3 ms·

> 12-15K feet just isn’t that high in the scheme of things. Many peaks in the western US are in that range or more. The highest peak in the contiguous United S

> 12-15K feet just isn’t that high in the scheme of things. Many peaks in the western US are in that range or more. The highest peak in the contiguous United States is Mt. Whitney at ~14.5k feet

kjkjadksj 6mo ago
I went from sea level to 11k feet in the same day many times before. I would say the altitude effect is there but not as much as you might expect. A little quicker to be out of breath a little longer to recover it. Not sure what it is like at higher elevations or greater daily altitude delta.
- prasadjoglekar 6mo ago
  Very much dependent on age, rest and general conditioning. I went from sea level to 14K at Pikes peak in 1 day and it was quite uncomfortable. I managed, but folks who lived in Denver with lower physical fitness levels than me, did better.
  - linsomniac 6mo ago
    Agreed, we live at ~5K and went up to Pikes Peak; my wife and I had no problems (beyond minor headache), but my son's lips were turning blue and he was feeling pretty bad. Other amusing things from that trip: we went up there the 3rd of July, and it snowed. We charged the car in Colorado Springs before we left, got up to the peak with 36% battery remaining. My wife worried we wouldn't be able to make it back. Got back to CS with ~70% battery left.
    - FartinMowler 6mo ago
      Lol, on my trip up Pikes Peak I was blissfully unaware that altitude sickness could be a thing. So I can't recall if I felt any different. I do recall the carburetor on my motorcycle was acting a little strange, however.
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
- quickthrowman 6mo ago
  I went from ~500 ft above sea level (Palm Springs) up to 8,500 feet above sea level (San Jacinto Peak) in less than an hour via the aeria tram a couple months ago and it was very noticeable, my walking speed fell by a third and I was breathing a lot harder than I usually do.
  - ahepp 6mo ago
    San Jacinto is 10,834 ft, for what it's worth.
- nonameiguess 6mo ago
  I guess fitness makes a difference from what these other comments are saying. My ex-wife and I lived in Long Beach (which is obviously sea level) when we were in ROTC and pretty regularly took day trips out to San Gogornio and walked to the summit in about five hours, which is ~11,500ft. Not once did that have any noticeable effect, but we were both pretty serious runners back in the day trying to become Army officers. On the other hand, she tried to summit Aconcagua during a spring break and couldn't make it due to altitude sickness. I've never been higher than Mt. Whitney, personally. Even if you don't feel it, the altitude still makes a difference, though. I recall doing two-a-day hell weeks at Big Bear at the end of summer cross-country training in high school and there was a 5k up there at the end of that week. We all got worse times than typical at sea level, and somewhat amusingly, I recall a high school senior from Rim of the World High School (who lived up there) getting 2nd place overall the first year I ever competed in that race, beating way more seasoned competitors just because he was used to the altitude. It works in reverse, too. There was an officer in my Armor Basic Officer Course from Colorado who gave himself rhabdo during the two-mile test the first week we in-processed, apparently because he was so used to altitude that he hadn't quite acclimated to Fort Knox atmosphere.
  - hermitcrab 6mo ago
    >I guess fitness makes a difference Not really. Altitude sickness seems quite random in who it effects worst. I trekked to the top of Mera Peak (~21,000 ft) many years ago. 3 of the fittest people in our party got altitude sickness and didn't make it to the peak.
  - jltsiren 6mo ago
    If anything, fitness makes you more susceptible to altitude sickness. It's not an inherent effect, but rather your habits driving you to do things you shouldn't. You are supposed to take things lazy and slow when acclimatizing to high altitude. But if you're fit, you may be used to moving too fast and pushing yourself too hard. You may not recover from exertion as quickly as you expect, and you may end up climbing higher every day than you should. Altitude sickness typically starts after 12–24 hours. If you climb high and come back down in the same day, there is usually not enough time for the symptoms to start. And 11,500ft is not that high altitude. People routinely fly to Cuzco, La Paz, Lhasa, and Leh from sea level, and most of them suffer no serious ill effects.
- dlenski 6mo ago
  Same. I've climbed Mount Adams (12,280 feet) several times, including once with an overnight stay at 9,500 feet as well as other times when I did the whole ascent and descent in a single day. It's a tiring climb and a tiring descent, but I never felt a hint of altitude-related discomfort. I lived near sea level and didn't often go anywhere more than about 1,000 feet above sea level in daily activities.
tristor 6mo ago
I think you mean continental United States, as Alaska and Hawaii are excluded, where-as Alaska is contiguous with the United States, but requires crossing through parts of Canada to reach by land. That said, yes Whitney is the highest in the continental US, and McKinley in Alaska is the highest in the US (and contiguous US) and is also the tallest in the world from base to peak and the third most prominent peak in the world.
- shadow28 6mo ago
  It's exactly the other way around actually, continental US would include Alaska since it's still on the North American continent whereas contiguous US excludes both Hawaii and Alaska. Contiguous US refers to the lower 48 states.
  - coldtea 6mo ago
    Continental "could" include Alaska (it's even in the official U.S. Board on Geographic Names definition), but in practice when "continental US" are casually mentioned, it's rarely implied as included. Most use it as interchangeable with contiguous.
    - cwmoore 6mo ago
      Contiguous states is the correct term. “Continental” would be in Europe.
      - Toutouxc 6mo ago
        Wait, you guys don’t live on a continent?
        cwmoore 6mo ago
        HI lol
      - coldtea 6mo ago
        Both "contiguous us" and "continental us" are correct terms for referring to sets of US states, even though they are mistakenly often used interchangeably in casual talk: "On May 14, 1959, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names issued the following definitions based partially on the reference in the Alaska Omnibus Bill, which defined the Continental United States as "the 49 States on the North American Continent and the District of Columbia..." The Board reaffirmed those definitions on May 13, 1999." https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_United_States https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_United_States "The contiguous United States, also known as the U.S. mainland, officially referred to as the conterminous United States, consists of the 48 adjoining U.S. states and the District of Columbia of the United States in central North America." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contiguous_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contiguous_United_States "Continental" is also a casual way to refer to European things, but that's a different overloading of the term. Continental is not confined to meaning "European", except where the context implies so (e.g. "continental philosophy", or "continental breakfast"). A leftover from the British refering to Europe as "the continent", it being the nearby continental body next to them.
kortilla 6mo ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_highest_major_summits_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_highest_major_summ... Many peaks in the western US are in that range. Lots more with several exceeding if you include Alaska in “the western US”.
IncreasePosts 6mo ago
There are 50+ peaks in Colorado higher than 14,000 ft and 1000+ higher than 12000 ft

> 12-15K feet just isn’t that high in the scheme of things. Many peaks in the western US are in that range or more. The highest peak in the contiguous United States is Mt. Whitney at ~14.5k feet

kjkjadksj 6mo ago

I went from sea level to 11k feet in the same day many times before. I would say the altitude effect is there but not as much as you might expect. A little quicker to be out of breath a little longer to recover it. Not sure what it is like at higher elevations or greater daily altitude delta.

prasadjoglekar 6mo ago
Very much dependent on age, rest and general conditioning. I went from sea level to 14K at Pikes peak in 1 day and it was quite uncomfortable. I managed, but folks who lived in Denver with lower physical fitness levels than me, did better.
- linsomniac 6mo ago
  Agreed, we live at ~5K and went up to Pikes Peak; my wife and I had no problems (beyond minor headache), but my son's lips were turning blue and he was feeling pretty bad. Other amusing things from that trip: we went up there the 3rd of July, and it snowed. We charged the car in Colorado Springs before we left, got up to the peak with 36% battery remaining. My wife worried we wouldn't be able to make it back. Got back to CS with ~70% battery left.
  - FartinMowler 6mo ago
    Lol, on my trip up Pikes Peak I was blissfully unaware that altitude sickness could be a thing. So I can't recall if I felt any different. I do recall the carburetor on my motorcycle was acting a little strange, however.
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
quickthrowman 6mo ago
I went from ~500 ft above sea level (Palm Springs) up to 8,500 feet above sea level (San Jacinto Peak) in less than an hour via the aeria tram a couple months ago and it was very noticeable, my walking speed fell by a third and I was breathing a lot harder than I usually do.
- ahepp 6mo ago
  San Jacinto is 10,834 ft, for what it's worth.
nonameiguess 6mo ago
I guess fitness makes a difference from what these other comments are saying. My ex-wife and I lived in Long Beach (which is obviously sea level) when we were in ROTC and pretty regularly took day trips out to San Gogornio and walked to the summit in about five hours, which is ~11,500ft. Not once did that have any noticeable effect, but we were both pretty serious runners back in the day trying to become Army officers. On the other hand, she tried to summit Aconcagua during a spring break and couldn't make it due to altitude sickness. I've never been higher than Mt. Whitney, personally. Even if you don't feel it, the altitude still makes a difference, though. I recall doing two-a-day hell weeks at Big Bear at the end of summer cross-country training in high school and there was a 5k up there at the end of that week. We all got worse times than typical at sea level, and somewhat amusingly, I recall a high school senior from Rim of the World High School (who lived up there) getting 2nd place overall the first year I ever competed in that race, beating way more seasoned competitors just because he was used to the altitude. It works in reverse, too. There was an officer in my Armor Basic Officer Course from Colorado who gave himself rhabdo during the two-mile test the first week we in-processed, apparently because he was so used to altitude that he hadn't quite acclimated to Fort Knox atmosphere.
- hermitcrab 6mo ago
  >I guess fitness makes a difference Not really. Altitude sickness seems quite random in who it effects worst. I trekked to the top of Mera Peak (~21,000 ft) many years ago. 3 of the fittest people in our party got altitude sickness and didn't make it to the peak.
- jltsiren 6mo ago
  If anything, fitness makes you more susceptible to altitude sickness. It's not an inherent effect, but rather your habits driving you to do things you shouldn't. You are supposed to take things lazy and slow when acclimatizing to high altitude. But if you're fit, you may be used to moving too fast and pushing yourself too hard. You may not recover from exertion as quickly as you expect, and you may end up climbing higher every day than you should. Altitude sickness typically starts after 12–24 hours. If you climb high and come back down in the same day, there is usually not enough time for the symptoms to start. And 11,500ft is not that high altitude. People routinely fly to Cuzco, La Paz, Lhasa, and Leh from sea level, and most of them suffer no serious ill effects.
dlenski 6mo ago
Same. I've climbed Mount Adams (12,280 feet) several times, including once with an overnight stay at 9,500 feet as well as other times when I did the whole ascent and descent in a single day. It's a tiring climb and a tiring descent, but I never felt a hint of altitude-related discomfort. I lived near sea level and didn't often go anywhere more than about 1,000 feet above sea level in daily activities.

tristor 6mo ago

I think you mean continental United States, as Alaska and Hawaii are excluded, where-as Alaska is contiguous with the United States, but requires crossing through parts of Canada to reach by land. That said, yes Whitney is the highest in the continental US, and McKinley in Alaska is the highest in the US (and contiguous US) and is also the tallest in the world from base to peak and the third most prominent peak in the world.

shadow28 6mo ago
It's exactly the other way around actually, continental US would include Alaska since it's still on the North American continent whereas contiguous US excludes both Hawaii and Alaska. Contiguous US refers to the lower 48 states.
- coldtea 6mo ago
  Continental "could" include Alaska (it's even in the official U.S. Board on Geographic Names definition), but in practice when "continental US" are casually mentioned, it's rarely implied as included. Most use it as interchangeable with contiguous.
  - cwmoore 6mo ago
    Contiguous states is the correct term. “Continental” would be in Europe.
    - Toutouxc 6mo ago
      Wait, you guys don’t live on a continent?
      - cwmoore 6mo ago
        HI lol
    - coldtea 6mo ago
      Both "contiguous us" and "continental us" are correct terms for referring to sets of US states, even though they are mistakenly often used interchangeably in casual talk: "On May 14, 1959, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names issued the following definitions based partially on the reference in the Alaska Omnibus Bill, which defined the Continental United States as "the 49 States on the North American Continent and the District of Columbia..." The Board reaffirmed those definitions on May 13, 1999." https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_United_States https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_United_States "The contiguous United States, also known as the U.S. mainland, officially referred to as the conterminous United States, consists of the 48 adjoining U.S. states and the District of Columbia of the United States in central North America." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contiguous_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contiguous_United_States "Continental" is also a casual way to refer to European things, but that's a different overloading of the term. Continental is not confined to meaning "European", except where the context implies so (e.g. "continental philosophy", or "continental breakfast"). A leftover from the British refering to Europe as "the continent", it being the nearby continental body next to them.

kortilla 6mo ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_highest_major_summits_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_highest_major_summ... Many peaks in the western US are in that range. Lots more with several exceeding if you include Alaska in “the western US”.

IncreasePosts 6mo ago

There are 50+ peaks in Colorado higher than 14,000 ft and 1000+ higher than 12000 ft