Act XLIII
Through The Whitney Portal

PART FOUR: AFTER
Genetic Roulette

Upon my return home, I could sense the relief in Katy's voice that the greatest challenge I faced wasn't the total and complete collapse of my left knee halfway through the hike.  Perhaps that's why my e-mail inbox contained an item from her with the subject heading of "Altitude Sickness."

Gail Encyclopedia of Medicine: Altitude Sickness

Altitude sickness is a general term encompassing a spectrum of disorders that occur at higher altitudes.  The majority of healthy individuals suffer from altitude sickness when they reach very high altitudes [defined as between 9,000 and 19,000 feet]. In addition, about 20% of people ascending above 9,000 feet in one day will develop altitude sickness.

Yet another genetic lottery I managed to hit, I grumbled to myself.  My feet were sitting square upon the foot massager whirring underneath my desk.  It was twenty-four hours after I'd finished hiking, and no amount or type of physical therapy was too bourgeois to pass up.  Especially on the second toe of my left foot, the nail of which had curled up and blackened due to repeated, bloody, violent impacts.

Altitude sickness occurs because the partial pressure of oxygen decreases with altitude. (Partial pressure is a term applied to gases that is similar to the way the term concentration is applied to liquid solutions.)

I wondered to myself if my own hyper-gaseous state could maybe have been attributed to this partial-pressure decrease business.  It would rest easier with me in the long run if that were the case.  I very much wanted to believe I wasn't capable of entering that state unless I was under severe physical duress.

For instance, at 18,000 feet the partial pressure of oxygen drops to one-half its value at sea level and, therefore, there is a substantially lower amount of oxygen available for the individual to inhale. This is known as hypoxia. Furthermore, since there is less oxygen to inhale, less oxygen reaches the blood. This is known as hypoxemia. These two conditions are the major factors that form the basis for all the medical problems associated with altitude sickness.
I straightened out my left leg and heard a two-staged "click-pop" sound.  This was a new spin on an old ailment, but in the end of the day my knee didn't hurt much more than it did just after performing my human-car-stopper trick a week ago to the day.  This was a major blessing, and I took it as proof that not even I could roll snake-eyes every time I threw the dice on my own hereditary physical characteristics.

Acute mountain sickness (AMS) is a mild form of altitude sickness that results from ascent to altitudes greater than 8,000 feet--even 6,500 feet in some susceptible individuals. Although hypoxia is associated with the development of AMS, the exact mechanism by which this condition develops has yet to be confirmed. It is important to realize that some individuals acclimatize to higher altitudes more efficiently than others. As a result, under similar conditions some will suffer from AMS while others will not. At present, the susceptibility of otherwise healthy individuals to contracting AMS cannot be accurately predicted.  Symptoms usually appear a few hours to a few days following ascent, and they include dizziness, headache, shortness of breath, nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, and insomnia. 

Now you tell me. 

 
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The best parts of the aftermath came back to me that same night as I sat in my apartment complex's Jacuzzi.  I chuckled as I flashed back to memories still only a day old.

After completing a thorough series of stretches on the pavement beside my car, I threw everything into the backseat and drove down to my campsite to retrieve my toiletries, my cooler and some extra water I'd stashed.  It was after 9:30 PM, and plenty of camping-type folks were already asleep by then.  The sign I'd left on the site's bear locker said I'd be back by 8:30, so I prepared myself for a potentially awkward moment: a stranger rustling through a supposedly private area, clanging on the metal door of the bear locker as I walked off with items that may or may not have been mine.  I could also be mistaken for a bear.

There was a single car parked in my site, a large SUV with tinted windows.  Maybe they were car camping, just as I had.  As I approached the vehicle, I saw a long-haired guy in his mid-twenties sitting in the driver's seat, his curly locks swaying back and forth across his forehead.  I could hear music.  He didn't see me coming, so I knocked lightly on the driver's side window.  The guy jumped in his seat, looked at me, and quickly turned his head to the back of the car.  I knocked again.  He stared back at me blankly.  I made the "roll your window down" motion with my right hand.  Again, he turned away from me.  I held my palms out, as if to say, "What's your problem?  Open the damned window!"  He finally did, and thick clouds of pungent marijuana smoke came teeming out of the car, surrounding the shared space of our pending conversation. 

I began.  "Hey, I just came to get some stuff I stashed in the bear locker of this campsite.  I stayed here last night.  That OK?" 

"Uh, dude, I just got here.  I, uh, don't know about, you know…." 

"Listen, man, no worries.  I didn’t want you to think I was just going into your area and taking stuff, you know what I mean?" 

His eyes twitched.  "We just drove up tonight.  I don't know, you know, whose site, uh…is this your campsite?"

I wanted badly to relay to this poor, stoned soul the First Rule Of Being In A Hole (stop digging), but I didn't have the heart.  "It's cool, man.  No worries.  I'm just going to get my stuff and get out of here, OK?"

"OK."  The window rolled back up, without any prompting from me. 

 

* * * * *

 

Another smile-inducing memory involved my breakfast The Morning After.  Having been thoroughly disappointed in the post-hike meal options in Lone Pine (I ended up settling for a burnt pizza and a watery Greek salad), I remembered what the locals told me: the best breakfast wasn't even in Lone Pine, it was up at the Whitney Portal Store.  So I packed up the car, checked out of the hotel, and drove the thirteen miles back up the hill for an encore of The Whitney Pancake Sandwich. 

The "chef" was a mustached, rat-faced, sandy-blonde-haired guy in his late forties, with a tall, scrawny build tailor-made for hiking.  He and two other manly men were holding court in the store, which was half souvenir shop, half roadside diner.  After my monstrosity was served, the four of us sat around a table and told tales of our exploits on Whitney.   

Chef Pancake had done it over twenty times, knew the place backwards and forwards, and had a story for every occasion.  My favorite was the one where he was up on the ridge trail at 14,000 feet – the exact section that had laid me low – and encountered a guy sitting on a rock, chatting up a group of younger hikers.  It seemed that he was quite the hiking expert.  According to him, he'd set the record for the shortest time up and down the trail, had done it more times than he could remember, had camped on the summit for days on end, and was simply taking in the sights before setting yet another record for something or other.

The Chef listened and nodded.  "Man," he said, "that's amazing.  I must have heard of you.  What's your name?"

The champion hiker replied, "Oh, I don't know."

"Uh, OK.  Who's the president?"

Pause.  "What's a president?"

Chef Pancake had to walk the guy down six whole miles, all the way to Outpost Camp at 10,000 feet, before his memory improved to the point of self-recognition.

I had my story to tell, and I told it.  The Chef gave me a few pointers in case I ever tried it again, the key one being the addition of electrolyte powder to my water supply both the night before and during the hike.  But he added there was no guarantee, should I try again some day, that I wouldn't meet the same fate at the same elevation.

In return for his sage advice, I offered mine.  "You really should get a franchise going.  Mount Whitney Pancakes.  The biggest pancakes on the continent.  For all you hear about Los Angeles and the people being all health conscious, there's always a market for something really decadent.  L.A.'s like that.  There would be a cult following, especially if you stayed open late at night.  It's a gold mine waiting to happen."

He shook his head and sneered.  "Then I'd have to live in Los Angeles."

I looked down at my plate.  Make that plates.  There were four of them: three for the pancake, one for the eggs and sausage.  They were all empty. 

 

* * * * *

 

My devouring of the Big Pancake turned out to be an aberration.  It would be days before I had any regular appetite.  Side effect of the altitude sickness, I figured.  I was also extra sensitive to changes in elevation.  I'd never before noticed the 1,300-foot decline from my apartment in Canyon Country to the SWR office in Sun Valley, but in the days following the hike, the morning drive felt like a rollercoaster.  It was a week before my internals were fully back to normal. 

I now have five amazing rolls of pictures and I often carry them around with me, showing them to anyone who will look.  I'm especially grateful for the fifth and final roll, the one taken while I hallucinated and gagged and staggered my way to the summit.  The mental tape recorder was barely functioning while I was there, and with each passing day the images are further from my mind.  Such is the magic of film. 

The mindset I've since settled into can be summed up in two words: "That's it."  For the peak bagger in me, that is it.  What am I going to do next, hike McKinley or Everest?  Apparently I can’t even get above 13,000 feet without nearly ending up like Mr. What's-A-President.  You get a body in this life and it does certain things better than others.  Mine is blessed with strength, but hauling around my large frame has a price, even at a low-for-me 177 pounds.  I should probably accept the reality that, five months of workouts or not, I'll never be one of those guys like Chef Pancake, who could probably day-hike the summit and get back in time to make another batch of batter before sundown.  I'd proven I could hang with those guys for a day, but just barely – as far as I know, I was practically the last day-hiker down the mountain that night – and not without inflicting some very severe stress on my body at that.  Next time, I said to myself, if there is a next time, it will be a leisure trip.  Somewhere I've never been, but not somewhere most folks can't get to.  Maybe even with a real tent.  And other people. 

But as I sit here typing, with my story now told, my body ten pounds heavier, and the calendar some five weeks from the moment I launched the hiking sticks into the moonlit sky of the Whitney Portal Campground, I'd be lying if I didn't admit to occasionally thinking otherwise. 

Electrolyte powder, eh? 


 

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