Athlete Experience: Mount Whitney
Mirjam is a mountain person. She started with Casaval Personal Training during the 2021 Twelve Week Mt Shasta Training Program. Mirjam finished out the 12-week program and continued training consistently for months. She’s a motivated and fun loving athlete who’s hard work and flexibility allowed her to navigate the challenges of 2021 in order to keep training and playing in the mountains.
Late in the summer her friends bailed on their planned climb of Mount Whitney (14,505) due to concerns about wildfire smoke. Mirjam did not flinch. She charged on with enough confidence and fitness to attempt the climb alone.
Casaval Personal Training is delighted to have Mirjam in our family of athletes. You can catch her split boarding and hiking in the southern Cascades and Sierras.
Here are a few words Mirjam wrote about her training and her climb on Mount Whitney. It’s all about the athlete experience here and I’m Grateful to Mirjam for taking the time to share her’s with us. Enjoy!
Dane Brinkley
Mt Whitney 9/27/2021
I started training with Dane at Casaval Personal Training around March 2020 initially for a planned climb of Mt Shasta in June. Due to a small injury that climb did not happen but I had ‘won’ the lottery ticket for a permit for a day hike to Whitney in September. At that time in May 2021, I hadn’t spent too much time researching what a day hike to Whitney meant but when the Shasta goal needed to be postponed, I focused on Whitney. Over the summer, I followed the training plan on ‘Training peak’ , an online calendar program (Dane feel free to insert what Training peak is…) where Dane would enter the workouts per day (in general 3-4 workouts during the week and at least one big hike on the weekend). I always checked in with Dane and had planned a few backpacking trips over the summer which became part of the training plan and were a fun way to incorporate ‘training’ into the weekends.
I was surprised that none of the workouts were hardcore ‘train until your heartrate is at the max and you want to die’ but a steady, strength-focused training. I did quite a bunch of steep hikes carrying water up a hill and dumping water at the top, something I had never done before but learned is very efficient as your weight going back down doesn’t kill your knees.
The summer program went well and I checked in with Dane regularly in planning the weeks and immediate days before Whitney.
My biggest concern was altitude sickness - physical fitness does not speed up acclimatization but in my experience it helps you to focus on the walk ahead by proper pacing and remembering all those hikes over the summer where the slow and steady approach was successful.
The hike up to the top of Mt Whitney (14’505ft) from Whitney Portal covers approx 6500ft over 11 miles. I had the opportunity to do some short hikes up to approx 10’000ft in the days before which might not affect my acclimatization much but it certainly helped my mental attitude of “I did something at elevation before attempting Whitney”.
9/27 came and at 1.36am I started at Whitney Portal. The first 5-6 miles to Trail Camp were almost a breeze, I took it very slowly in the dark and arrived just after sunrise at the last lake before the summit.
AMS never hit me and I attest that to very slow walking, frequent breaks and some fast energy GU gel on the switchbacks. Once I arrived at Trail Crest I felt the worst was behind me, but it still is a few miles to the top along scary cliffs. I had a turnaround time set and when approaching that time and had still approx a mile to go along even scarier looking cliffs I made the decision to turn around (at around 13’800ft) and head back the 11 miles to Whitney Portal. The downhill was a long hard slog and the last 3 miles were possibly the least favorite hike in my life. It was pretty to see the beauty of the trail in the sunlight, on this never ending down hill.
My legs were fine and apart from 2 blisters over the last 3 miles my body was in good shape. I was waiting for painful muscle soreness over the next few days and I am happy to report that it never happened. I attest that to the months of slow hiking and continuous strength training with that specific uphill goal in mind.
