Lowlanders and Acute Mountain Sickness - a word of caution
Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2011 8:34 am
First post here - I've really enjoyed this site over the last year as I have researched and studied the 14ers. Thanks to Bill and all who collaborate on this site. It really is an exceptional community.
A little bit about me: I'm a lowlander from the Houston, Texas area. I started going to Colorado at least once a summer as a family tradition when I was young and it has continued for years. I now have about 35 trips under my belt and am familiar with remote hiking, camping, and class 1-2+ climbing to 12,000 and 13,000 ft peaks. I haven't ever done technical climbing, and the highest rock face I've climbed was only about 15 feet. I wasn't very familiar with the 14ers in the state until last year when I found this site. I became somewhat obsessed with it and decided to start hiking one 14er each trip to Colorado.
We just returned from our trip this year and I wanted to post a warning to other flat/low-landers who make 14er attempts. My wife and I had decided to start out with Holy Cross as our first 14er, but with the Tigiwon road closure, we decided on La Plata instead. Looking back on it, we should have picked something less steep, but we are both in decent shape and capable hikers so we went for it. We have both been actively working out since January with the intent to be ready for the climb and like I already mentioned, it became somewhat of an obsession.
We started out around 5:45 AM on July 11. Everything went well until we hit 11,500, at which point my wife began to become very emotional about the climb. It seemed kind of odd to me and she kept making statements about how steep the climb was and that she was becoming frightened. She insisted on continuing, but kept making comments of being scared.
I kept asking her how she was doing and she began to state that her head hurt and that she was beginning to feel nauseated. I began to recognize the symptoms of AMS (acute mountain sickness, AKA altitude sickness), but we decided to give it a little longer as she's had some health problems in the last year and we thought this might be related. We slowed down to try to give her some time before getting too high too fast.
Things didn't get better, and after we reached the NW ridge at 12,700, we sat down to take pictures and evaluate everything. As we sat there she developed almost the full list of AMS symptoms. She became somewhat incoherent at times and complained of severe head pain, stomach nausea, and dizziness. Her hands began to swell and she had trouble focusing on standing up, steadying herself, and taking her next step.
I tend to be a mind-over-matter guy, and we were both so excited about hiking our first 14er. However, I know what AMS is and I recognized that my wife had developed a fairly severe case. I decided (against my wife's will) to abort the climb and get her back off the mountain.
When we got back down to the trees around 11,500, she said her headache had begun to subside, and by the time we finished the steps down through the trees, she was almost normal. For over 1500 feet, however, I was holding her hand and helping her walk down the rock steps high on the ridge slope and then down the switchbacks which were quite dizzying for her. She doesn't have a fear of heights, but she could hardly take a step down without me holding on to her because she was so disoriented.
My point in this whole writeup is hopefully to make other lowlanders aware of the severity of altitude sickness and that it is a serious situation that anyone in your group is susceptible to. Please don't ever let peer pressure or the desire to summit overcome your sensitivity to others in the group because it could be a very dangerous situation for them and ultimately yourself. Additionally, you need to know the symptoms and when you begin noticing AMS either in yourself or someone else in your group, quiz them repeatedly to see if they are worsening. If they are, get them off the mountain. One of the worse symptoms is stroke, which is something you can avoid most of the time and you don't want to happen miles from the trailhead and even further from the hospital.
One of the other things she kept saying is that she didn't understand what was wrong with her. She kept saying she was fine but just didn't feel like herself. She didn't recognize that what she was experiencing was altitude sickness..which seems to be another common symptom for those who suffer from it.
So we didn't make it to the summit, but we made a solid attempt and we will try to do a better job of acclimating before making future climbs! Everyone stay safe out there.
A little bit about me: I'm a lowlander from the Houston, Texas area. I started going to Colorado at least once a summer as a family tradition when I was young and it has continued for years. I now have about 35 trips under my belt and am familiar with remote hiking, camping, and class 1-2+ climbing to 12,000 and 13,000 ft peaks. I haven't ever done technical climbing, and the highest rock face I've climbed was only about 15 feet. I wasn't very familiar with the 14ers in the state until last year when I found this site. I became somewhat obsessed with it and decided to start hiking one 14er each trip to Colorado.
We just returned from our trip this year and I wanted to post a warning to other flat/low-landers who make 14er attempts. My wife and I had decided to start out with Holy Cross as our first 14er, but with the Tigiwon road closure, we decided on La Plata instead. Looking back on it, we should have picked something less steep, but we are both in decent shape and capable hikers so we went for it. We have both been actively working out since January with the intent to be ready for the climb and like I already mentioned, it became somewhat of an obsession.
We started out around 5:45 AM on July 11. Everything went well until we hit 11,500, at which point my wife began to become very emotional about the climb. It seemed kind of odd to me and she kept making statements about how steep the climb was and that she was becoming frightened. She insisted on continuing, but kept making comments of being scared.
I kept asking her how she was doing and she began to state that her head hurt and that she was beginning to feel nauseated. I began to recognize the symptoms of AMS (acute mountain sickness, AKA altitude sickness), but we decided to give it a little longer as she's had some health problems in the last year and we thought this might be related. We slowed down to try to give her some time before getting too high too fast.
Things didn't get better, and after we reached the NW ridge at 12,700, we sat down to take pictures and evaluate everything. As we sat there she developed almost the full list of AMS symptoms. She became somewhat incoherent at times and complained of severe head pain, stomach nausea, and dizziness. Her hands began to swell and she had trouble focusing on standing up, steadying herself, and taking her next step.
I tend to be a mind-over-matter guy, and we were both so excited about hiking our first 14er. However, I know what AMS is and I recognized that my wife had developed a fairly severe case. I decided (against my wife's will) to abort the climb and get her back off the mountain.
When we got back down to the trees around 11,500, she said her headache had begun to subside, and by the time we finished the steps down through the trees, she was almost normal. For over 1500 feet, however, I was holding her hand and helping her walk down the rock steps high on the ridge slope and then down the switchbacks which were quite dizzying for her. She doesn't have a fear of heights, but she could hardly take a step down without me holding on to her because she was so disoriented.
My point in this whole writeup is hopefully to make other lowlanders aware of the severity of altitude sickness and that it is a serious situation that anyone in your group is susceptible to. Please don't ever let peer pressure or the desire to summit overcome your sensitivity to others in the group because it could be a very dangerous situation for them and ultimately yourself. Additionally, you need to know the symptoms and when you begin noticing AMS either in yourself or someone else in your group, quiz them repeatedly to see if they are worsening. If they are, get them off the mountain. One of the worse symptoms is stroke, which is something you can avoid most of the time and you don't want to happen miles from the trailhead and even further from the hospital.
One of the other things she kept saying is that she didn't understand what was wrong with her. She kept saying she was fine but just didn't feel like herself. She didn't recognize that what she was experiencing was altitude sickness..which seems to be another common symptom for those who suffer from it.
So we didn't make it to the summit, but we made a solid attempt and we will try to do a better job of acclimating before making future climbs! Everyone stay safe out there.