I lived at 10,600 feet for 6.5 weeks last summer, coming from essentially sea level.
I felt like I was adjusted 90% adjusted about 2 weeks in, like I could walk at a normal speed. My Garmin watch agreed with this adaption. However, trying to mountain bike with the locals was hilarious... even at week 6 I barely started to be able to keep up on climbs. I rode my mountain bike nearly every day, or at minimum took a several mile hike
Near the end I had a bender with some coworkers. I started developing a persistent "altitude" cough after that that never really went away until I got back down to sea level. The cough disappeared in 36 hours. And wow, did I feel like superman when I got back racing my peers.
Did you catch the important point in my story though? I live an active life style at sea level, but man, people living in small towns in the mountains _love_ the outdoors. We were active every day of the week: riding, hiking, climbing, etc. I could definitely see how altitude helps with cardiovascular health, but it's already been proven that leading an active lifestyle is one of the most amazing things you can do for your health and happiness.
Mountains are objectively aesthetically pleasing to humans. They also retain the most wild and specific nature around, especially in western world where in the past mostly agriculture changed environment forever. You can find entire states in Europe where 'wilderness' is basically a well curated park that was a field some time ago. Air is much cleaner, you see far and you feel utterly insignificant up there.
Mountains also allow tons of various sports most of the year as you mention and attract such crowds.
Overall, people go in droves to mountains every year, summer and winter, to recharge. And its a different recharge compared to some beach holiday, much more active and I dare to say a more effective one (active vacations simply recharge better mental tiredness of modern living and working).
I live near Geneva, Switzerland and after moving here basically became mountain sports addict. Hiking, ferratas, climbing, a bit of alpinism in non-winter, and skiing / ski touring in winter. For exotic places there is diving to keep a bit of balance. Did also some paragliding too but had a nasty accident last year that almost killed me so stopped that. Rest I continue, and will do till the last moment I can still do them, they make me properly happy like a toddler. I live in best possible place in the world for people like me, 1h drive from home and I am right below Mont Blanc, towering almost 4km higher than Chamonix valley.
One drawback as you mention - higher mountains are basically high altitude deserts, snow and ice everywhere but humidity easily below 5% ie in Himalaya. Many folks trying ie Everest didnt get higher than base camp simply due to being often sick up there, amateurs and pros alike.
"And its a different recharge compared to some beach holiday, much more active and I dare to say a more effective one"
That depends on the type of person I think. Plenty of stuff to do at the beach or in the water as well. Surfers (with ambitions) are pretty active people for instance. But sure, on average most people are way more active in the mountains than on the beach and personally I do prefer the mountains.
(And I tried hard moved moving also into the alps, but it did not work out so far, I will rather now move from semi mountain area to a flat area, but not for too long I hope)
> Mountains are objectively aesthetically pleasing to humans
Not sure about that. I find them aesthetically pleasing, and probably most people do, but I know at least one person who remains unmoved when looking at mountain scenery. Of course I find that strange, but there it is.
So not sure about the "objectively". Maybe "Mountains are aesthetically pleasing to MOST humans"
When I did a 2 week road trip from Chengdu to lijiang a couple of decades ago, we spent the first two days of the trip just acclimating on the Tibetan plateau at 3000 meters or at the town near siguniang. Then we hit places like daocheng (3500 meters), we drive through passes at 5000 meters, Litang town at 4000 meters (about the height of mt rainier). The biggest problem I had was the lack of vegetables that high, my teeth really got tired of eating judt meat and potatoes. The places were all populated though with Tibetans, they just lived up there as if it was the most normal thing in the world (heck, litang had 60k people living at 4k meters, that seemed crazy to me).
I wonder if they're confusing the cause and effect.
Do people who live above 8k feet not die of heart disease or do people with heart disease find it too difficult to live above 8k feet so only people without heart disease live above 8k feet?
I live at 7200 feet and I know several people who have moved to lower altitudes because it's "too hard to breath" here.
I visited Mexico City a couple weeks ago and it is at 7200 feet. As I got off the plane I was gasping a bit and I woke up 3 or 4 times the first night gasping for air. I didn't have any problems visiting Denver at 5000 feet in years past but I was absolutely feeling it at 7200. I didn't stay long enough to see if I would acclimate as I continued to feel bad and returned home early.
My dad visited Machu Picchu. He was doing poorly and the guides put him on oxygen. They were well prepared for it, as it happens a lot and is not very predictable.
It's at 8,000 feet.
I remember staying overnight at Estes Park, 7500 feet. I got a headache. I didn't try anything strenuous.
I recall reading about Mt Everest climbs. Even on supplemental oxygen, your brain measurably dies a little. No thanks. People who climb it repeatedly are, in my not-so-humble opinion, idiots.
I’ve spent quite a bit of time in Mexico City and SMA, and the first time was definitely the worst; lots of shortness of breath and walking seemed much harder there than other places. My 75 year-old mother had no issues at all when she came to visit tho
I am originally from the Himalayas (Garhwal specifically), although not quite as high as in the article, my village is at 5000 ft and damn did I have a shock when I took my desi friends up there (desi means people from the Indo-Gangetic plains, I unfortunately had to come to New Delhi for college and you can imagine the contrast!). While in Delhi, I am one of the more unathletic nerds, but as soon as we were in the mountains, these guys were no match for me! Roads are still very few and far in between in my region so you have to walk a lot, and these guys were getting tired on paths even small children and 80 year olds have no problem completing!
Potentially not even so high as that. You often see 2,500 m (8,500 ft) used as the beginning of "high altitude" - at that point some studies have detected cognitive effects from long-term exposure. (10.1007/s11065-004-8159-4) A lot of research is focused more on ~4,000+ meters though due to the existence of the Tibetan Plateau.
Very asymmetrically, too. There's a (relatively) small impact on cooking grains and pasta and stuff, but even at 5000 ft where I live beans can easily take 2x as long to cook. It's a challenge.
Hmm, is coffee a problem? (some of the extraction depends on temperature, but if water boils before reaching that temperature then the extraction wouldn't work...)
Coffee takes compensation, but even ambient pressure extraction can be tuned for great results — Denver and Boulder have good coffee scenes, for example. The bigger challenge is that Mr Coffee style brewers (bubble pump) have no way to adjust extraction time; and some fancier brewers try to closed-loop control temperature, and end up boiling the water continuously while brewing. Pour-overs obviously give you control to succeed, but for traditional machines I’ve found it critical to find one that allows a set point temperature JUST below local boiling, as well as time adjustment. The Breville Precision is my current workhorse, although I have some mixed feelings about it.
Espresso machines work at high pressures (8-9 bar) so it's less of an issue with those. I went up to the observatory on Mont Blanc a few years ago and had an espresso there. That's 3500 meter. I definitely was out of breath. The coffee was fine.
Yes! I like to vacation in the summer at Mammoth Lakes (~8000 ft ~2400m) and coffee is a bit of a problem. I like weak coffee and compensate for altitude by adding more grounds, but it's really not the same.
One can compensate with (steam)pressure and/or duration. Or cold brewing.
In practice I note not that much difference at about 2500m altitute, where my main residence is. French/Aeropress suffices. 100°C isn't necessary. Even only 90°C suffices.
Similar for good Tea. You destroy that with 100°C. Very good Tea should be brewed at 60 to 70°C for greens, blacks more like 70 to 85. Though the hardness/pH of the used water is equally important for them. For coffee not so much.
It's not just the boiling point. Food tastes less salty as well.
I once cooked a stew for friends at 8000 ft. I thought I had made a mistake because it tasted so bland. After the trip I had the leftovers at sea level and realized it tasted just fine. It gave me an appreciation for the fragile relationship between location and following recipes. (Humidity also changes taste)
I lived in Breckenridge (9,600ft) for a few winters post college.
Before college, when I had last been to CO, I didn't get any altitude sickness. Post college, I discovered (by blacking out on the slopes at Vail) that I now got bad altitude sickness. It now takes me almost 2 weeks to aclimate, but once I do, boy, is it amazing.
The most fun time was when I flew home to the East Coast after being there 4 months. I felt like absolute Superman. So much energy, barely needed any sleep! I only wish those effects lasted more than 5 days...
As a child I lived for two years at ~11k ft (La Paz, Bolivia). I can vouch for the impact of both Acute Mountain Sickness and the sun at that elevation.
I first learned about La Paz and its even higher-elevation sibling city El Alto from this video [1] about their new cable car transportation network [1][2]. I then spent a few hours on Google Maps and Youtube looking at El Alto up close, what a fascinating and different world up there.
I grew up in Memphis TN but lived in Boulder CO for a few years. I worked at a hospital in both cities; my job was checking people into the ER.
In Memphis, I’d probably see 7-10 heart related issues a day, with about 2-3 of them being actual heart attacks. Every single day.
By contrast, in Boulder I saw maybe 1-2 heart attacks a year.
It was absolutely astounding. Now, there could be some confounding variables like income/education/exercise/diet. But like another poster said, high altitude places seem to bring out more activity in us.
You have experience in 2 very different places demographically. High altitude may be on the list of factors but I would guess it’s pretty far down.
Boulder is a small college town of mostly affluent younger people. Memphis is an urban city in a hot climate that is older, poorer, and in the middle of the section of the US that has some of the worst health overall.
> The best defense is to start at 5,000 feet and stay there for 3 days, drinking water like crazy and resting. Then, come up to the higher elevation and give yourself a day or two to adjust. That usually works.
This is crazy to me as I usually only get 1 acclimation night in before going up. I’m curious how people can find their limits / needs?
I met Charles Snead Houston, who lead the first two American attempts on K2 and became a doctor. (He fell the furthest in "The Belay", the most famous belay in mountaineering history.)
He asked me to explain my work on card shuffling, so we traded. He taught me about altitude sickness, for which he was the foremost expert. I then read his books before my own mountaineering, and his advice worked for me.
In a nutshell, where you sleep matters. 7,000' is free, and a conservative pace is to sleep 1,000' feet higher each night. (Good luck finding a Kilimanjaro ascent that climbs that slowly, but have you met anyone who was comfortable at the summit?)
My wife's brother lives at 10,000'. As it happens the last hotel is at 8,500'. One night does the trick for her.
"Living at high altitude reduces risk of dying from heart disease", but you're litereally locked in your house because the sun takes every chance to fry you. I'm okay with not reducing my risk of dying from heart disease.
I lived at 10,600 feet for 6.5 weeks last summer, coming from essentially sea level.
I felt like I was adjusted 90% adjusted about 2 weeks in, like I could walk at a normal speed. My Garmin watch agreed with this adaption. However, trying to mountain bike with the locals was hilarious... even at week 6 I barely started to be able to keep up on climbs. I rode my mountain bike nearly every day, or at minimum took a several mile hike
Near the end I had a bender with some coworkers. I started developing a persistent "altitude" cough after that that never really went away until I got back down to sea level. The cough disappeared in 36 hours. And wow, did I feel like superman when I got back racing my peers.
Did you catch the important point in my story though? I live an active life style at sea level, but man, people living in small towns in the mountains _love_ the outdoors. We were active every day of the week: riding, hiking, climbing, etc. I could definitely see how altitude helps with cardiovascular health, but it's already been proven that leading an active lifestyle is one of the most amazing things you can do for your health and happiness.
Thanks for the marvelous story!
Mountains are objectively aesthetically pleasing to humans. They also retain the most wild and specific nature around, especially in western world where in the past mostly agriculture changed environment forever. You can find entire states in Europe where 'wilderness' is basically a well curated park that was a field some time ago. Air is much cleaner, you see far and you feel utterly insignificant up there.
Mountains also allow tons of various sports most of the year as you mention and attract such crowds.
Overall, people go in droves to mountains every year, summer and winter, to recharge. And its a different recharge compared to some beach holiday, much more active and I dare to say a more effective one (active vacations simply recharge better mental tiredness of modern living and working).
I live near Geneva, Switzerland and after moving here basically became mountain sports addict. Hiking, ferratas, climbing, a bit of alpinism in non-winter, and skiing / ski touring in winter. For exotic places there is diving to keep a bit of balance. Did also some paragliding too but had a nasty accident last year that almost killed me so stopped that. Rest I continue, and will do till the last moment I can still do them, they make me properly happy like a toddler. I live in best possible place in the world for people like me, 1h drive from home and I am right below Mont Blanc, towering almost 4km higher than Chamonix valley.
One drawback as you mention - higher mountains are basically high altitude deserts, snow and ice everywhere but humidity easily below 5% ie in Himalaya. Many folks trying ie Everest didnt get higher than base camp simply due to being often sick up there, amateurs and pros alike.
"And its a different recharge compared to some beach holiday, much more active and I dare to say a more effective one"
That depends on the type of person I think. Plenty of stuff to do at the beach or in the water as well. Surfers (with ambitions) are pretty active people for instance. But sure, on average most people are way more active in the mountains than on the beach and personally I do prefer the mountains.
(And I tried hard moved moving also into the alps, but it did not work out so far, I will rather now move from semi mountain area to a flat area, but not for too long I hope)
> Mountains are objectively aesthetically pleasing to humans
Not sure about that. I find them aesthetically pleasing, and probably most people do, but I know at least one person who remains unmoved when looking at mountain scenery. Of course I find that strange, but there it is.
So not sure about the "objectively". Maybe "Mountains are aesthetically pleasing to MOST humans"
Yeah obviously that goes without saying
When I did a 2 week road trip from Chengdu to lijiang a couple of decades ago, we spent the first two days of the trip just acclimating on the Tibetan plateau at 3000 meters or at the town near siguniang. Then we hit places like daocheng (3500 meters), we drive through passes at 5000 meters, Litang town at 4000 meters (about the height of mt rainier). The biggest problem I had was the lack of vegetables that high, my teeth really got tired of eating judt meat and potatoes. The places were all populated though with Tibetans, they just lived up there as if it was the most normal thing in the world (heck, litang had 60k people living at 4k meters, that seemed crazy to me).
I wonder if they're confusing the cause and effect.
Do people who live above 8k feet not die of heart disease or do people with heart disease find it too difficult to live above 8k feet so only people without heart disease live above 8k feet?
I live at 7200 feet and I know several people who have moved to lower altitudes because it's "too hard to breath" here.
I visited Mexico City a couple weeks ago and it is at 7200 feet. As I got off the plane I was gasping a bit and I woke up 3 or 4 times the first night gasping for air. I didn't have any problems visiting Denver at 5000 feet in years past but I was absolutely feeling it at 7200. I didn't stay long enough to see if I would acclimate as I continued to feel bad and returned home early.
My dad visited Machu Picchu. He was doing poorly and the guides put him on oxygen. They were well prepared for it, as it happens a lot and is not very predictable.
It's at 8,000 feet.
I remember staying overnight at Estes Park, 7500 feet. I got a headache. I didn't try anything strenuous.
I recall reading about Mt Everest climbs. Even on supplemental oxygen, your brain measurably dies a little. No thanks. People who climb it repeatedly are, in my not-so-humble opinion, idiots.
I’ve spent quite a bit of time in Mexico City and SMA, and the first time was definitely the worst; lots of shortness of breath and walking seemed much harder there than other places. My 75 year-old mother had no issues at all when she came to visit tho
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercompensation
I am originally from the Himalayas (Garhwal specifically), although not quite as high as in the article, my village is at 5000 ft and damn did I have a shock when I took my desi friends up there (desi means people from the Indo-Gangetic plains, I unfortunately had to come to New Delhi for college and you can imagine the contrast!). While in Delhi, I am one of the more unathletic nerds, but as soon as we were in the mountains, these guys were no match for me! Roads are still very few and far in between in my region so you have to walk a lot, and these guys were getting tired on paths even small children and 80 year olds have no problem completing!
I really do wonder how big of that is a genetic factor and how big just being more acclimated to the altitude and the region?
On the other hand, if it’s too high it’ll just kill your brain cells: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/brain-cells-into-...
Potentially not even so high as that. You often see 2,500 m (8,500 ft) used as the beginning of "high altitude" - at that point some studies have detected cognitive effects from long-term exposure. (10.1007/s11065-004-8159-4) A lot of research is focused more on ~4,000+ meters though due to the existence of the Tibetan Plateau.
One other fun thing about living at altitude is that the recipes you use need to be redesigned because the boiling point of water is lower.
Very asymmetrically, too. There's a (relatively) small impact on cooking grains and pasta and stuff, but even at 5000 ft where I live beans can easily take 2x as long to cook. It's a challenge.
Hmm, is coffee a problem? (some of the extraction depends on temperature, but if water boils before reaching that temperature then the extraction wouldn't work...)
Coffee takes compensation, but even ambient pressure extraction can be tuned for great results — Denver and Boulder have good coffee scenes, for example. The bigger challenge is that Mr Coffee style brewers (bubble pump) have no way to adjust extraction time; and some fancier brewers try to closed-loop control temperature, and end up boiling the water continuously while brewing. Pour-overs obviously give you control to succeed, but for traditional machines I’ve found it critical to find one that allows a set point temperature JUST below local boiling, as well as time adjustment. The Breville Precision is my current workhorse, although I have some mixed feelings about it.
Espresso machines work at high pressures (8-9 bar) so it's less of an issue with those. I went up to the observatory on Mont Blanc a few years ago and had an espresso there. That's 3500 meter. I definitely was out of breath. The coffee was fine.
Yes! I like to vacation in the summer at Mammoth Lakes (~8000 ft ~2400m) and coffee is a bit of a problem. I like weak coffee and compensate for altitude by adding more grounds, but it's really not the same.
One can compensate with (steam)pressure and/or duration. Or cold brewing.
In practice I note not that much difference at about 2500m altitute, where my main residence is. French/Aeropress suffices. 100°C isn't necessary. Even only 90°C suffices.
Similar for good Tea. You destroy that with 100°C. Very good Tea should be brewed at 60 to 70°C for greens, blacks more like 70 to 85. Though the hardness/pH of the used water is equally important for them. For coffee not so much.
Have you tried baking bread? Pizza dough? Some surprises wait :)
It's not just the boiling point. Food tastes less salty as well.
I once cooked a stew for friends at 8000 ft. I thought I had made a mistake because it tasted so bland. After the trip I had the leftovers at sea level and realized it tasted just fine. It gave me an appreciation for the fragile relationship between location and following recipes. (Humidity also changes taste)
I remember the kettle took forever at ~ 9000 ft (near Huanglong, Sichuan Province).
Kettle should boil sooner as it will boil at a lower temperature
I lived in Breckenridge (9,600ft) for a few winters post college.
Before college, when I had last been to CO, I didn't get any altitude sickness. Post college, I discovered (by blacking out on the slopes at Vail) that I now got bad altitude sickness. It now takes me almost 2 weeks to aclimate, but once I do, boy, is it amazing.
The most fun time was when I flew home to the East Coast after being there 4 months. I felt like absolute Superman. So much energy, barely needed any sleep! I only wish those effects lasted more than 5 days...
As a child I lived for two years at ~11k ft (La Paz, Bolivia). I can vouch for the impact of both Acute Mountain Sickness and the sun at that elevation.
I first learned about La Paz and its even higher-elevation sibling city El Alto from this video [1] about their new cable car transportation network [1][2]. I then spent a few hours on Google Maps and Youtube looking at El Alto up close, what a fascinating and different world up there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5126u88E7E
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mi_Telef%C3%A9rico
I grew up in Memphis TN but lived in Boulder CO for a few years. I worked at a hospital in both cities; my job was checking people into the ER.
In Memphis, I’d probably see 7-10 heart related issues a day, with about 2-3 of them being actual heart attacks. Every single day.
By contrast, in Boulder I saw maybe 1-2 heart attacks a year.
It was absolutely astounding. Now, there could be some confounding variables like income/education/exercise/diet. But like another poster said, high altitude places seem to bring out more activity in us.
You have experience in 2 very different places demographically. High altitude may be on the list of factors but I would guess it’s pretty far down.
Boulder is a small college town of mostly affluent younger people. Memphis is an urban city in a hot climate that is older, poorer, and in the middle of the section of the US that has some of the worst health overall.
Boulder is one of the most fit places in the country. Lowest obesity rates, as you would expect from the first statement.
> The best defense is to start at 5,000 feet and stay there for 3 days, drinking water like crazy and resting. Then, come up to the higher elevation and give yourself a day or two to adjust. That usually works.
This is crazy to me as I usually only get 1 acclimation night in before going up. I’m curious how people can find their limits / needs?
I met Charles Snead Houston, who lead the first two American attempts on K2 and became a doctor. (He fell the furthest in "The Belay", the most famous belay in mountaineering history.)
He asked me to explain my work on card shuffling, so we traded. He taught me about altitude sickness, for which he was the foremost expert. I then read his books before my own mountaineering, and his advice worked for me.
In a nutshell, where you sleep matters. 7,000' is free, and a conservative pace is to sleep 1,000' feet higher each night. (Good luck finding a Kilimanjaro ascent that climbs that slowly, but have you met anyone who was comfortable at the summit?)
My wife's brother lives at 10,000'. As it happens the last hotel is at 8,500'. One night does the trick for her.
If anyone watched that movie, Elevation[0], the “line of death” was 8,000 feet.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elevation_(film)
Note that 8000ft is the regulatory maximum cabin altitude in a plane, although many keep it lower: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabin_pressurization
On the contrary, do people who live high above for years have any trouble when coming back down?
"Living at high altitude reduces risk of dying from heart disease", but you're litereally locked in your house because the sun takes every chance to fry you. I'm okay with not reducing my risk of dying from heart disease.
So easy to protect from the sun and the reward in the mountains is so wonderful. Terrible waste to stay locked in.
Wouldn’t be surprised if this were another contributor to less heart disease- so much incentive to get outside and do stuff.
No, you just wear long sleeve shirts and a hat.
Just don't try to have a baby up there.
Why not?
Wait that was super short. I liked this article I wanted it to be longer.