Summary of Day 1 (or Day 2, I guess) – Happy 4th Of July!

This morning David came in and woke us up at 8 or so. Breakfast was on and so we made our way down slowly.

Scott made us a delicious Caramel Sourdough Baguette French Toast, with FLAT bacon (amazing), roasted fresh peaches and some eggs. I swear, this guy’s a genius. While eating breakfast David and Zach suggest we jump into the pond. About 150m from the lab is a small-ish pond that is made up of pure snow-runoff from the mountain above. We decline, but more on this later.

We’ve found out that everything is more of an effort at altitude. Feeling extremely tired from just eating breakfast, we veg on the couch watching the Tour de France, until we doze off. At 12:30 I wake up and decide a shower is in order…Well, after some rousing with Daniel and Johnny we decide to check out this pond.

It’s further than we expected, but it’s pretty big, and deep. Anyone who knows me…. what did I do? Strip down to the skivvys and peer pressure Daniel into going in with me. Video Clip coming soon….. Luckily we were able to peer pressure Johnny into going in also. It was… say… a crystallizing experience. Dipping my finger into the water was a terrible idea, it was instantly numb. We hesitated for 5 minutes, making jokes, and then we just did it! I stepped in knee deep and then dove face first into the middle of the water, where it was deepest. My breath was instantly taken away, and replaced by cramping muscles and super-panic-survival mode. I saw Daniel in the corner of my eye and just terrified girl-screams coming from both of us, and Johnny rolling around laughing. We swam like we were being chased by sharks and found our towels. It was an amazing experience, and for 5 minutes I had forgotten about my AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness) misery,

We ran back to the lab and made some gigantic sandwiches. I snagged the last cheesy-bagel (sorry Johnny) and we dug around the fridge for more snacks. We sat around chatting with Scott, who was warmed up in his puffy coat, and laughing at us for jumping into the pond, and even more so that we peer-pressured Johnny into following suit. It turns out that the pond is the excess from the well that supplies the drinking water from the lab. Oops! I think it gets filtered on down the line anyways.

What kind of science blog would this be without science content? After a real shower (which was amazing), Johnny sat us down and took some measurements of our breathing. The protocol was 15 minutes of quiet breathing of room air, at 12,500 ft, and then 15 minutes of sea level air at 0 ft, about 21% O2. It was a wonderful break from the headache, and it was amazing to experience how quickly the headache and AMS symptoms subsided. Daniel felt the same way. Pulse ox shot back up to 97, 98% about normal, but my HR never dropped below 100bpm. Interesting…

After another post-meal nap, we embarked on a short hike. There was no way we were going to try and summit the peak of White Mtn at 14,257ft, since none of us were acclimatized yet (except for Johnny who had been popping Excedrin Migranes all day, lucky bastard).

The amazing thing is that there is still snow, despite it being July 4th, and it being 65F out. I had no idea how I was going to react, seeing as my SpO2% was still in the low 70’s. The terrain around here is very rocky, with spotted grass vegetation, but no trees as we are well above the tree line. The hike itself was a bit challenging especially with the added insult of altitude. I soon realized that no matter how slow or fast I went, I was breathing the same, and my heart rate was about 160bpm.

We went up the longer less-steep route to get around this mini peak that afforded great views of the Owens Valley and of Barcroft Lab, as well as the rest of the Sierra Nevadas, and eventually we were able to get an amazing view of the Summit of White Mountain.

The snow was still melting, and we could hear and feel the streams of really fresh, pure water flowing below our feet, and it made for a very serene experience. There wasn’t much wind, and as you can see the weather was perfect.

The peak of White Mountain is really a staggering sight. At 14,257 it is the second highest peak in California. Admittedly it is the easiest “fourteener” as it is a 4 hour approach, but there is also an access road up to there because the Summit Lab has lots of equipment up there.

Anyways, evening festivities will be posted in the next entry! Hope you guys are enjoying these pictures and following along in my endeavors!

Vince