Altitude Sickness- who has gotten it?

[ScottR]

As title says, how many of you have gotten it?

 

[Team Kabob]

I get it from time to time at attitude. It sucks. Nothing major just headaches and general malaise!

 

[mntnguide]

Ive seen it numerous times. Twice in severe circumstance. 1 was a pack trip guest who had never been above sea level in life basically and flew in day before and was at 8000' by that night after 7 hours horseback. I noticed the signs quickly as her headache grew immensely and fast, and by day 2 i made the call to get her out of there because nothing is going to cure it aside from going down in elevation at that point. She was fine by the time she got to the ranch, which i knew she would be. But had we stayed another night, I would have been calling a helicopter im sure. . The other time, Myself and 2 childhood friends decided to trek to the base camp of Mt. Everest in April 2007. Half way through the 20 day trek we were around 14,000' in a village and my one friend said he had a very minor headache and was going to lie down in the hotel we were staying in that night....a few hours later he was in excruciating pain and luckily there was a British staffed medical facility in the village that had been put there almost entirely because of altitude sickness problems. He was diagnosed 10/10 severity and they put him in a decompression chamber that a Nepalese man sat and foot pumped for hours to depressurize his body to around 5000'. The next day, they gave him real altitude sickness medication and he and another guide hiked back down the drainage to let his body adjust for a few days...long story short, we met up a few days later and proceeded to make it to base camp and climb to over 19,000' and he never had another issue. .All i can say is, It effects each person differently and some people may never be effected by it. Its still one of those things that seems to puzzle doctors because it doesnt affect everyone the same

 

[dirtclod Az.]

I get it every time I go above 7000ft.Which really sucks because we
have a cabin at 6000ft.I'm very sick for the first day(nasea)then sleep
till the next morning and I'm good to go.Hopefully thats as far as it goes.
I had a buddy one time get sick on top of the Mogollon Rim.Took him
back down to the cabin,no improvement.Drove him all the way back to
Phx.Ruined a once in a lifetime Bull Elk hunt.Finally made it back to
Elk Camp and the next morning in the first meadow was a huge blood
trail leading to a huge gut pile!..Long story short I Kill't Him!! Ha!,Ha!

 

[dirtclod Az.]

As title says, how many of you have gotten it?

Scott have you gotten it?

 

[mallardsx2]

I personally know 6 people who have gotten it.

My buddy got it pretty bad in 2016. I have shared that story here before. He literally though he was dying.

My buddy took a guy with him and his buddy didn't get out of the tent for 2 days. He was a heavy smoker. So I dont think that helped much.

Personally the altitude never gets to me. I have noticed that the air is thinner, I just slow down when I'm in the upper elevations. I have never been over 12,500 though.

 

[Work2hunt]

I get a mild case starting about 9500 ft. Maybe a slight headache or tiredness. Usually by the 2nd day I've acclimated and I'm better.

 

[ScottR]

Scott have you gotten it?

If I have I was too dumb to notice...but I have been with quite a few who have. It is amazing how indiscriminate it is.

 

[Timr245]

Been fortunate to never have gotten it but had a buddy get it to the point of being flown to Grand Junction in a hurry to save him.

 

[JimP]

Never have had a problem with it. But then I lived and worked between 6500 and 10,000 feet every day. But I saw a lot of flatlanders that had it when they came up to 8500+

 

[Joseph]

I've never had it, I don't think so anyway. Not many of our mountains go over 3000m(10,000ft) and above 2000m(6600ft) it's generally nothing but rock. I guess altitude plus a few degrees north means our alpine starts lower. There's goats up above 2000m but not much else, unless it's a pass that is also a travel/migration corridor but they don't have a lot of reasons to stick around that high up. Very little feed, no cover, water is also hard to come by. Most of my hunting is done 2100m and below, there is one exception in our area, a plateau at about 2300m that has feed, cover, and water. Don't get me wrong I may not be going as high as some, especially you guys hunting mule deer at 10,000ft(unheard of here) it's still plenty rugged and often very remote. No cell service, miles from any real road, if something bad happens it's going to be a problem. Hope I never get it, sounds terrible especially if you're solo, which I often am.

 

[JimP]

Joseph:
When I was in BC on my bear hunt most of the peaks were around 9,000 feet and we were seeing tons of goats 2,000 feet lower with nothing up higher on the peaks. It was to the point that I had a hard time understanding just what I was seeing.

We were hunting in the Percell Wilderness west of Canal Flats

One other thing to remember is that animals such as dogs can and do get altitude sickness

 

[Joseph]

Jim that's some rugged country, I've personally never hunted it but I hear about it from others who have. There are a number of peaks in there that do break 10,000ft(3000m+) but like you said and I have noted there isn't much up that high. If there is nothing to eat that pretty much does it. Goats at 7000ft(2200m) makes sense, there is feed, escape terrain, and often water. Most of my hunting is 6600ft(2000m) and below, I'm still in the alpine/subalpine zone but there is more life.

How'd you do on your hunt, were you successful? More importantly was it a good time, what'd you think of the place. Canal Flats is just over a 2hr drive to the NE from where I live.

 

[Prerylyon]

I think my #4 son (who is 10 now) got it last summer when we were camping >10k' in the Medicine Bow, up the road from Centennial.

We had camped other yrs high up; and last yr, even treated ourselves to our 1st night at a bed and breakfast in Centennial, as we had another family with us, and they wisely wanted to spend a day acclimating to the higher elevations before we headed to our final tent camp.

Cam had headaches and nausea the 1st night after setting up camp. Part of it, was he over worked himself; really being a super trooper collecting firewood and helping setting up tents for everyone. We watched him closely, and I came very close to running him down to Laramie if his symptoms did not improve quickly; but he started bouncing back pretty quick with rest and hydration. We had a pretty crazy 1st aid kit my buddy brought, with means to measure blood pressure and pulse ox; and we have basic wilderness 1st aid training. His O2 steadily improved; but to be clear, I am not a doctor to know all those details of the specific diagnosis. If not 100% altitude sickness, I feel the elevation had an impact on him, because he never gets that blown out.

 

[JimP]

Jim that's some rugged country, I've personally never hunted it but I hear about it from others who have. There are a number of peaks in there that do break 10,000ft(3000m+) but like you said and I have noted there isn't much up that high. If there is nothing to eat that pretty much does it. Goats at 7000ft(2200m) makes sense, there is feed, escape terrain, and often water. Most of my hunting is 6600ft(2000m) and below, I'm still in the alpine/subalpine zone but there is more life.

How'd you do on your hunt, were you successful? More importantly was it a good time, what'd you think of the place. Canal Flats is just over a 2hr drive to the NE from where I live.

I had a great time but I was after a griz and we only saw one on the next two last day of the hunt and it was 578 yards away. I did manage a black bear on the second day there so it wasn't a total bust. We were 23 miles back in on horseback from White Tail lake where the outfitter had some cabins