Altitude Sickness

I took a few more languid steps, then stopped again to catch my breath. At 11,000 ft of elevation, my head felt swollen and each additional movement felt like a hammer pounding against my skull. With only 500 ft. of elevation gain left, we would summit the mountain. After 5 arduous hours of steadily climbing uphill, I didn't want to turn around when we were so close.

However, I couldn't physically keep going either. For the past mile, I felt dizzy and nauseous. As I kept pushing myself, my chest started feeling pains. It was shortly followed with some dry heaving. I finally asked my partner to hike up ahead so she could summit while I would wait in the cool shade. She declined, insisting that we head back down immediately. I reluctantly agreed and we started the 8 mile journey downhill.

I've been on hikes up to 10,000 ft elevation before and would consistently get headaches. However, whenever I started the descent, I would immediately feel better. Any signs of altitude sickness would pass by the time I descended a few thousand feet. This wasn't the case.

Going down, my body still felt so depleted of oxygen that I would need breaks to catch my breath. To make matters worse, the dry heaving and headache didn't stop. My stomach started to knot up in pain. It wasn't an easy descent, but we finally made it to the car. The headache and shortness of breath lingered even when I was sitting in the car.

After a hot meal and a good nights rest, I still felt the effects of altitude sickness. My mind felt slow and I had trouble thinking. I made a visit to the doctor and took the remaining part of the day off work.

As I laid on my couch drinking gatorade, I watched "North Face", a movie about two German climbers and their daring ascent of the north face of the Swiss massif - The Eiger. It was a gripping story.

I look at the climbing gear in 1932, with no synthetic materials to wick away sweat, no carbon fiber ice picks, and no climbing helmets. Climbing has come a long way since then. Despite the advances in technology, Mother Nature is still as fierce and real as ever.