Effects of altitude

HAL9000

Just spent a week in Saas-Fee in Switzerland. It's 1800m above sea level and I'm surprised at how everyday things like, say, climbing stairs are noticeably more difficult than back home. Also just how fast it gets cold once the sun goes down with less air to retain the heat. Bit of Googling suggests that the air is about 15% thinner at this altitude and it's certainly something one's aware of. Apparently at 4000m (which plenty of mountains in the Alps are) the air is 35% thinner than at sea level. Gives me a new-found appreciation of the effort that climbers must go to to get up even fairly modest mountains.

crunchman

The effects can be worse than that.  I climbed Kilimanjaro 3 years ago which is 5895m.  At the top you only have about 50% of the oxygen you have at sea level.  You shuffle to the summit at a very slow speed because going any faster would wreck you completely.

Some people suffer from altitude sickness which can have various effects.  One guy in our team went completely doolally and started talking gibberish.  Normally when people suffer from altitude sickness they recover quite quickly if you can get them down 1000m or so.  Depending on the symptoms (often nausea and headaches) a lot of people can get down under their own steam but we did see a few people getting stretchered down.  They have these stretchers with a single wheel on:


By all accounts they are not a very comfortable ride.

thermionic

I once went to a conference in Colorado. We landed at an airport that is a mile above sea level and drove straight up the mountains to a ski resort at almost 3600 metres. The first couple of days had me out of breath walking up the steps of the hotel front door. I acclimatised quickly though (but I was in my mid 20s then) and after the conference ended, spent 10 days mountain biking round the area. I was hoping that "altitude training" would have me flying after I got home but I wasn't cycling noticeably faster!

Myranda

How long do you need to be at altitude to have a noticeable benefit training wise? 

And how often do you need to top up? 

crunchman

On Kilimanjaro I found that 3 days made a big difference.  There was a camp we stayed at at around 4000m on the way up when you got out of breath walking to the hut with the toilet*.  We stayed there 3 nights later on the way back down and you didn't really notice it when walking around the camp.

* the facilities were not great.

ESBlonde

In the early days of flying anything over 10,000 feet was considered dangerous. The intense cold and lack of oxygen could and did cause aeroplanes to fall out of the sky.
It is said that people who return to 'normal' after being at altitude for weeks find a rush of energy in day to day activities.
Still, it's not as dangerous as deep sea diving eh!

crunchman

What I did find on Kilimanjaro is that I lost weight very easily.  I ate vast quantities of food but still lost around 5lbs in 6 days.

octatonic

You get used to it after a while.

I did the Inca trail in 2000, was there for a couple of months.
The first week was a nightmare but I adjusted eventually.

Ro_S

tremolo

Rocker

I am told that a golf ball flies a lot further at high altitude. No idea if this is true.

scrumhalf

Rocker said:

I am told that a golf ball flies a lot further at high altitude. No idea if this is true.

True, but it still isn't a patch on a airplane.

Bucket

An old friend of mine is doing that as we speak. It's her birthday today, so she'll be turning 21 somewhere a long way up Kilimanjaro...

I don't know how people do climbing, I'd have seven heart attacks from the physical exertion then another every time I looked down.

crunchman

Kilimanjaro isn't so much a climb as a very long walk.  It's not technical at all.

TonyR

My wife and I went to Saas Fee in 2009 to do a Warren Smith summer skiing course up on the glacier.
 
We were skiing up at 3500m. I wasn't affected particularly but my wife did suffer with some pretty bad nose bleeds.

It's a lovely spot, made all the better by the glorious weather we had. It ranks as probably our best holiday. We met a great bunch of people that we have remained good friends with.

The crazy golf course is bonkers and the view across the gorge from the bridge is awesome,

stimpsonslostson

I walked up to Mackinders camp (4200m) on Mt Kenya a few years ago and got sick from the altitude. It was like that horrible feeling you have when you're halfway between drunk & hung over. It got better as time passed, but it wasn't fun at all. 
Shame as watching dawn break over the plains is a thing I'll never forget. 

ChrisRG

Altitude can have very profound and dangerous effects on people.  It can start off with being short of breath and headaches/nausea and if not treated (descending to a lower altitude) can get worse quickly.

I've been to around 7000m in the Andes and getting to the summit involved a really slow shuffle with my legs and walking poles moving one at time (plus lots of swearing).  I was ridiculously short of breath and couldn't have moved quicker if my life depended on it.   At the other end of the scale, my tent mate was carried down to a lower altitude by Sherpas in the Himalayers after coughing up pink froth (pulmonary oedema) he was also suffering from cerebral oedema.  That was pretty scary and if he hadn't have been helicoptered out, he probably wouldn't have made it.

Water also boils at a lower temperature at altitude so your cuppa is colder

If people want a bit more info on the subject, here's a link to a booklet recommended by some mountain organisations.  It's got some great info in it.
http://medex.org.uk/medex_book/Book update June 2011/English/TravelSafeHighv27.pdf

Plukky

octatonic said:

You get used to it after a while.

I did the Inca trail in 2000, was there for a couple of months.
The first week was a nightmare but I adjusted eventually.

 I struggled a bit towards the top of Dead Woman's Pass, my pulse was about 180 just putting one foot in front of another.

One of the porters strolled past me, wearing sandals made from car tyres, carrying 3-4 rucksacks wrapped in a tarp braced with a strap round his forehead.  Oh, and he was playing a flute. 

RandallFlagg

I get out of breath climbing my 6ft stepladder, is that altitude sickness?

menamestom

octatonic said:

You get used to it after a while.

I did the Inca trail in 2000, was there for a couple of months.
The first week was a nightmare but I adjusted eventually.

I did the Inca trail in about 2004.  They sell it without mentioning it might actually be quite hard.  I was okay, only 26 at the time but watching unfit overweight Americans collapse at 4000m is quite disturbing. 

John Peel died in Cuzco around the time I was on the Inca trail and they said the altitude could have been a factor in his death.

Clarky

makes me think of the Top Gear show when they drove over the Andes
they were all getting into a bit of a state..

ChrisRG

@Plukky, The people that live in the high altitude areas are amazingly well adapted (and ridiculously fit and tough).  On one trek, we tried to play the monks at football at the Tengboche monastery which is at about 3800m.  I think we were swapping players every 30 secs and still not actually running around!  They were just laughing at us.

We also could hardly lift the porters loads let alone trek up hill at altitude.  Amazing people.