Altitude Sickness Sucks Chimp Ass

On my trip to Colorado I discovered that I do get altitude sickness. I can get over it, provided I have enough time to acclimatize. Unfortunately, it seems as though I require about ten days to get used to any altitude over 11,500 feet or so.

Altitude sickness was a very weird illness for me. It was extremely uncomfortable. At its worst, I felt as though I was skating the verge of a seriously bad situation. It may very well be that I was close to suffering something worse than what I ended up experiencing. But each time I felt it getting really awful, I'd stop to rest and drink some water. In addition, I'd generally also try to choke down some food. These things--rest, water, food--seemed to calm the symptoms and keep them at bay long enough for me to continue onward and upward.

I'm surprised I was able to keep pushing on in a few situations. It was almost always heading toward a high pass or trying to push over a particularly steep ridge when I'd suffer the most. Only at the very end of the trip was I finally accustomed to the altitude.

Some of the following photographs were taken by me in a generally ill and sometimes addled state.

This is a terminal moraine that we encountered on the way to Chasm Lake on the highest peak in Rocky Mountain National Park. I was starting to feel a bit crappy at around this point, which was in fact not a lot above tree line.

This is the kind of thing I went to Colorado to see. An enormous ridge looming like the prow of a fantastic ship in the clouds. I was so woozy and wonky and nauseous by this time that my companions had passed me by, one of them worrying about my physical and mental state. Even I realized that I was babbling nonsense. It was like being in a fever dilerium when you know you're not making sense, but there's nothing you can do about it but continue to try to make yourself understood. I did not want to turn back at this point and not see Chasm Lake, so I kept going (albeit at the pace of a wounded snail).

Chasm Lake. It was very cold up there and very cloudy. Sleet rained down on me and the wind made me feel very cold. All I could do was lie in the rocks and take photos from a reclining position. I felt like Hell.

This was taken on a mountainside trail below treeline. I didn't feel too bad at this spot, in the Weminuche Wilderness.

I hiked up to just below a glacial lake to get this shot. We had awakened to newly fallen snow and it was pretty cold, but there wasn't much wind. Clouds were moving in, though, and we had to break camp and push on. I was high enough for the altitude to get to me, though.

Another high altitude shot. This was one of the mountains we wanted to see: Rio Grande Pyramid. In the planning stages I was supposed to have climbed this one. But with the nausea and shortness of breath, there was no way. So seeing it from a distance was the best I was going to get.

 Where I began to learn about altitude sickness. On Long's Peak on the Chasm Lake Trail.