underestimate the amount of water that they will consume while hiking.

As for Gatorade, it does a very poor job at replenishing your electrolyte stores as it is made mostly from sugar and high fructose corn syrup. That's why it tastes so good. Something like Cytomax is much more efficient at replenishing your system. I echo what Alan said, don't take the stuff full strength unless you know your body can handle it. I usually take half the recommended amount and it does me just fine. You do want to see how your body handles these types of drinks before you actually do your hike. Different bodies react differently to different amounts.

I never hike without Gookinaid. gookinaid.com for more info.

Just wanted to point out that Gatorade is better than most other store-bought replacement drinks. It is definitely NOT made of high-fructose corn syrup - which is what separates them a bit from the other mainstream competitors. HFCS is the worst thing ever introduced to the human food supply and is believed to play a major part in our obesity problem. Gatorade isn't as good as Gookinaid but it is better than PowerAde and the others at the 7-11 if that's you're only choice right before you head out. In case anyone is curious, the problem with HFCS is that you can drink 2 cases of Coke,etc but because of it's chemical makeup, your brain doesn't register that it has taken in those 5000 calories and will still want another 2000-4000 calories in regular food in order to feel satiated. It's in almost every sweetened store-bought beverage so read those labels.

I don't have an easy time drinking enough water up on the mountain....so I mix water with sugar free weilers or cystal light to make it easier to drink.

Then I also drink a quart of two of gookinaid during the day, which you can buy at the portal store.

I think it is correct you should drink mostly water with some electrolyte drink. I doubt sports drinks are really that good for you to drink a lot of.

Gatorade actually should do a very good job of replacing electrolytes. It was developed when the coach of the Florida football team (Gators) asked the school of medicine to help him with problems the team had during hot summer practices. The solution was very clever: they put sterile gauze patches on the player's skin and collected the sweat. They took this back to the lab and analyzed the contents. Gatorade is exactly the mix of electrolytes that came out in sweat plus some sugars for energy and flavoring for taste. Since you burn far more calories than you replace when climbing at high altitude, the sugars should be no problem. Many people, however, have upset stomachs at altitude and Gatorade sometimes adds to that for some people.

Drinking water days or the night before is totally useless since your body will not store excess water in any significant amounts. Drinking some extra water just before beginning a hike is useful, but don't overdo it (I would suggest no more than a liter).

The point of drinking water in the days leading up to your hike (or other physical excursion) is not to store or retain water for later use like a camel, but rather to ensure that you are fully hydrated when you start. Most (not all) people are normally in some sort of dehydrated state most of the time (and by dehydrated I don't mean to say that they are in danger, but rather that they are not using their body's total water retention stores).

also, just saw this and tasted it (at least they said it was in the water, there was no discernable taste in the one little cup I drank).
www.eletewater.com

S.Sam, please explain to me why drinking the amount of water that you will drink while hiking in the days and weeks before you depart isn't necessary.
Just like hecktuer stated, the idea is not to retain water( I think we all know that your body gets rid of whatever it doesn't use)rather, it's to get your body used to drinking the amount of water that you will need when hiking. People totally underestimate how much MORE water they will need to consume while hiking to remain properly hydrated. I just got back from a 6 six mile hike, it was nothing strenuous-only about 1500' of gain, but I drank 7 cups of water while out. And suprise, my body let me know when it was fully hydrated. What people need to consider is if you are not peeing when hiking like you normally do when at home then you are not getting enough water, plain and simple.

As for Gatorade, I stand by what I said above. As I look at a bottle of the stuff right now the first three ingredients are water, fructose and glucose-fructose syrup. Again, sugar does a very poor job at replenishing lost electrolyte stores. As I read the ingredients further I see yellow and red #40 dyes,brominated vegetable oil( how can this be beneficial?)and more syrup.The electrolytes that replenish our bodies come in sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium and the acids, like L-glutamaic acid and L-lactate acid.The only electrolyte that I see in this particular bottle is sodium and it's way down on the ingredient list.
I know what I want in my body when I exercise and Gatorade ain't it.

Sierra Stryder - so let's walk through the physiology to see what short-term adaptation a body might make in drinking excess water in the days/weeks before a climb (I'll leave out a few steps to keep it simple, but the answer wouldn't change): you drink water, it goes though your GI tract and into the blood. Your kidneys then filter the blood to maintain a certain homeostatic balance (mostly osmotic pressure) and you pee out excess water. On the intake side, nothing is going to change from 'training' your gullet or GI tract. On the output side, your kidneys aren't going to get larger nor are they going to grow more glomeruli (the microscopic 'fingers' in your kidney where filtration takes place). What does change is the rate of filtration, but that is always adjusting up and down to reflect your current hydration state. I know of no evidence that your glomeruli 'train' to higher levels of water intake, they will just adjust to a wide range - as anyone who has drunk a lot of beer after a long hike on a hot day can attest.

On gatorade - you are partly correct. Sugars do nothing to replace electrolytes (that's slightly inaccurate in that they can help raise osmotic pressure a little). However, replacement of electrolytes is not why there is sugar in gatorade, since all of the electrolytes needed are already in gatorade. The sugar is there primarily to replace the other thing that you are losing during intensive exercise - sugar (remember your high school biology - you burn sugar and oxygen and produce water and carbon dioxide). Also, the glutamic and lactic acid are not electrolytes either. lactic acid is actually a mebolic product in muscles produced during exercise that contribute to the 'burn' you feel during intense exercise. However, both it and glutamic acid (which is a building block for protein) are only in tiny amounts in gatorade for flavor. So you may not think the stuff in gatorade is what your body needs during hard exercise, but it is pretty close to what medical science thinks your body needs.

Kain,
I won't address the medical aspects of drinking at high altitude because I am not a physician. However, I've climbed Whitney many, many times and have never had any altitude problems. I have even driven from my house (elevation 2,900 feet), at midnight, arrived at the Portal at 2:30 and started up the mountain at 2:35 am with no acclimazation and made it fine.

I attribute this mainly to proper hydration. I rarely see hikers on Whitney (or anywhere else), drinking as much as they should be. I am always ridiculed here when I maintain you need 24 ounces of fluid per hour when doing Whitney. Sure, people do it on less, but I will guarantee you if they were drinking properly, they would feel better, go faster and recover more quickly.

I don't filter my water, so I lug all my water along. I always take a lot of guff for doing this because I start the hike with 7 bottles in my pack, and begin the hike with a monster bottle of 75 ounces in my hand. I never hike a step without a bottle in my hand and am certain this will ward off symptoms of altitude sickness. Except for 2 aspirin which I take at Trail Crest, I have never even suffered a headache while doing Whitney.

Proper hydration is of paramount importance in fighting the effects of AMS, HAPE and HACE. I also drink at least a gallon of water the day prior to Whitney.

The body can only process about 25-30 ounces of water per hour, but why not drink the max and derive the benefits from it? Every year at Whitney I see hikers with poles with have a water bladder and they hike for 30-40 minutes without drinking, then pause, drink for a moment and continue. No wonder they have to turn around because they are dizzy, vomiting, have a splitting headache or are simply as dehydrated as a dried prune. My advice: drink, drink, and drink.

Happy hiking!

Sierra Sam - maybe Gatorade has different ingrediants based off of what part of the country you're in. I stand by what I stated also. The bottle in front of me right now says: water, sucrose syrup, ... with no mention of any form of fructose. Regardless, chemically speaking, "fructose" isn't the same as "high fructose corn syrup". This is a subject I've done a lot of research on and I am just pointing out the problem with HFCS (specifically). Other than that, I can't say what the effect of any of these drinks has on electrolite replenishment.

Stranger- two questions: 1) what are the biochemically important differences between HFCS and fructose, 2) what are the biochemically important differences between sucrose and fructose?

Sam, I know you aren't asking me the question but I figured I would try to add some light to the situation. I remember a little of my oh-so-fun nutrition class that I took a lifetime ago.
I remember talking about the two, sucrose and fructose, and that sucrose was the more evil of the two. If I remember correctly it was sucrose that was one of the lead agents in someone developing diabetes. Also, sucrose starts to ferment as soon as it hits your mouth, which means it sits in your stomach and coats the lining of your intestine, which further prevents your body from picking up the nutrients of the other foods in your system.(I also remember discussing the differences between fructose and glucose and which was better at replenishing your muscle glycogen after instense exercise.The end result was that fructose was very poor at replenishing glycogen levels and glucose was very effective.I guess that would have to do with fructose's lower glycemic index.)Fructose, as we have already discussed, is corn syrup,sucrose comes from beet sugar, fructose is twice as sweet as table sugar and sucrose causes a much faster rise in insulin levels than does fructose, which means that diabetics can handle fructose more than sucrose. But fructose is still pretty bad for you. Again, if I remember correctly, fructose has absolutly no nutritional value and actually robs our bodies of nutrients. Plus, when humans ingest fructose it increases blood lactic acid levels, this, of course, is not good for diabetics as it could result in high levels of metabolic acidosis which leads to death.

Wow, I can't believe I remember all that stuff, I hope it is all correct. Since both G-ade and Cytomax have fructose and sucrose maybe water is the best route to go, it's definately the purest.

re high fructose corn syrup you may be interested in "The Devil's Candy" by nutritionist Susan M. Kleiner at

http://www.powereating.com/tom/index.html

I read recently (I think it was in Backpacker) that Ed Viesturs drinks Tropical Punch Kool-Aid when climbing 8,000 meter peaks. Maybe I'll try that this year!

Well, a little biochemistry can get a little confusing. Let me shake off my master's, and see if I can make some sense.

The basic energy molecule of the human body is glucose. It is so active, that it is actually absorbed through the mucous membranes of the mouth. THIS is the sugar that is spoken of when people are said to have a high sugar, as in diabetes. It instantly is available for energy, and is the worst thing that diabetics can consume, as it "spikes" their blood sugar. The common form of glucose is honey. (so much for natural being good). All other sugars are converted to glucose, it is the "currency" of the body.
Fructose is a very similar molecule to glucose, and the body efficiently and rapidly converts the first to the second, creating a spike a little slower (but not much).
Sucrose (table sugar) is made up of one molecule of fructose, and one of glucose. They are connected by a chemical bond, easily split.

From a practical standpoint, there is no difference between these three sugars. They are all providing energy very fast (less than a minute from consumption). And that is their purpose when included in energy drinks (thus, energy). The electrolytes that are needed, are in very small quantities. sodium, potassium, and magnesium would, I think, be the primary ones.
This site had a good summary, but I"ve had trouble accessing it tonite:
www.ais.org.au/nutrition/SFSelytes.htm

Ken- I agree and your answer is exactly why I asked the question. The human body is incredibly efficient at converting one form of sugar to another. There are some differences in 'glycemic index' between the various sugars which has to do with the rate at which a given sugar is absorbed and converted to glucose (which is what tissues metabolize), but for the purposes of getting energy to the muscles and brain during a climb like Whitney, those differences are very small.

josh- I took a look at the 'Devil's Candy' article you posted. The problem, as she correctly points out, is when people both increase their coloric intake and take in a major proportion of those calories through eating sugar, in any form. High Fructose Corn Syrup is cited as an offender not because of any particular biochemical difference vs. other sugars, but because it is the least expensive and therefore used more frequently in processed foods and sweetened drinks (including gatorade).

Ultra-Fuel from Twin-Labs is pretty good. I used to drink it a lot while road biking. Once I bonked after running out of water and barely made it to a store. I purchased a pint of Ultra Fuel and drank it along with about a pint of water and felt, miraculously coming back from the dead. I easily finished the several miles to complete my nearly 100 mile ride (around Haleakala, Maui about 1993).

Since then, I've become a Camelbak guy. I use it cycling, hiking, climbing, skiing and whatever else. It's great. I've also tried freezing the whole Camelbak and letting it melt throughout the day having ice-cold liquid even on the hottest days for hours. Be sure though that it is warm enough if you freeze the Camelbak, otherwise, the water may stay frozen and then there'll be nothing to drink!