Altitude sickness

I would like to share my story so others don't make the same mistake. So Thursday at 4 we leave NE for our CO elk hunt. We pulled in to the trail head at midnight & jumped in the camper to sleep. Woke up & headed up the mountain at 8am. About 1 mile into our 4 mile hike I could tell my buddy was not feeling 100% and it got worse with every mile. He insisted on keeping on and he is the experienced elk hunter so I didn't argue. We set spike camp at 12 in the rain that later changed to snow. I hunted the afternoon while my buddy rested & drank water. That evening was no better & the next morning even worse. We broke camp & went back down but he could hardly walk. About 1/2 way down we ran into 2 wardens who were life savers. We also were able to get him on a horse for the last mile, thanks to a kind outfitter. Reached the trail head & he was just about unconscious & barely breathing so had to be flown out to the hospital. Docs said he was close to organ damage or possibly death. He is ok now but our hunt only lasted 1.5 days & it was very scary. Our first mistake was not spending a day at base camp to let our bodies adjust and we should of turned around the moment he started feeling I'll. We had to learn the hard way just how serious altitude sickness can be & we will never make those mistakes again.

Scary, glad everything is ok now.

I had a similar experience on a backpack trip in New Mexico. I never got to unconsciousness, but I did get to where every step was harder to take and I couldn't hold any food or water without throwing up. It was horrible. Drink plenty of water leading up to the trip and it really makes a difference. I did that and had no problem in the Rockies in WY and CO

What elevations were you at?

Scary!!!

Trail head was 10k we hiked to10,800. We thought we were hydrated, but the warden told us to drink 1gal a day leading up to trip & throughout the trip as well. The strange thing is that my buddy who got sick has been hunting in the mountains for years with no prior problems.

Do you know he hunted in the mountains before OR did HE TELL you he had !!!!

Ya he has many times, his dad is from the area & he has been in the mountains since he was a kid. That's why we pushed on the first day because he didn't think it was altitude sickness since it's never affected him before

Glad you caught it when you did. Been a worry of mine a few times above 10k.

Quite the cautionary tale. Glad it turned out to be a non-fatal sickness.

Yeah, that's bad news, glad you got him cared for.

I come from about 700' elev to elk hunt at 10,000'. It's basically an uphill drive all the way and this is a pretty serious consideration. Last few times we overnight somewhere in KS which is a couple thousand feet elev, then another night in someplace like Montrose CO at 5,800' to work on getting acclimated, then try to arrive in final hunting area a day early to settle in. Drink a ridiculous amount of water, take it easy and stay off the booze until you get to feeling right. Adds a couple days to a trip, but has worked well for us. Still way short of breath compared to the locals, but nobody gets sick.

Did a trip like this several years ago with a buddy and we hauled ass straight to about 9,000' in the Bighorns to hunt. He got to feeling really poorly overnight, nauseous, headache, etc. Luckily I knew a place we could still hunt deer around 3-4,000' so we loaded up right away and went there. he got to feeling better soon as we got down to lower altitude.

This is pretty serious stuff.

Husker hunter said:

Ya he has many times, his dad is from the area & he has been in the mountains since he was a kid. That's why we pushed on the first day because he didn't think it was altitude sickness since it's never affected him before

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Repetition can certainly help prevent it, but anyone can get it regardless how many times they have gone up and down. It is possible it started for him when you were camped the night before you stepped off as 10k is kind of the magic number where it gets more common, but it can happen anywhere above about 8k....

Fun fact Acute Mountain Syndrome (AMS) can lead to High Altitude Pulmonary Oedema (HAPE) or High Altitude Cerebral Oedema (HACE) both of which can be very fatal.

Fairly good source of info http://www.altitude.org/home.php