Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board infant to summit

Utah Chick (and any one else),
Are YOU sure she has got the message?She has yet to comment on what anyone has said.
I think it is quite obvious that there are some good people on this message board that deeply care for their childs safety.But, there are also people in this world that scoff at or ignore every sensible piece of information that is thrown their way.
12 people died on Everest on one day in 1996.Did that stop or reduce the amount of people that wanted to climb the mountain?I think we all know what the answer to that is.If anything the amount of permit requests and guided expeditions increased.Now, Whitney is no where close to being in the same league as Everest but, if you ask first timers to both mountains what their reason is for climbing the mountain most answers will be the same: "it's the biggest thing out there".

Do people that climb Everest care if people died up there and that they could die too? NO! Do people that climb Everest take heed from their friends and loved ones when they ask them not to climb? No!
Why am I comparing Everest to Whitney? Because the effects of altitude that adults feel at 20,000 feet are the same effects that infants feel at 10,000 feet or lower.

I hope to God that Aunie has got the message.But you never know.Maybe the first infant death on Whitney will be because a Mom didn't care to listen.
V-man

Unfortunately parents don't always realize the dangers they put on their children, learning only after the crisis has happened. Whitney is a long way from help when you need it. Aunie would make us all feel better if she said she got the message. She may feel too beaten down to respond.

Utah Chick - I'm bet she wouldn't either and that's why I tried to give clear and rational explanations of what I thought were the issues.
Here's a little story with regards to getting our kids into our activities. . .

I'm very much a cycling nut. My son (now 11) started going on real rides with me probably about 3 or 4 years ago. Started out real short at first, and built very gradually. He likes it, but maybe not as much as I do - yet (so I don't push him into it at all). 2 years ago, we'd gotten to riding quite a bit, and he decided he wanted to become a rider in this 3 day benefit ride my friends and I do every year - instead of hanging at camp. We trained and he did the 1 day ride, and he did 31 miles (at 9 yrs old). Last year we did it again and he went a few miles more.

I am so used to riding in traffic and on rough roads and up and down hills, that although I have taught him very well what to do in those situations, I had never really thought of the dangers he could be in when we ride. A few weeks or so after the big ride, we were out mountain biking in what I consider a very easy open area near our home. I've seen my son handle his bike and have a pretty good idea of what he is and isn't capable of. My friend and I dropped down a 30 or 40 foot hill and waited for my son to follow. He stopped at the top, unsure of whether he should go or not. I ran up to the top, told him I thought he could do it and to use the skills he has. I then walked down the hill and showed him the line I thought would be best. I stood near the bottom waiting for him to come down.

He took off, made it down a little way, had his foot come off the pedal, got it back on, and hit a rut just above where I was. It threw his front wheel sideways and threw him over the bars and into the dirt.

I was on him as soon as he stopped moving. I got him rolled onto his back, and there was already blood filling his helmet. He was also shuddering somewhat and not totally coherent. After a few seconds, I got him calmed, took off his helmet, and checked out the injuries.

To conclude here, he wasn't hurt bad, mostly shook up (all the blood was from a tiny puncture on his forehead). He hasn't been back offroad since and I'm not going to try to get him to until he says he wants to. He has taken up road riding again and training with me and is going to do the benefit ride again.

Anyway, the point of all this is that activities that we find as not too dangerous as adults can turn really scary for kids in a heartbeat. In those few moments when he was bleeding and *****ing out, a million awful images flashed through my mind - a ton of what ifs that even now make me cringe. The cause of the crash was clear, his foot coming off the pedal distracted him from concentrating on where he was headed, so he steered right into the one spot that he had no chance of making it through. He and I agree that someday he will have to go back and conquer that beast - when the time is right.

Sorry to be so long winded, but I figured the story might illustrate my point. . .

Is there no edit feature on this board?

The ***** towards the end is not swearing, for some reason the board didn't like f-r-e-a-k-i-n-g

Aunie, my daughter has been demanding that I take her to the summit of Whitney for about two years. I told her when she reached 12 years of age and she still REALLY wanted to I would try to get her there, but completely under her own power. We hope to get some unused permits this summer or fall (she has year round school) and go for it. That is what I am actually doing about it. I also agree with the vast majority of the folks who say it is not a good idea to take an infant to the summit. If you go to summitpost.com and check on "Chucky" look for my trip report to the summit of Whitney in 2001. One of my work buddies took his 13 year old step son to the summit. In order to be more objective about your question though there are some factors that "allow" taking an infant to the summit, though I would never take an infant of mine there. For example, I lived in South America for 6 months and traveled around a bit on 6 continents. There are babies born in La Paz (capital), Bolivia (12,000 feet) every day. There are babies born even higher in Peru, elsewhere in Bolivia, and of course in Nepal and Tibet. But I still would not ever take any kid of mine under 12 to the summit because part of getting there is carrying their fair share of the gear, being able to communicate with some degree of intelligence, etc. What ever you decide, the choice is yours but it may effect your child in catastrophic ways that you could regret the rest of your life, especially since your child will never remember the event.

I was on the summit one August and a mother was bragging and crowing to anyone who would listen that her 6 year old child must have set a youngest-ever record for summiting on his/her own power (was a stormy day and the kid was bundled up.Don't know what sex it was.) The mother was all elated, but the kid looked REALLY miserable and was facing walking all the way back down to Trail Camp. Don't do this.

without getting into a row
There is nothing in life more serious than protecting our children.
blunt or to the point is better than hindsite anyday

just a note regarding chucky's comment about new borns in the andes. the inhabitants, including newborns, of these high elevations have higher concentrations of red blood cells that allows for more oxygen absorbtion. physiologically, they are also better able to withstand the other effects of lower atmospheric pressure. isn't evolution a great thing.

Yes, there has been an amazing number of responses on this subject. Probably because we've all already seen some pretty irresponsible actions by inexperienced parents wanting to give their children a "nature" experience.

But I think what triggered this barrage of reactions was the way the question was posed: "I guess if she gets fussy we'll have to turn arround" did not sound like the infant's welfare was the main concern. This hesitation, along with the subject itself, was what was concerning.

This is not to imply that Aunie would deliberatly put her child in harm's way, but she's taken the baby hiking in other areas and it's easy to become complacent.

rosabella, that's the point I was trying to make with my long bike story. My son rides all the time, and we were on something I considered quite benign. Things can go from great to horrible in an instant. At least my son is old enough to talk and understand what happened when they did go wrong.