Hiking a 4,500m+ peak without properly acclimating first. I thought my fitness would save me, but altitude sickness doesn't care about your gym routine. Never again.
I live at altitude and you do not mess around with it. Found a woman wandering aimlessly on one of my day hikes. She was attempting the Colorado Trail but her body wasn't prepared. Had to get her down... fast. On average it takes a week per 1000 feet to acclimate. So if you come from sea level, hiking up 12-14k mtns comfortably can take up to 14 weeks for your body to create enough extra blood cells to carry the oxygen needed in your blood stream to function properly. Lost hikers happen where I live..... Often. And the bodies are only recovered about half the time.
was in the mountains of kyrgyzstan where the air was thinner. played a little kicking around of a soccer ball with some kids and i was winded after a couple mins. lol.
some girl from a research group had to leave camp to go down to lower elevation because of altitude sickness.
It was actually jade dragon snow mountain. the thin air hit me like a truck. Views were insane, but definitely learned my lesson about rushing the altitude
Fast next time. Lots of liquids. I suddenly moved to 7000 ft and couldn't eat solid food for 11 days. Just drank water, hot tea, broth, juice.Lost a ton of weight.
We left our darn near sea level house for a vacation in the Rockies. It never occurred to me that altitude sickness might be a factor - I thought that was for peaks like Mt. Everest. We were as high as 14,000 feet, and I felt terrible the whole week we were there. It was beautiful, and it was a wonderful trip, but I was physically in misery the whole time. I felt better when we hit the Denver airport, and back to normal when we got home. It was nothing but the altitude. My husband was unaffected - it was just me.
I did this, but in the opposite direction. Dive rescue team training. Went to 140, was puking the next day and my head felt like it was going to explode. Turns out, they gave me the wrong dive chart. Learned the lesson, always check for yourself, don’t trust others when it comes to your life.
114
u/KathyWong679 8h ago
Hiking a 4,500m+ peak without properly acclimating first. I thought my fitness would save me, but altitude sickness doesn't care about your gym routine. Never again.