[pct-l] acclimitation to hot weather

[Pea Hicks]

Craig Stanton wrote:
> I've just gone through summer here, but it hasn't been particularly  
> hot. I have a week in San Diego to settle in. Can you recommend a  
> good way to ease into the hot weather of So. Cal.? Should I spend my  
> week there in the sun drinking lots of water? In the shade drinking  
> lots of water? Wearing lots of warm clothes to make it harder that  
> week and then feeling cooler when I hit the trail? There must be a  
> good way to acclimatize but all I had planned on doing was turning up.

in my experience, there really is no way to "acclimate" to the heat. i 
live in san diego, and i hike in the desert all the time. in the months 
prior to my thru-hike last year, i trained on cowles mountain with my 
loaded pack, usually climbing it 4 times/week (3 miles round trip, 900 
feet elevation gain/loss). despite all this, and despite my 
familiarization with hiking in hot/dry socal, i still ran into heat 
related problems (nausea, throwing up water, etc) a few days into my 
hike, and had to take a nero at scissors crossing to recover from it. it 
was at that point that i decided simply to not battle the worst heat at 
all, and siesta during the middle of the day. i never had any more 
serious problems with the heat after this.

it seemed to me that the heat issue was more personal in nature- some 
folks' bodies can handle it, and they have no serious problems hiking in 
the heat. other folks' bodies just don't do well in the heat, no matter 
how long they've been out there, so they should be very careful.

i don't know the science behind this, it's just been my subjective 
observation.


girlscout