Ok. Someone asked me what it like to be at altitude.
Basecamp is 5175m (as we later GPS’ed) which means the air here has 50% less pressure than at sea level. So you have to breathe twice as fast. This is why my pulse is so high here. My body has to work twice as hard getting oxygen around my body.
Acclimatisation put very simply is the amount of oxygen (red blood cells) in your blood per quantity.
So practically, this is a pain in the ass. When you’re sitting down, and go to stand up, you’re totally out of breath and have to hyperventilate to catch it back. This is if you don’t get a wild head spin that will put you back to sitting.
Basically everyone is in slow-mo here apart from the sherpas who are genetically acclimatised. The sherpas don’t need to stay at a certain altitude to acclimatise, their blood is already thick with excess red blood cells per quantity. Also, their body doesn’t shut down their extremities when they start to get cold, so their hands and feet are always warm. They also can’t ‘over acclimatise’ whereas our blood can get too thick which puts us at risk of heart attack.
If you are getting AMS (Acute mountain sickness (altitude sickness)) you will have a pressure headache from excess fluid in your scull cavity, you lose your appetite, you’ll have trouble catching your breath back. These symptoms can worsen if to cerebral and pulmonary oedema (fluid on the brain or lungs) if ignored. These also lead to coma and/or death.
Other symptoms which I am seeing are that my immune system is slowing down. I have a few cracks on my fingers from the dry air which I know are going to keep opening up and wont heal until I get back down to sea level.
Later on, things to look forward to are loss of appetite as my body is prioritising to supply blood and oxygen to my vital organs rather than my stomach. So no matter how much I eat, it doesn’t digest. Good times! No wonder we lose so much weight!!
Day 3 at basecamp was pretty much the same as day 2, still acclimatising. Although today i went for a 11km walk down hill to a little area with tea houses (little tent hotels that sell tea to people not staying in them) I had a drink and a chat with the local lads and made my way back up the hill. (they reckon its a good thing to push yourself on these walks, to get the oxygen flowing). So i was walking pretty fast!