Those of you not chained to the local trails by a Newspaper column about nearby hikes may actually experience the thrill of sacrificing 50 percent of your lung capacity because the view’s so much better up there in the Real Mountains. If so, you might appreciate ABC of Hiking’s guide to high-altitude hiking. A snippet:
…. adjust your breathing to slow, deliberate, and very deep. Deeper breaths will make up for the lack of oxygen. Try to keep your breathing in rhythm with your walking. If you start feeling breathless, increase the speed of your breathing but keep the breaths deep and deliberate. Avoid getting breathless and check your heartbeat. Your heart should not be pounding and you should not be panting. Otherwise, adjust your tempo.
The site also notes on another page that it takes 100 percent more energy to increase your pace by 50 percent — which tells me my banana-slug pace has been the right one all along (I figured it was because I’m a skinny-legged guy who gets hives at the sight of a Stairmaster).
It never hurts to know a little grade school-level chemistry when you’re hiking high. The first time I hiked Lassen Peak, I felt the altitude-induced headache coming on and conducted a basic thought experiment: At 8,000 feet and climbing, oxygen supply is low and getting lower. But good old H20 is one-third oxygen, ergo: drinking a bunch water gets more oxygen into the body. Killed that headache dead.
More high-altitude wisdom is welcome — particularly from those of you who’ve hiked really high, as in the Himalayas. (A much more complete altitude guide, including what to do about mountain sickness, is at Hiking Dude’s site.)
The extra breathing also means you’re losing more water through exhalation.
Staying hydrated at altitude takes some conscious effort. A couple years ago, on our first night over 10,000 ft, my buddy got a grinding headache and then lost his dinner. He was dehydrated and reacting to a fairly salty meal. At the time it seemed a lot like altitude sickness, though. He recovered quickly with some water and crackers; and he didn’t end another day with full water bottles, either.
The point being: stop frequently, take some pictures and a couple long pulls from the Nalgene.
Can’t claim any Himalayan experience, but for a 55 year old guy going to 14,000″ in the Sierra is perhaps equivalent!
The deep breathing advice works for me, especially early on in the adaptation process. Part of the problem is that the body is still instinctively breathing only as deeply as it needed to at sea level – and attentive and deeper breathing can compensate for this a bit until the body catches up.
Slowing down at first is also important. For me there has always been some sort of threshold elevation below which I didn’t have to think much about adjusting and above which there would be hell to pay if I didn’t. It used to be around 8000′ for me, but it is probably a bit lower now. Above that elevation I no longer try to deny that it will take a while to adapt and I slow down – not to a dead stop, mind you, but enough that I can do extended work at a lower intensity.
Dan
I have to second (and third, and fourth) the keeping hydrated thing. How I feel seems directly proportional to how hydrated I am. I used to suffer from occasional altitude issues when I was above 10,000 ft, but I found if I made an effort to drink a lot of water before hitting the trail (starting off super hydrated and then maintaining that level) I barely felt the altitude.
Of course, my highest outings have been to various California 14ers, so I can’t imagine what it is like up around 20k.
I heartily recommend hydration and moving at a barely perceptible rate. Having had nothing but trouble at altitude for years, I found that extra time acclimatizing before taking off and hydrating like there was no tomorrow were essential ingredients to recent successes.
Just my 2 cents….as usual!
FYI…Commercial Aircraft are pressurized to 8,000 ft.
Drink water, lay off alcohol, get rest. magic pills don;t work. In Peru we sucked on cocoa leaves.. none of 16 got sick .. to 13K ft.
Rick D
http://www.hikehalfdome.com
I was told that the body is really good at adapting to extreme conditions, such as altitude or extreme heat, but the way it does this is by adjusting body chemistry. The only way it can adjust this is by peeing out one thing or another, i.e. keep peeing, and if it is anything more than light yellow you are not drinking enough.