The only cure for Acute Mountain Sickness is immediate descent, so prevention is critical. Unfortunately, AMS is vexingly unpredictable. It can strike even seasoned mountaineers without warning, and then, seemingly out of spite, it will grant full and undeserved immunity to some of the most woefully unprepared tourists. All you can really do about AMS, then, is improve your odds. There are four ways to do this:
1. Ascend at a snail’s pace to give your body time to adjust to the decreasing air pressure.
2. Climb a little higher than you plan to camp each day, and then retreat back to a lower elevation each night.
3. Spend as much time as possible at high elevations in the weeks before making the climb.
4. Maximize your cardiovascular fitness in the months before making the climb.
1. Ascend at a snail’s pace to give your body time to adjust to the decreasing air pressure.
2. Climb a little higher than you plan to camp each day, and then retreat back to a lower elevation each night.
3. Spend as much time as possible at high elevations in the weeks before making the climb.
4. Maximize your cardiovascular fitness in the months before making the climb.
Wisely, the Sierra Club has already built items 1 and 2 right into our itinerary. We will follow the Lemosho Route, the longest of the seven designated trails on Kilimanjaro. It rises slowly out of the western cloud forest like a morning mist (or a doddering old man, depending on your tolerance for poetic language) and then conveys trekkers to the summit in seven regally-paced days. Shortly after reaching camp each afternoon, Mo’ and I will be required to accompany our trip leaders on evening hikes to still higher elevations where we can sip the rarified air and give our lungs a little taste of the oxygen deprivation that awaits us the following day.
I mentioned in a previous post that about half of Kilimanjaro’s suitors fail to reach the altar each year. The success rate is so low because many climbers try to save time and money by taking shorter routes to the top. This is a classic example of a false economy; the shorter, less expensive routes lead much more frequently to illness than they do to the summit.
I mentioned in a previous post that about half of Kilimanjaro’s suitors fail to reach the altar each year. The success rate is so low because many climbers try to save time and money by taking shorter routes to the top. This is a classic example of a false economy; the shorter, less expensive routes lead much more frequently to illness than they do to the summit.
The success rate on the Lemosho Route, the one we’ll be taking, is a bit above 85%. By contrast, the success rate on some of the shorter trails, such as the Umbwe Route, is less than 30%.* That’s what accounts for the disheartening 50% average.
Item 3 (above) presents the biggest problem for me and Mo’. The Centers for Disease Control recommend that anyone climbing to extreme elevations spend at least two nights above 9,000' in the month before making the attempt. That’s all well and good for people who live in and around the Rockies or the Sierras, by which I mean people who don’t need to worry much about acclimatization in the first place. Monica and I, however, don’t exactly live “at altitude.” To be precise, our home is a whopping – nay, nose-bleeding – 500 feet above sea level. For all the good that’s doing us, acclimatization-wise, we might as well be treading water on the Chesapeake Bay.
The highest Mo' and I have ever been over the course of our many mountain backpacking trips is around 12,000’, which we've done on only two trips, both in Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park. More significantly, we’ve only slept above 11,000’ on one occasion (also in RMNP), and we felt the effects of altitude pretty distinctly that night. We were a little alarmed to find ourselves periodically (and involuntarily) sucking in deep-yet-deeply-unsatisfying breaths even though we were doing nothing more athletic at the time than trying to sleep.
Considering that we have neither the time nor the money to fly to Colorado before our Africa trip, it looks as if we have no choice but to concentrate all our preparation efforts on Item 4 above.
Ugh! I hate cardio. I'd almost rather take my chances among the undead.
The highest Mo' and I have ever been over the course of our many mountain backpacking trips is around 12,000’, which we've done on only two trips, both in Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park. More significantly, we’ve only slept above 11,000’ on one occasion (also in RMNP), and we felt the effects of altitude pretty distinctly that night. We were a little alarmed to find ourselves periodically (and involuntarily) sucking in deep-yet-deeply-unsatisfying breaths even though we were doing nothing more athletic at the time than trying to sleep.
Considering that we have neither the time nor the money to fly to Colorado before our Africa trip, it looks as if we have no choice but to concentrate all our preparation efforts on Item 4 above.
Ugh! I hate cardio. I'd almost rather take my chances among the undead.
* As you might imagine, these numbers are hotly contested, mostly by the owners of Kilimanjaro's many outfitting companies, all of whom claim much higher success rates on all routes. Their stats, however, are largely dismissed by experts as commercial propaganda.