Mt. Whitney Mountaineer's Route, 8/6/20

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BurnsideBob
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Re: Mt. Whitney Mountaineer's Route, 8/6/20

Post by BurnsideBob » August 25th, 2020, 6:48 am

A very inspirational trip report. Thanks for sharing your adventure with some great explanatory photos.

It's been some years, but when my wife and I did Whitney as our last day on the John Muir Trail we met many sick people. Whitney is a 3 1/2 hour drive from LA and 5 hours from San Diego, so people drive up overnight and attempt to summit from Whitney Portal the same day. Most are not acclimatized and AMS sets in sooner or later. You can't "train" for high altitude performance. Being super fit means you can get AMS faster than me, a slug.

FWIW here's the relationship between altitude and atmospheric pressure for a few selected points. The calculation assumes "standard atmosphere" so times of low or high pressure or extreme heat/cold will result in a different reading on an altimeter:

Sea Level Pressure 1013.2 mb, elev. 0, above 0% atmosphere
Hwy 26 at Govy Pressure 877 mb, elev 3,940, above 13.44% of atmosphere.
Top of Palmer Ski lift. Pressure 737 mb, elev 8,540, above 27.26% atmosphere.
Summit Hood. Pressure 664 mb, elev 11,239, above 34.47% atmosphere.
Summit Adams. Pressure 638 mb, elev 12,230, above 37.03% atmosphere.
Summit Shasta. Pressure 592 mb, elev 14,142, above 41.57% atmosphere.
Summit Whitney. Pressure 583.4 mb, elev 14,494, above 42.42% atmos.
Summit Pico de Orizaba. Pressure 500 mb, elev 18,221, above 50.65% atmos.

Breath deep, breath well. Thanks for sharing. You would truly be a super man if you didn't feel the loss of atmosphere on your climb.

BurnsideBob
I keep making protein shakes but they always turn out like margaritas.

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drm
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Re: Mt. Whitney Mountaineer's Route, 8/6/20

Post by drm » August 25th, 2020, 12:37 pm

I remember having fun on the washboard. This is Aug 1988. My friend Doug is center left. We summitted Mt. Muir on the way down the trail.

Image

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