UKH

Hi everyone,
I am currently doing a 5000 word project investigating altitude sickness - how and why mountaineers are affected.
If you could take 5 minutes to answer this 10 question survey that would be great - whether you have experienced altitude sickness or not.

Any feedback regarding the survey would also be appreciated, this will help my research evaluation.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/VSL2KLH

Thanks,
Pip

In reply to roxyred:

2400 metres ?

Surely a bit low

In reply to imkevinmc:

Mild symptoms have been recorded at these levels, obviously the faster the ascent and the higher the mountaineer goes, the more extreme altitude sickness.

In reply to imkevinmc:


That's around where I start getting affected. However, I doubt anyone will answer the question that altitude sickness would stop them wanting to climb above 2400m. a better question might have been options of, say, 3000m, 4000m, 5000m etc

In reply to Robert Durran:

Thanks, that is really great feedback.
I hadn't thought of phrasing the question with those sorts of answers!
-Pip

In reply to Robert Durran:

Even flying straight into 2500 metres all I experience is a bit of a puff climbing stairs.

But I suppose that's the nature of AMS, hits everyone differently

In reply to roxyred:

Agree with others, 2400 seems too low to affect the majority of people in terms of putting them off going above this height.
For me, somewhere around 3-3500m is where I start to feel mild effects, just slight headaches really. I've not been above 4200m.

In reply to Mal Grey:

I have changed the question now in order to gain a better result to that question.
It now asks at what height would altitude sickness prevent you from climbing higher and is multiple choice to different heights

In reply to roxyred:

Tried to answer the survey but couldn't complete the last question. I'm not sure what you are getting at- but for me it is the symptoms, not the number assigned to my altitude that would stop me ascending. I've been to 4500m and felt fine, and would have gone higher if the mountain was bigger... but been unwell at 3500m so really not sure how to answer this question.

As regards 2400m, thats about the stage at which I start to feel a little tipsy.

In reply to roxyred:

I've answered your survey but I'm not sure they are good answers. How people are effected by altitude can be different each time they go to altitude. I've had altitude sickness on the aguile du midi and been fine at the summit of Mera peak. So the question what altitude would stop them wanting to climb isnt a good one I don't think. It would depend how I were feeling on the day.

In reply to roxyred:

Couldn't answer question 8. There isn't a height that would prevent me climbing higher.

In reply to hokkyokusei:


But, although I've been to over 6000m, I no longer want to do so, not because I couldn't, but because for me it involves weeks and weeks of rather tedious and sometimes unpleasant suffering/acclimatisation when I could be doing more interesting/fun stuff at a lower altitude. I think it is a good question. Perhaps there should be two questions: altitude you could go to (if known) and altitude you would want to go to.

In reply to Fredt:

8848m?

In reply to roxyred:


I suspect for most people it would be 6000m+. You probably need 7000m and 8000m+ to separate people out (As I said, I've been to 6000m but and am as poor at altitude as anyone else I know).

In reply to nutme:

The highest option was 6000m

In reply to Fredt:

6000+

which includes 8848

In reply to imkevinmc:



OK. But I could be carrying a step ladder.

In reply to roxyred:

Done, good luck with your research.

In reply to roxyred:



Then you need to ask for the ascent profiles followed and over what time period? Some people are poor acclimatisers, and a background illness (e.g. having a chest infection) might make you more vulnerable, but generally speaking, people get altitude sickness because they go up too high, too quickly.

In reply to Robert Durran:


Yeah, that would be better.

In reply to roxyred:

There's lot of research done on Oxygen Saturation at altitude. I was surprised at the differences you get in a group at 5K, 6K and 7K

I can't really work out what sort of conclusion you are ultimately expecting given the questions - they are a bit too broad.

Kili is meant to be amongst the most dangerous just because the profile doesn't allow much acclimatisation and so many are driven to keep going. Yet the Throng La pass which is only a few hundred metres less is a lot easier from an acclimatisation point of view because you have to slowly go up the valley system.

You may need to process the results to work out what you should have asked and then do it again.

In reply to m0unt41n:


Sure, blame the mountain! People could take other routes, or acclimatise elsewhere nearby, but they don't. It's not about the mountain, it's about people. Operators rush them to fit it into a week because it's good for business, as are failures = repeats. People rush to fit it into a week, because they're short of time, and because they can (maybe).

Separating the psychology from the physiology is one of the main problems in studying altitude medicine. Too much common knowledge is based on anecdotes that have resulted from poor practise / ignorance / impatience.

As for the Thorong La, let's see what happens when the eastern road reaches Manang and you can be at the pass in two days.

In reply to Damo:


I'm not sure that's the case with Kilimanjaro. More likely it's because charities raise more money by selling shorter, cheaper trips. Their decision makers don't necessarily have the expertise to question why one ground operator may be selling services more cheaply than another.

I get the impression that more of the mass-market 'adventure travel' companies are catching on to the fact that 4 days up the Marangu route is completely irresponsible and a 50% success rate looks bad.

The charities on the other hand still make the money that they need to make, whether or not clients summit. But I doubt those clients have another crack at it if they've had a miserable time getting ill. And if they do they're more likely to do a bit more research and join a longer and better-organised trip with a different operator.

In reply to Damo:
I would completely discount any data from the coca cola trail as it attracts a high proportion of people that are simply not hill fit, whilst ams can impact the fit and unfit, many of the symptoms could be enhanced due a lack of aerobic capacity.

In reply to Robert Durran:

There is also a difference in how 6000m impacts you in the equatorial areas compared to say McKinley. Apart from rate of ascent etc often its regional.

In reply to summo:


Do you have a credible source for that particular differentiation?

In reply to Damo:
Other than personal experience and books, yes, the atmosphere is thinner or lower at the poles than the equator, the air is less dense, before you even start to ascend.

In reply to Damo:

This was the best reference I could find googling:
http://www.cohp.org/ak/notes/pressure_altitude_v6.html

I think it's mentioned in Ward, Milledge and Wests' High Altitude Medicine and Physiology, but I'm not at home to check. But West is referenced in the above article so it's likely.

It was my own experience that my altitude watch always seemed to read too low in Peru, which we put down to the Equatorial pressure bulge, maybe incorrectly.

In reply to damowil & summo:

Not a bad link, thanks. It's also interesting in that it somewhat contradicts, rightly I would say, much of the other material on the net on the same issue. I was not disagreeing with summo's assertion, it's just that I've had this discussion numerous times on the web and wanted to see what came up in response.

The answer is that it's not the latitude, it's the temperature that makes the difference, at a given altitude.

From the above: "The higher temperatures raise the scale height (cf Equations (7c,8)) and hence diminish the perceived pressure altitude." i.e. higher mountain temp means your body will feel to be lower altitude.

You often hear that Denali feels higher cos it's so far north, but as that link says, this is false (as is the 'coriolis effect'). It's because it's so cold there.

Personal experience? There are so many variables to going to altitude in different areas at different times that personal anecdotes are near meaningless for any true understanding.

I've been to the South Pole twice on foot, climbed Denali once, Vinson three times, and several 6000ers in Bolivia and Peru. My 'personal experience' was that Denali did not feel to be 6600m (as that link implies it should) and I summited in about -25C. I was going faster then than when I summited Sajama (6550m) just one year before.

Wrist altimeters? I've done some DGPS work on the high Antarctic peaks, including spending a 'night' on Vinson's summit when it was measured at -46C. Suunto wrist altimeters (barometric pressure only) often read around 5100-5300m on Vinson (if you don't recalibrate at High Camp) so I understand that phenomenon. To me it's never 'felt' like 5300m, but many Vinson climbers are surprised how slow they go, how long it takes, given the true altitude number.

I also know that wrist altimeters are rubbish for true heights and even when very regularly calibrated, and are usually unlikely to be accurate to better than 20-30m. Given many climbers do not calibrate their wrist altimeters regularly, many such readings could be 100m or so off. I know you often see photos of a climber's watch showing a height on or very close to the summit but what you don't see are the other times it is off, and the other watches that are way off. I calibrated my Suunto Core on Peak Lenin at every camp and got 7116m on the 7134m summit. Others were all over the place. So, like 'personal experience', rarely useful for a genuine understanding of altitude physiology.

In reply to Damo:



No, latitude also matters, The atmosphere is 'thicker' around the equator due to the earths rotation causing the atmosphere to 'bulge'. therefore for any given altitude (if you exclude weather), at the equator you will have a higher air pressure, thereofore more oxygen, therefore the effective altitude will be lower and vice versa.


Interesting, you try telling a typhoon it is rotating the wrong way because "the coriolis effect is false" therefore it should be rotating ant-clockwise like a hurricane

In reply to Webster:

No, not really. As that link says: "...latitude alone, and hence the combined effects of centrifugal force and other sources for variation in g, results in a negligible 15 meters (50 feet) additional pressure altitude." You won't feel that 15m.

Of course the Coriolis Effect is real. But again, as that link says, any impact on effective altitude is not.

In reply to Damo:

Interesting food for thought, thanks.
I'd just add the proviso that while that paper looks good and informative, I just pulled it off the net and have no idea how accepted or respected it is in the altitude scientific community!
It is interesting that it's pressure columns caused by warmer temperatures that seem to have most effect, and that the centripetal effect would only account for a 20m difference from poles to equator.