Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Important ratios to prevent hitting the wall

From all I can gather from reading other's accounts, there appear to be several factors to increase the chances of success on Whitney. These include cardiovascular conditioning, muscular conditioning, fuel, hydration, and acclimization. However, assuming one is prime in all these areas, there still seems to be a delicate execution or equation of these to achieve success. For example, hiking Whitney too fast may wind and fatigue you and thus may hit the wall. Too much muscular exertion too fast will build up too much lactic acid on resting.

Eaating most of your food before trailcamp is recommended, but if the pace is too slow, one gets weak on by the time they hit trailcrest.

Assuming one has all of these areas at optimal levels...any thoughts on how to carefully pace ones self with these? Does anyone make use of altimeters to pace themselves feet gain per minute?

Sleep well beforehand.
Start early.
Walk steadily for a long time.

I've found that if I keep my heart rate in the 120's, or lower, I can walk forever (or at least 25 miles in a day).

The big thing on Whitney is acclimitization. It doesn't matter how strong you are if AMS symptoms set in. You'll slow to a crawl and wish you were somewhere else.

Jeff, my Suunto gives me the elevation gain per minute. This is a great feature for work-outs and preparing for Whitney, but on Whitney itself you need to go at a more comfortable pace and not over-do it. We're all too different in the factors you mention to give a meaningful feet-per-minute recommendation. Find out your personal limits and walk accordingly.

Jeff - you may have already addressed the most important part, the mental aspect.

I trained like a mad man but in my excitement I began the journey at a very fast pace and found myself sucking wind after a couple of hundred yards. I also watched others do the same. That's a big mistake...your pace morphs to tired-and-slow if you start too fast.

I also learned something from another guy in our party, 76 years-old or there-abouts. While the rest of us were "climbing" he was "walking in the park". He walked a steady, deliberate pace and hardly looked like he was moving. Even his arms seemed to barely swing. He made it to the summit an hour ahead of the rest of us (the group included very fit 20-somethings).

ever notice that if you run up 6 flights of steps that you start gasping for breath?

whereas if you walk at a slow pace you can go to the top of the Washington Monument(or Mt Whitney)

Pace is everything.If your anaerobic threshold is at heart rate of 170 like Lance Armstrong, then speed on ahead. But most of us mortals have an AT of 120-140. Turns out this is about the degree of pounding that you can feel in your chest, so use this as a guide, not what the guy in front of you is doing. The combination of factors you mentioned is impossible to predict, except that highly fit people often overdo it and lag behind eventually. Tortoise and the hare story again.

I've found that eating a lot of carbos, with just a bit of extra salt and drinking a lot of liquid the day before really helps--but don't over do it. Then plan an eating program during the hike of about 60-100 calories per hour and about one half to one liter of liquid (water, gatorade etc.) per hour. Try to rest about 5-7 minutes every hour. With this routine I've been able to roundtrip portal-summit-portal in around 11-12 hours on 5 different trips and not be too tired at the finish. Not as fast as the kids but then I'm 61:)

I purposely have worked on my aerobic capacity and endurance this spring and summer. There was a big difference in my performance doing Cirque Peak via Cottonwood Pass in June and Mt. Hopkins from the Pioneer Basin in July.

I believe is would benefit anyone to day hiking Whitney to concentrate on these areas.

There are a few good 'rules of thumb' that I've found to work out for average climbers. One is to set a pace that allows people to talk. If it gets really quiet because people can't catch their breath, then need to slow down a bit. This equates reasonably well to a heart rate around 120 without having to monitor heart rate. As a practical matter, I've found that reasonably fit and somewhat acclimated people can climb around 1000 vertical feet per hour until 11 - 12,000 feet, then the pace gradually slows to around 500 vertical feet per hour around 14,000. Pack weight, fitness and acclimatization can increase or decrease this.

In terms of food, I always encourage people to keep eating and drinking while they hike. You are burning a lot of calories while you climb and it's best to keep replacing them rather than getting low on fuel and then trying to eat a lot to catch up. Sports drinks also contain sugar (fuel) as well as electrolytes which are lost as you sweat.