Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Acclimation Plan

We're trying to come up with an acclimation plan for our upcoming hike. We live in the Colton CA area. The elevation here is about 1000 ft. One of the guys in the group has never been higher than San Jacinto (10,800 ft). Two of us summited Whitney last year (using Schulman Grove for acclimation) and the other guy lives in CO and has done a few 14ers.

I saw that you can camp at Barcroft Gate (~12,000 ft). I'm wondering if it would be too much of a jump for us in one day (waking up at 1k, then sleeping at 12k a few hrs later). I was thinking that if someone if our group had a hard time with the elevation, we could descend to the Grand View Campground (~8k feet) and hope to find a site.

I typed up a couple of possible plans for Sat/Sun below:

Option 1 (5.5 hrs driving Sat, 2 hrs Sun)
Drive up to Lone Pine (3.5 hrs driving)
Get lunch in Lone Pine (maybe a burger or pancakes at the Whitney Portal Store)
Hike bit at the Portal (Lone Pine Lake maybe, 4 miles RT) or plan to hike when we get to campsite/White Mtn
Pick up permit for camp fire in Lone Pine
On the way out of Lone Pine, eat dinner or pick up food to cook dinner at campsite
Drive up to Mount Barcroft (2 hrs driving from Lone Pine). Either do some hiking or just set up camp (12,000 ft). If we get there late, maybe hike up to observation station (4 miles rt) using headlamps.
Sunday morning, drive back to Lone Pine (2 hrs driving)
Stay at Dow Villa Sunday night for Monday hike

Option 2 (5 hrs driving Sat, 0 Sun)
Drive up to Lone Pine (3.5 hrs)
Get lunch in Lone Pine (maybe at the Whitney Portal Store)
Drop off luggage/food stuff at Dow Villa if late enough (avoid using bear boxes)
Drive to Horseshoe Meadows for Acclimation hike (1.5 hrs driving roundtrip)
Hike a few miles (Trail Peak maybe?)
Return to Lone Pine and stay at Dow Villa.
Stay at Dow Villa Sunday night for Monday hike

As far as the weather goes, how hot has it been at the Portal and Horseshoe Meadows? I found this info for Barcroft, but I'm not sure if the weather station is the facility 2 miles from the gate or the facility at the top of White Mtn.

http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/weather/barc.html

Is there a reason you aren't camping at the portal the night before you hike? I'd highly recommend that rather than in town in a motel if possible. You can sleep at 8K+ that way before hiking, also giving you two nights of sleeping at altitude (if you camp near white mtn the night before) The more/longer altitude before the hike, the better.

It's a comfort thing mostly. I (as well as the group) would rather stay in a hotel the night before the hike - be able to get a hot shower to start the day off, toilets, have a comfortable/quiet place to sleep (temp wise).

Last year 4 of us stayed at the dow villa the night before and it worked well for us. Closed the shades and turned up the AC at 5pm and mostly slept until about 1.

There's also the issue of sleeping well in a tent, which I rarely do...

I know that it is different for everyone but the times which I have hiked Whitney (6) I have always spent one or two days at Horsehoe Meadows and never had an acclimation problem. If I go solo I bring a ton of books to read and just walk around. Your plan looks like it has alot of driving around going places. Horseshoe Meadow is 10,000 ft so you can spend all day there. Whatever you do for your plan, good luck and have a good hike.

I also like to just hang around and read - at Horseshoe Meadows or maybe Onion Valley. If you go towards Horseshoe you could spend one night there at 10K and then hit Dow Villa for a bed. It also gives you the option of visiting the Cottonwood lakes without too much effort on the legs.
Need to add about 30 minutes each way to your Lone Pine driving times if you plan to visit the Portal for lunch. And LPL is closer to 6 miles RT.

Thanks for the info guys.

At horseshoe, is there a place where we can just drive up and hangout, even if we aren't camping?

Is it easy to get a campsite at horseshoe - do they fill up fast usually?

Go to the end of the road, there is a good-sized parking area there. You can wander off into the meadow and look for Golden Trout in the stream.

I don't know anything about camping, being just a dayhiker. But there's plenty of space for just hanging around up there, at the Cottonwood Lakes trailhead, the Cottonwood Pass trailhead, the "DAY USE ONLY" area just east of the Cottonwood Pass trailhead area, and even just on the side of the road.

I was at the "DAY USE ONLY" area yesterday, and mine was the only car in the lot.

We ended up doing a variation 'Option 2' for acclimation. The weather had other plans for the day, so we ended up doing Trail Peak the day before Whitney.

The 2 first-timers that did this with us (as well as the other 4 that joined the group later) were able to summit on Aug 20th.

I'm going to do a similar plan but slightly different. Years of acclimating by just hanging out at the portal campground for 8-10 hours just doesn't cut it anymore at my age (55).

1) Leave the SF Bay Area Saturday 6:30 am (for a Monday day hike) and arrive in Lone Pine 2:30-3:00 pm

2) Check into the Mount Whitney Motel and head up to Horseshoe Meadows (get there around 4:00-4:30)

3) Do the easy 4.6 mile RT hike to Trail Peak

4) Camp at the Horseshoe Meadow campground (if none available, then sleep next to my truck or in the bed) until at least 2:30 am. If I can't sleep worth a damn because of the altitude and just being in a tent, then I'll head back and crash in the motel until I've had enough sleep.

5) In the morning, head up to the portal campground around 10:00-11:00 am (after picking up the permits), do a short hike (maybe an hour along the Meysan Lake trail) and hang out at the campground all day. Hit the sack as soon as it gets dark and start the hike around the usual 1:30 am start time (Monday).

This way I get about 3 times more acclimization time, so I hope it makes a big difference. I need it, because it's getting old having the altitude kicking my butt every year (even though I do manage to make it to the hut), when I could be enjoying the scenery instead.

Just got back from my Sept. 24 day hike (very windy and cold) and I'm happy to report that the extra day of acclimating really helped. Was able to maintain a higher heart rate (averaging around 150 between breaks from Mirror Lake to the top) than I otherwise would have (without "hitting the wall").

Question though: is it really that advantageous to exercise your heart during acclimation? The only hiking we did was from the Portal campground to the store on the day before. We didn't do anything at Horseshoe Meadows on Saturday (we were there about 12 hours until 2:30 am and spent the rest of the night in a motel). I want to be as fresh as possible for the hike but at the same time want to maximize my acclimatization during the 2 day window I have. What would be the ideal amount of exercise to do during that window and when should it be done? (day 1 or 2)

I don't think the cardiovascular is particularly of value, it is using that to get your body higher, yet. I think if you were to have walked in a big circle around Horseshoe Meadow for the same amount of time, it would have done you no good at all, compared to climbing trail peak.

Bruce, are you related to Dr. Ames of UCBerkley?

No relation Ken (that I know of anyway).

From your earlier post it sounds like I would benefit from a longer acclimatization hike. Thinking of next year, do you think a hike up to Lone Pine lake (maybe from the campground, or more likely from the store) would be an ideal hike, considering the two days at high altitude I have to work with? I don't want to do too much the day before the hike though, and it would be the day before. I would be at Horseshoe on the first day, and a hike there is not attractive given the late hour of arrival (around 3:00 pm) and the necessity of setting up camp beforehand (which alone can wear you out after driving 8-9 hours from sea level). When we got to Horseshoe my wife was wasted after pitching the tent and it was all I could do to coax her out of the tent to take a short walk for a few pics before it got dark.

We have permits for Oct 3-5, and are working on our plan too. We're considering arriving from SF Bay on day one, around 3? hiking to Lone Pine, then doing a short ascent maybe to Trail camp then camp for another night before attempting to summit? Is the hike to Lone Pine too ambititous for first day? We have a fairly novice hiker, who had some elevation sickness on Half Dome, so we're trying to go with conservative approach...

Can you get this person up to elevation this weekend (without working too hard)? It would probably be helpful. If they had problems at Half Dome, I'd be really worried, seeing that the Portal is only 500 ft lower. If I were this person, I would think about trying to get some diamox and trying it out over the weekend, while trying to get to at least 10k feet if possible.

Thank you that's a great suggestion. We may have some trouble getting him elevated this weekend, but he has had good results with Diamox when in Tahoe, so our fingers are crossed. I think perhaps just staying near the Portal is a better course of action, rather than hiking three miles, and adding 1000 ft elevation to Lone Pine. Again thanks for the input..,.

A friend and I did White Mountain last Saturday, having "camped out" in our trucks at the Barcroft gate (11,300 el. +/-) Friday night. Cold and breezy night and not too restful - I came up from 3,000 feet, and hiking partner was from 2,000 feet. Temperature overnight was mid-30s. Calm but still cold when we started about 5 am, and temp was in mid-40s when we returned at 12:30. It is quite a drive to the gate, with the last 16 miles on dirt ranging from good to marginal. I would not advise doing it in the dark.

Good luck.

My friend and I were going to do that last Friday - drive up from Riverside Friday, car camp at the gate, then hike White Mtn. I had seen some reports of possible thunderstorms Friday and Friday night and wind gusts up to 30 mph Saturday. Thursday I was able to snag 2 permits for Whitney on Saturday, so we did that instead.