My trip to the top of Everest
Discussion
Loving this thread having been reading about Everest for over 20 years
Is there any way of checking before you leave for the Himalaya how your body might react to the altitude? I am talking base camp elevation only.
I love the idea of visiting that part of the world but would rather have some degree of confidence that my physiology would cope
I have happily cycled at 2600m - 2700m but I doubt that is much indication of how I would react at twice the height?
Rich
Is there any way of checking before you leave for the Himalaya how your body might react to the altitude? I am talking base camp elevation only.
I love the idea of visiting that part of the world but would rather have some degree of confidence that my physiology would cope
I have happily cycled at 2600m - 2700m but I doubt that is much indication of how I would react at twice the height?
Rich
Soft Top said:
Great post as always. Interesting to hear of all the drop outs after just a few hours walking on the first day.
Yep, we were rather surprised. One was a couple well into their 60s who I think had "prepared" by doing some walking around their local town pretty much at sea level assuming that would be enough. The other was a chap who sadly got a urinary infection and was in some pain, so that's kind of understandable. His mate who had been one of those sorts of people who talks a big game, all of a sudden sensed an excuse to bail and followed suit. Having spent £4,500 on the trip and seemingly still in fine health and no reason not to carry on, I'm surprised he didn't stick with the trip.
Rich.H said:
Loving this thread having been reading about Everest for over 20 years
Is there any way of checking before you leave for the Himalaya how your body might react to the altitude? I am talking base camp elevation only.
I love the idea of visiting that part of the world but would rather have some degree of confidence that my physiology would cope
I have happily cycled at 2600m - 2700m but I doubt that is much indication of how I would react at twice the height?
Rich
Nope, nothing you can do really, it's a unique situation you put your body in and you just don't know until you get there sadly. Is there any way of checking before you leave for the Himalaya how your body might react to the altitude? I am talking base camp elevation only.
I love the idea of visiting that part of the world but would rather have some degree of confidence that my physiology would cope
I have happily cycled at 2600m - 2700m but I doubt that is much indication of how I would react at twice the height?
Rich
We were there the same year as Ben Fogle and Victoria Pendleton and she had to head home because her body just didn't like it. Would have thought a mega fit Olympian should have been ok, but you just can't know until you're in those conditions.
And then even if you're ok once, twice or lots of times, there may still be a time when your body decides not to deal with it.
There are some that say sleeping in high altitude tents at home MIGHT give you a bit of help if you were only aiming for basecamp altitude, but then lots doubt that even helps much if at all.
UTH said:
There are some that say sleeping in high altitude tents at home MIGHT give you a bit of help if you were only aiming for basecamp altitude, but then lots doubt that even helps much if at all.
I haven’t got one of those tents but maybe if I slept on the top of my bunk bed it might help a bit? I remember going in one of the RAF pressure chambers where they shoot you up to around 24,500ft in a second or so and I was a hypoxic gibbering mess after around three minutes and that was whilst I was just sat on my arse...
Portillo having a go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcvkjfG4A_M
Portillo having a go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcvkjfG4A_M
UTH said:
Yep, we were rather surprised. One was a couple well into their 60s who I think had "prepared" by doing some walking around their local town pretty much at sea level assuming that would be enough.
Whilst not even close to what you've done (Did Kilimanjaro but that's it. Well I say did it, raging altitude sickness meant I didn't quite do it...), I have done a lot of trekking holidays. The best one was quite a hard week in Switzerland somewhere if I remember correctly. It was one of the harder trips the company had to offer. A young girl managed about 30 minutes of the first day, of which only 10 minutes were off the main road from where we were dropped off. She complained that it was too rocky and why did it have to be so steep. She had only trained on a treadmill for a few hours a week...MaxFromage said:
UTH said:
Yep, we were rather surprised. One was a couple well into their 60s who I think had "prepared" by doing some walking around their local town pretty much at sea level assuming that would be enough.
Whilst not even close to what you've done (Did Kilimanjaro but that's it. Well I say did it, raging altitude sickness meant I didn't quite do it...), I have done a lot of trekking holidays. The best one was quite a hard week in Switzerland somewhere if I remember correctly. It was one of the harder trips the company had to offer. A young girl managed about 30 minutes of the first day, of which only 10 minutes were off the main road from where we were dropped off. She complained that it was too rocky and why did it have to be so steep. She had only trained on a treadmill for a few hours a week...UTH said:
I've heard that Kilimanjaro is very tough because you increase altitude quite substantially rather quickly which is a perfect recipe for feeling the affects of altitude sickness and not making it to the top, despite it overall not exactly being what you'd call a high peak.
Yes we took the longest (most time on the mountain) route with Exodus, but only 3 made it out of around 12 IIRC. Two of those were on Diamox and one had just done over 6,000m in South America. Without the altitude I could have done ascent/descent in a very long day. I can completely understand where you/others are coming from in terms of the effect it has on your thinking/abilities. Just a few hundred meters back down and it was like I was somewhere different entirely.Thread of the year, awesome would have loved to have done it. Totally fascinated by people like yourself doing this.
Love hiking but after a 20 metre fall 4 years ago resulting in a fair amount of time off work I’m not quite as confident these days, best have done is 3000 metre hike in the Alps.
Love hiking but after a 20 metre fall 4 years ago resulting in a fair amount of time off work I’m not quite as confident these days, best have done is 3000 metre hike in the Alps.
VTECMatt said:
Thread of the year, awesome would have loved to have done it. Totally fascinated by people like yourself doing this.
Love hiking but after a 20 metre fall 4 years ago resulting in a fair amount of time off work I’m not quite as confident these days, best have done is 3000 metre hike in the Alps.
Yep!!!! Love hiking but after a 20 metre fall 4 years ago resulting in a fair amount of time off work I’m not quite as confident these days, best have done is 3000 metre hike in the Alps.
Great thread, and impressive amount of training before heading to everest.
I did base camp, and the main thing that astounded me was the sheer size of the mountains you’re surrounded by. Not just height but width too.
Photos don’t really give any scale, but I took this video of a helicopter flying past, which does give some sense of scale. (Think you have to click on the image to get it to play)
I did base camp, and the main thing that astounded me was the sheer size of the mountains you’re surrounded by. Not just height but width too.
Photos don’t really give any scale, but I took this video of a helicopter flying past, which does give some sense of scale. (Think you have to click on the image to get it to play)
Rhodrig27 said:
Love this thread and what a journey, d oyou mind me asking which tour company you went with and did they help organise the other climbs you went on such as the Eiger?
I went with Himalayan Experience (Himex) and all the bits I did in Europe was with Chamonix Experience, both companies were set up by Russell Brice, but he’s now retired. Great thread UTH. Back in the late 90s I developed a bit of a fascination with Everest after reading Bear Grylls account and quickly consumer several books about climbing it and the 96 disaster itself. It seems to be a bit of a dice roll as a climbing tourist booking onto these expeds. They're feeling the pressure of getting paid tourists to the top so maybe take too many risks with candidates that aren't suitable.
Looking forward to the final installments and would like to see photos of the Khumbu ice fall if you have them.
Looking forward to the final installments and would like to see photos of the Khumbu ice fall if you have them.
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