Altitude Question?

[imgone10 [OP]]

My question is how many people are actually affected by the altitude? Also what are the effects? And when do you feel it, after a couple of days or right away ? Also other then drinking plenty of water what else can you do?

[sdlsatcom]

People are acutally affected by altitude, it causes shortness of breath and dizziness in "extreme" cases. After the first day you'll notice your enegy level is down a bit. Drink lots of water and get plenty of rest at night.

[Mtbcoach]

We had one person on the Black Bear trail that was suffering from altitude sickness. There is little one can do except get acclimated which takes time at altitude or sleeping in an altitude tent/room.

What most people don't understand is that we get dehydrated at altitude simply through breathing. With the air less dense, it also carries less humidity (water) and just the act of breathing dehydrates you. Yes, water is key to surviving, avoid drinking lots of alcohol (like that is going to happen) and caffeine (a couple of great coffee shops are in town, that aint gonna happen either) and hard exertion.

But, yes, drink, drink, drink...water that is...

[S2bear]

I felt the symptoms right away - light headed/dizzy/nauseous/headache. I drank plenty and ate a snickers bar - not sure if that's good or not but I started to feel better pretty quickly. Symptoms subsided after a day or so.

[jwh86]

like they said...drink water.
I've lived here for over a year, but when I go ski the pass, which is over 12,000ft I still get short of breath...but i don't expect you will be skinning for the ultimate powder run either.

[hero]

Being in reasonable cardiovascular physical health also helps quite a bit.

I had never had issues with altitude until recently. For 5 months I had been commuting to Austin, TX for work and coming home on weekends and skiing one day on the weekend. So I came from about 5700ft down to ~500ft in Austin, back to 5700ft for a day then peaked at about 12500ft for parts of another day then flew back to Austin. I have not been in shape due to travel, stress, and much more beer drinking and barbeque eating than normal. Usually the second day I would be very tired and have migraine headaches which would last 32-48 hours. By then I would be back in Austin. Since being home for a couple of weeks now I think I had a headache that started about 5 days after coming home, got it skiing some of the higher slopes spending most of my day above the treeline. It lasted for more than a day and now I am fine (plus started hitting the gym again, makes a world of difference).

[shane4x4]

One of our friends from Ontario had a constant headache that let to nausea and he finally couldn't drive down Imogene into telluride. Pretty serious. He got meds at a clinic in telluride & he was doing much better. If you're concerned, ask you doc for 'altitude meds' before coming.

[BBhog]

3 days per thousand feet too acclimate, Aspirin and raw Onions two weeks or so before going to high places will help allot to thin your blood. This has helped me in the past to hunt on the Continental Dived.

[imgone10 [OP]]

Not really concerned as much as curious. Thanks for the replies.

[MountainMan]

ouray is only about 1700 ft higher than home (which is about 6K feet), i didnt feel any difference last year (not bragging just stating for reference)