Originally Posted by
OwenM
Train yourself to drink more water than you feel like you need. That's my takeaway after having a much better experience prioritizing hydration vs. not. I live at ~700' and had no issues at >12k' on my second visit to the Weminuche Wilderness. Sharp contrast to the previous trip, where I had headaches for several days, and was a slug on the climbs the entire week.
I'll be doing that loop in mid-September next year. Colors oughta be great around then. Coming from out of state, I would not come earlier(or later) than September. If I lived in CO, though...shoot, yeah, I'd be out there all summer. Season's too short to skip opportunities in a place with so much beauty, IMO.
Carrying a bag rated below the lowest temps in the history of weather recording for the area in that time frame is definitely not my cup of tea. It's not necessarily "bad", either, just depends. Take a glance at what's normal, and see how that relates to you, personally.
One of my good friends is a very cold sleeper, while I sleep outrageously warm. If we traded sleep systems, we would both be miserable. The advice you've gotten here would probably suit him quite well. But I got hot under a 30F quilt wearing boxer briefs and a t-shirt while he was comfy wearing a down hoody in a 20F bag on the coldest night of our trip at ~12k' in CO last September.
Our conversations related to this matter were not some of the deeper ones had during that week:
"What do you mean, you're SWEATING?!?"
"How can you not be with all that crap on?!?"
We're all different...