Worst Sunburn

[AllYouCanEat]

I was testing my knee out, deciding on an easy day up on the Muir Snowfields. I left my sunscreen. Today I am burned worse than I've been since I was a kid on Mount Hood. During that time I blistered really bad. Now I know that there are some good stories out there that are much better. Let's hear them. Maybe they'll make me feel better about my stupidity

[KaskadskyjKozak]

climbed rainier and applied sunscreen liberally to my face and neck and arms multiple times. BUT I forgot two places - the strip of skin between my gaiter and my shorts (when I took off the zip-off leg bottoms) and my lips (lip balm had no SPF rating). The next day I had a red-strip on my left leg that hurt like it had the skin ripped right off, and my lip swelled up to 3x its normal size, blistered, and was not back to normal for 2 weeks

[Off_White]

As a high school kid skiing in So Cal I not only forgot the sunscreen, but the sunglasses as well. In addition to being blistered under the chin, in the eyesockets, and randomly across my face, I felt like there were fistfuls of sand in each eye and I lost the ability to see the color yellow for a week. Not only were the yellow stoplights white, but anything that was really orange looked hot pink to me.

 

Nowadays I'm a total wuss about the horrid burning orb, I always tell myself, "don't worry, it will go soon."

[underworld]

the worst sunburn is the one having the least fun.

[dt_3pin]

Sunburned the roof and back of my mouth on the n. ridge of baker a few years back. Perfect neve on the early morning ascent, but the heat turned on in the afternoon. Descending the coleman demming was like wallowing through a giant margarita, but there wasn't any tequilla.

 

After a long, dehydrated, and hungry slog down through the mush and to the trail head, we set off, post haste, for Bob's in Bellingham. I didn't realize that I'd burned my mouth until I took the first bite of my burger and mustard squirted out and onto the burn . . . pain!!! Onion rings were like swallowing sandpaper. I had to drink my dinner, which helped ease the pain.

 

that shit hurt for days.

[AllYouCanEat]

I now remember one story, after reading all of yours. My brother once forgot to put sunscreen on one ear. His ear was 3 times the normal size, and I do not kid. It was so bad that we called it the ONE-EAR Bigness Disease. The rest of his face didn't have so much as a tan, but that one ear...WOW!

[skykilo]

, and I do not kid.

--->I SHIT you NOT.

 

Sorry 'bout your sunburn, J. It sure seems like you do this every year, but it sounds like you may have outdone yourself this time.

[Norman_Clyde]

the strip of skin between my gaiter and my shorts

I went up to Muir on the 16th, which you may recall was the 80 degree day one week ago. I haven't gone to Muir in high summer but this was by far the warmest day I've ever encountered on the snowfield. It was hard to resist the temptation to go shirtless. I doused myself liberally with spray-on sunscreen three times in the course of the day. When I got home, my skin was all intact EXCEPT that my longies had ridden up an inch above my boot on my left leg. The stripe there is still an angry purple, like a radiation burn. If all my skin had been blasted this hard, I think I'd have ended up in the hospital.

OK, not much of a story, but I'm kind of glad I don't have a worse one.

 

I always thought that sunburn inside the mouth was an alpine legend. Really happens, eh?

Edited May 23, 2006 by Norman_Clyde

[AllYouCanEat]

I think the sunburn in the mouth is actually not a sunburn at all but dehydration. I could be wrong though.

[kenp]

I will second the ear burn. second trip on Rainier I didn't goop enough on. after a couple of days I was ready to slice it off...I'm sure it would have been less painful. Last year on Baker I used one of those funny 'sun hats', boonie style, my god what a difference. I hope I never forget to take it with me again

[still_climbin]

Back in the Glacier Cream days I climbed Rainier with a group (WAZZU Alpine Club) of about 7-8 climbers. Most of us had been on the mountain numerous times before and used the same precautions, yet we all burned badly. One of us was hospitalized for the burns. Myself, my face was a series of huge 2nd degree blisters and I was unrecognizable. I looked like an overdone baked potato for days as I recovered. The thing many of us recalled afterwards was that the sky seemed more of a dark purple then we had remembered in the past. One of the members did a little research and made a presentation at a club meeting about atmosheric anomalities that can cause ecxeptional sun exposure at altitude.

 

My second trick was to use copious quantities of clown white (After my Rainier experence I used straight zinc oxide cream) while climbing St Helens (the part that later blew away). I forgot that I was wearing knickers. Ended up with a harshly burned band around each calf that reamained a different color than the rest of my legs the rest of the summer.

Edited May 23, 2006 by still_climbin

[BachelorTravis]

my lip swelled up to 3x its normal size

 

Ouch KK! Sounds painful! On the flip side it had to be good for business... yeah?

[kenp]

good for business... yeah?

 

[mountainmatt]

About 10 years ago, I went up Mt.Hood and wanted to make my pack as light as possible. So I applied a lot of sunblock, dropped it in the car, and headed up at 3AM. During the slog to the top, I sweated all of the sunblock off. It was a perfectly sunny day which resulted in me having second degree sunburn all over my face. When the burn healed, it looked like I had pasted chunks of beef jerky onto my face. Not the best way to meet girls...

[chelle]

I think the sunburn in the mouth is actually not a sunburn at all but dehydration. I could be wrong though.

 

You can sunburn your mouth from the reflected light off the snow if you breathe with your mouth open. I did that once a few years back on Mt Shasta. The roof of my mouth blistered and peeled a couple times. The inside of my lips were also burned and swelled to 3x their normal size, turned yellow and peeled about 3-4 times. Now I always take banana boat 30SPF lip screen with me.

 

Would have been no big deal except that I had a presentation in London for work two days after the climb. The first thing my boss said was "what the hell did you do to yourself this weekend!?!" Thankfully our client thought the fact I'd climbed a 14k peak was cool.

[slothrop]

I hiked up to Camp Muir mostly in a whiteout one April with some friends. We probably put sunscreen on once because, hey, we couldn't see no sun. The next morning, my roommate was nearly unrecognizable and I looked like I'd been bitch-slapped unconscious.

 

The next weekend, peeling and pink, I met my girlfriend of the last five years.

[Lowell_Skoog]

Not my worst sunburn, but a good lesson...

 

Some years ago I climbed Sloan Peak with my wife and two friends. It was foggy but bright enough for sunglasses. I don't think we put on any sunscreen. We all got burned.

 

After that I concluded that if it was bright enough for sunglasses, it was bright enough to need sunscreen.

[Mal_Con]

Worst was also back in Glacier Cream era on Baker, had the stuff slathered all over my face but my glacier glasses rubbed it off on the top of my nose. Got back to my dorm and huge blisters appeared and stayed for a month could not wear regular glasses because of the swelling Then it pealed off and burnt again.

[griz]

When I first moved to Colorado a long time ago, I got a random hair up my ass around 11 in the morning to do Longs Peak on a nice March day. First 14ner. Forgot the sunscreen.

 

My whole face blistered,oozed and peeled for a week.

 

Got a couple nice blister burns on a couple Camp Muir jogs, too.Forgot some spots or sweated it off. Show up to work with busted blister ooze dripping in my eyes...

 

ah,well, fuck it...

 

[magellan]

Muir snowfield of course. First time snowcamping, and the block wasn't working. 2nd degree burns...Brown crap peeling off my face for weeks.

[RichTurley]

No pictures yet?

[Camilo]

Christmas on a Southern Chile beach, age 14 . . . after getting pasty in Oregon all winter. Went for a swim, laid in the sun for 15 minutes. Acne medication + hole in ozone = oozing leatherface. For a week, people looked at me like I was a freak. Finally, chunks came off in post-it sized pieces.

[lancegranite]

Flying my 3 meter kite in waist deep water on a 117 degree day.

Sunburned yes, brain fried maybe.

[Mr._Natural]

emmons glacier with 3+ year old sunblock. in case i can perhaps keep someone from making the same mistake, throw it out after a year.

[JayB]

When I was in highschool I spent a semester in Australia as an exchange student, and headed up to the Great Barrier Reef with my host family for a week's vacation. When I was that age I spent alot of time outside and had kind of a perma-tan in the summers, and between that and a relatively dark complexion for a white guy sunburn was never really an issue. After making the move down there, I pretty much missed summer entirely, and by December I had spent a full year out of the Sun.

 

So when we headed out to the Reef on an anodized aluminum catamaran type cruiser, I laid out on the top deck during the entire 2-3 hour trip cruise. Then I spent a solid six hours snorkeling, then I kicked back on the top deck for another 2-3 hours on the way back. Sunscreen? Bah. By the time we docked I had a pleasant warm sensation all over, and thought I'd take a bit of a nap before heading back out for the last bit of Sunshine. Then I happened to catch a glance of myself in the mirror. My skin was literally brick red.

 

Sleep was out of the question, so I ran to the store before it closed and snagged about a gallon of aloe and various other after sun lotions, and for reasons that I can't quite recall - I think one of the locals told me to do this - spent the entire night chugging my way through several gallons of gatorade while sitting in the sauna and slathering on coating after coating of aloe/aftersun stuff.

 

Somehow I came away without blistering or anything worse than the normal sting associated with a sunburn, but about 10 days later I did get the instapeel that left me looking like I was well into a losing battle with leoprosy.

 

I try to remember the sunscreen now.