A good partner for hiking! ~ Easy hiking in high elevation!

Monitoring your heart rate duing hiking helps to manage your walking pace!
This is one of a good way to manage your walking pace.

For experienced hiker, they know their best pace for hiking.  They won't get exhausted based on optimal pace.  Many seriour climbers who climed Himalaya mountains, they understand what the reaction of their body in higher elevation.

However, for many hikiers who do not have a lot of experience more than 10,000 feet. It is hard to tell what is going on for your body.   It is almost no sign for impacts of high elevation.  As a result, you may be exhausted.   Your experience of the hiking won't be great if you really exhausted.

Monitoring heart rate and manage your walking pace will help to keep an optimal pace for you and you will have a great experience for your big desstination like Mt. Whitney which is the highest mountain in lower 48 states in the United States.

Let's get a device which can monitor your heart rate during hiking!

The lowest cost solution!

Hiking season is coming!

In the US, Memorial Day weekend is coming!   It is starting a nice hiking season this summer!

Mt. Whitney which is the highest mountain in Calfornia. 

It is the highest mountain in the lower 48 states in the United States.

Due to the "highest mountain" in the main portion of the United States, 

Mt. Whitney is very popular destination for many hikers.

High Altitude Sickness

Do you know "High Altitude Sickness"?

Due to low oxigen environment in highe elevation, many people feels some symptoms when they hike more than 10,000 feet.  It is sometimes headache, dehydration and others.

If you spend more time in higher elevation, human body will adopt the altitude slowly in many cases.  However, it is hard to avoid in short term. 

Many hiking might be done within a few days and it would be too short to adopt the altitude.

Pace management in high elevation

The pace management for a hiking in higer elevation, which is above 10,000 feet, is probably very difficult for most of people.  Because almost all people could not feel the impact in the early stage of high altitude sickness where the elevation around 10,000 feet.  At this stage, you do not feel anything different from a typical hiking in lower elevation.

However, if you monitor your heart rate, you will see the difference.  Even if you walked a similar pace when you hikin in lower elevation, the heart rate is getting much higher in higher elevation.  This means you do not feel anything special, but there is sign for the high altitude sickness already.

What happens?

Since you cannot recognize any impact of the elevation in the early stage of high altitude sickness, your walking pace is eventually "over pacing".  Then it will gets worse quickly and you will be exhausted in a short time.

Most of destination for hikers is somewhere around 14,000 feet and you may be able to reach the summit without any special thing for the altitude.  But you may be exhausted and your experience might not be great.

Monitor Heart rate helps your experience!

One of a good solution for the high altitude sickness is monitoring heart rate and manage your pace based on heart rate.

It used to be not easy since there is not very good way to monitor your heart rate in real time during hiking.   However, it is getting much easier nowadays.  Since there are many devices which can monitor real time heart rate just waring a watch!

A good solution is using activity tracker during hiking!

There are many activitiy tracker devices in the market.  Also, running is getting very popular for people's health, there are many running devices with GPS function.  Those are all good devices to monitor your heart rate duing hiking!

The following device is called "Garming vivoactive 3".

This device also capable to trace where you go as your record with GPS. 

This is a very good fit for many hikers to keep tracking where you go and how much time you took.

In terms of the cost, I would recomend this device for trcking your heart rate during hiking.

Nice device with GPS function!

The next device is "Garmin fenix 5".  This is a bit expensive.  However due to a updated model is introduced this price is getting lower and now it is a bit expensive but affordable range now.

A good thing for this device is more nice features for hikers.  Longer battery life, built in compas and more profile for many other spots to track your activity.   I have been using the previous modle "fenix 3 HR" and it is really nice gear for hiking.

If you can affort this price, I would recomend this device!

More outdoor feature!

I will post how to manage you hiking pace in the next post!

(To be continue)

Mt. Whitney 2019 Permit ~ expect last minutes cancellation....

From the visitor center in Lone Pine

Availability after May 1st

People who won the lottery need to complete its reservation by April 30.
After that, starting May 1, all dates which is not reserved will be available everybody who wants to get the permit.

I have often checked the availability after May 1, only dates I saw was early season which is May and June and late season which is after late September.  I did not see any other available dates so far.

For day use permit, there are many open dates in weekdays in summer time.  However they had been booked and it is almost full now.

The only way to get the permit is the last minutes cancellation.  Or you may want to get an exit permit like I plan this summer.  You can enter the Mt. Whitney Zone other than Mt. Whitney Trail from Whitney Portal.   But many of short hiking routes are booked and it is likely the last minutes cancellation.   It might be easier to get one than Mt. Whitney trail from Whitney Portal 

I am not sure if it is due to changing the reservation system or more people applied.  It is obviously getting hard to get the permit this year.

I think it is better to consider alternate route earlier to make sure you can get the permit.

Cottonwood Pass to Mt. Whitney ～Day 2 (Plan)

Overview for Day2 and Day3

Toward west side of Mt. Whitney

Although I have hiked Mt. Whitney a several times, I always see the west side from the ridge toward the summit of Mt. Whitney.   Now, if I start from Cottonwood pass, it is possible to get into the west side.

 

In the second day, this is a way to Guitar Lake and very famous John Muir trail is merged on the way to Guitar Lake!

The day 2, Guyot Creek - Guitar Lake (3,525m)　(13.2㎞). Overall, the trend is ascending, however the distance is much shorter than the first day and it might be a little easier. We need to camp about 3,500m elevation and we expect we adopt the altitude since we stay a little above 3,000m a day before. Guitar lake is still lower elevation than Trail Camp on Mt. Whitney Trail.

Due to summit attempt the next day, we will try to get to Guitar Lake camping site early to prepare early departure on the next day!

Although I have never been the west side of Mt. Whitney, I am expecting really nice view and quiet environment which is very different from crowded Mt. Whitney trail!

Cottonwood Pass to Mt. Whitney ~ Day 1 (Plan)

Elevation profile (Cottonwood Pass Trail head ~ Guyot Creek)

Started planing a hike from Cottonwood Pass to Mt. Whitney

Since I got a permit from Cottenwood Pass to Mt. Whitney this end of summer, I started planing the hike.

Here is the day one:

The starting point is a campground of Cottonwood Pass Trail Head.

Based on the elevation profile, I probably want to camp lower elevation as possible to avoid impacting of high altitude sickness.

The lowest elevation is a crossing point of Rock Creek at 20km from the trail head.

That would be one of possible point for the camping on the first day.

The other option would try to camp at a crossing point of Guyot Creek.  The elevation is a little below 3200m.

The total distance from the trail head would be around 20 ~ 22km.

It is better not to camp high elevation where more than 3500m.  So the selection is very limited.

The other factor this summer is minimize crossing creeks.  Since amount of snow last winter is more than typical years, therefore it might be hard to cross creek some time.  For safety, it is better to minimize it.

There are two possible route in the later section of the day one.

One is along with Rock Creek and the other is through a ridge.

I think through the ridge would be better this summer to minimize the crossing creeks.

Here is the day 1 of this hiking:

Cottonwood Pass Trail Head - Guyot Creek (22km)

(To be continue)

Alternate way to hike Mt. Whitney!

Overall plan

   Here is the overall plan from Cottonwood pass to Whitney portal!  The total distance including Mt. Whitney summit is about 35 miles.  It is much longer than a simple round trip through Mt. Whitney trail which is about 22 miles.

   Typical plan is 3 days 4 nights on the trail.

Permit

   It requires a regular wildness permit to enter the trail from Cottonwood pass and an exit permit for the Mt. Whitney zone.
   I got the both permits after notified Mt. Whitney lottery result.   I still can book the both permits on the reservation site outside of the lottery.  That is much easier to get the permit for Mt. Whitney zone via Mt. Whitney trail.

   I heard it might be possible to get a permit with just walk-in on the day of the entrance at the visitor center in Lone Pine.  The person who told me this plan got permit a couple times in the past.

   So it would be a good alternate plan to hike Mt. Whitney without much hassle to get overnight permit for Mt. Whitney trail.

Tip to get Mt. Whitney permit! ~ Avoid Mt. Whitney Trail!

The highest mountain in California!

Getting harder to get the permit

A permit is required to get into the area around Mt. Whitney to protect nature in the area.
They control people who are in the area a day!

As I mentioned in this blog many times, there is a process to get the permit every year!
It starts Mt. Whitney lottery.  It opens between Feb and mid March to file the application.
The result will be notified by April and the winner needs to complete the reservation by the end of April.

It is very difficult to get a permit in high season like July to September, especially during weekend.
I had not won any date last a several years.  However I got a reservation after April 1st / May 1st in the past years where the winner had not completed the reservation.

Even though it is getting harder, I keep checking the reservation site, but I could not see any open dates between July and September for overnight permit.  There are some for day use permits.

Is there any other way?

I guess many people want to go hiking over there!

There are a couple way people may get the permit:

The first one is to expect cancellation to get the permit at the visitor center in Lone Pine.
It might be still hard to get the one during summer time.  However, there is a little possibility to get it at the visitor center.

Second, to avoid the most popular route which is Mt. Whitney Trail. 

One of example is climb through north folk.  There is some easy rock-climbing sections and it requires some rock-climbing skill.  However it could be more chance to get the permit if you can avoid Mt. Whitney Trail.

The last one is to enter Mt. Whitney Zone other than Mt. Whitney Trail.
It is getting much easier than via Mt. Whitney Trail.
As you plan well, you could get the permit outside of Mt. Whitney Lottery.
Also, there is much higher chance to get the permit at the visitor center.
Many people tried this scheme to hike Mt. Whitney.

Based on an advice from a person, I got a permit this summer from Cottenwood Pass and hike to Mt. Whitney from the west side.  It will be a little longer hike than Mt. Whitney Trail, but it is probably the easiest way to get the permit.

Would you like to try it if you do not have permit this summer?
It is not too late!

Mt. Whitney ~ There are still some day use permit this summer!

It is May now!
How was the result of Mt. Whitney Lottery this year?

I guess you might unsuccessful the lottery.
It seems that it is getting harder to get the permit year by year.

Now, you can make a reservation slots which are not confirmed by the lottery winners starting from May 1.

There is not many open dates for overnight permit except early / late season.
However, there are many open dates for day use permit in summer time.

I think you have a better chance to get it now.

The following URL is the one to check it:
https://www.recreation.gov/permits/233260