[00:00:00] Joe: Welcome everyone to the live ultralight podcast powered by outdoor vitals This podcast is all about inspiring you to get outdoors Showing you how to lighten your pack and build your confidence so you can start living your life full Of adventure. I am joe Jason brigham and We're going to be talking about Altitude today Um specifically how to deal with altitude Uh as a backpacker as a hiker. Um First tason, could you tell us? Why is this important?
[00:00:37] Tayson: Yeah, um, I think for a lot of years i've heard things about altitude sickness and I was just thinking Everest, you know guys that are hiking these crazy tall peaks growing up in utah Like I just didn't think much about high elevation and so That was like I don't know my background was just like huh until I go hike something like that. I don't care We even had someone on really early on on the podcast. We talked about Elevation on denali and altitude sickness, but it was like till I go to denali doesn't matter um But anyways as we got into this, I guess it started I started to find times Where it really really did matter. So anyways today we're just going to be talking about all that altitude sickness and why it doesn't matter to people is Really high altitude can be as low as 8 000 feet in elevation that to me was like low coming from utah I thought altitude like high altitude might start at like 10 000 feet but According to medical professionals and stuff sometimes they'll categorize stuff as low as 8 000 feet into high altitude So you may or may not be encountering this Um, you may or may not be a healthy strong person Which is another thing that I thought was that by being younger healthier that I would avoid it. Um, that's also not true So anyone and everyone could get altitude sickness and you don't have to be going to ever for this to matter to you and this last year kind of proved it for me where I had my own experience with getting altitude sickness and Kind of put me on the topic of researching and caring about it. Finally. I think i've dealt with altitude sickness before
[00:02:09] Joe: Um both times where I tried to summit and failed to summit king's peak And mount elbert in colorado both of which are known as like generally easier kind of you know high elevation climbs Both times I was about a quarter mile away from the top and I got like really sick and just all be sort of like Just sick and weak and horrible feeling and I turned around on both of them My tail tucked in between my legs and both of those hikes
[00:02:43] Brigham: Yeah, I mean the first time I did king's peak or the only time i've ever done king's peak So that's only a 13 500 foot peak and uh, I I did it but I felt like trash and uh, I wasn't sure you know That's the thing is like a lot of times you're like i'm not sure if this is elevation sickness I'm not sure right like that's like the most common theme
[00:03:03] Tayson: When I had elevation sickness, I didn't believe it was elevation sickness both times, you know And so it it sneaks up on a lot of people. So having a good knowledge based on it I think is helpful and this is probably a good time for me to also say None of us on here are doctors. None of us on here have any room to speak on this topic whatsoever Uh, this will be entertaining. Hopefully you will get some stories out of our case studies and our experiences with this But uh, we're we're not medical professionals. So that's true. That's true
[00:03:33] Brigham: I think also like like you were you mentioned just a second ago. I think altitude sickness is one of those things that It's it really is hard to tell If what you're experiencing or feeling is actually altitude sickness one You're probably not hiking with your pulmonologist next to you Who's got you connected to sensors and testing your blood oxygen and and testing what's going on in your lungs and your brain, so You're you really don't have like a qualified person to tell you if it is or isn't altitude sickness because and You know, there's there's other things that happen when you for example, like climb to the top of a a tall mountain, right that You can experience some things that could be altitude sickness or could just be fitness related or altitude related because At altitude the air pressure is significantly lower. So less oxygen gets into your lungs That's not altitude sickness so like there's some distinctions that that really I think that's the challenge with altitude sickness and why it you know sneaks up on people and kind of why it matters it's like the biggest thing I think is just like knowing what to look for And like how to recognize what what could be altitude sickness because It's like do you really want to mess around too much if you if you're having things that feel like it could be altitude sickness then Probably the smart thing is is to to address them as if it is because why not, right?
[00:05:14] Joe: Okay. Well, do we want to go into recognizing altitude sickness Are you guys prepared to go into there's like oh, there's all kinds of ways we could say
[00:05:23] Tayson: Yeah, we could talk about different types of altitude sicknesses. We could talk about I mean in the end I think what we want to do is give people You know actionable information hopefully that will help them prepare for altitude sickness Um along with the stories we'll tell and whatnot But maybe let's just briefly touch on just what altitude sickness is and and some of that
[00:05:44] Brigham: So there's three types of altitude sickness. There's acute mountain sickness Which is the most common by far that's the headaches dizzy nausea muscle aches type of Experiences, right and you've got high altitude pulmonary edema or hate So that's basically your lungs are filling up with fluid Symptoms of that would be like if you're coughing a lot maybe coughing up blood Things like that, but that's all a very low percentage thing and then high altitude cerebral edema, which is haste With the sea that's kind of the acronym and that's fluid in the brain. So both. Hape and haste are much lower probabilities to experience so the most part we're going to be mainly talking about ams or acute mountain sickness and it's It's important to note though Hape and haste are very low probability of happening. They are life-threatening They're not like something that you you don't sit there and wait it out You don't think you're going to get better if you actually have the symptoms that are related to either of those You need to take immediate action because they will both Kill you that sounds extreme, but it is extreme, but also extremely unlikely, but it would be foolish to Discard the fact that they are life-threatening conditions, but Yeah So got that out of the way. Where do we want to go?
[00:07:12] Joe: Well
[00:07:14] Brigham: So I think it's important to it would be helpful for people that maybe aren't familiar with you know, like you talked about in the kind of early on when we first started like the 8,000 foot altitude like yeah that that's pretty widely accepted as like kind of the the first real benchmark of altitude where Where you're going to start experiencing? altitude sickness symptoms um and So also put the disclaimer out there that like 8,000 feet. That's like that doesn't mean that We're saying that if you're at 7,900 feet that there's no possible way that you're going to experience symptoms But those are there's basically there's general benchmarks of 2,000 feet. So like 8,000 feet 10,000 feet 12,000 feet as you surpass those benchmarks the likelihood of getting altitude sickness increases and the the effects of altitude on the body significantly increase Kind of at those 2,000 foot increments
[00:08:20] Tayson: Yeah Um, so maybe let's just start off with with my story of getting altitude sickness. Um And I think it I think people can learn a lot from it because I definitely learned a lot with it. So This summer we were doing a fast pack Um, which is basically using a different type of backpacking pack Putting it all on your back and then running and jogging instead of just hiking so um, we were doing a lot of training for this if you followed us before you first talk a lot about this but As we set out we decided we wanted to run basically over the top of a of a very tall mountain range here in southern, Utah and go basically highway to highway and So we started off on this thing and on day one we ran slash hiked 26 and a half miles and climbed 6,000 feet of elevation and I felt Fine like the whole day. There was a moment where I got a little bit behind on hydration I was kind of nervous about it and Um started drinking a lot of water and whatnot But like when we got into camp I was still feeling I felt like just as good as anyone else looking around camp At night we had dinner we did a podcast even and then I went to bed and I woke up like an hour later Just sick. I thought I was gonna throw up And the rest of that night About every half an hour to an hour i'd wake up I feel like I was gonna throw up and and just over and over and and I think I might have had a spell Where I got a couple hours almost a couple hours of like straight sleeping And I woke up like the next morning just thinking like okay, please be gone, you know, because I've still got I don't know 50 miles or something like that or maybe a little less 40 miles of this fast pack to do And I was still sick. So anyways, I ended up going through that entire Trip feeling super sick the next couple days. I really couldn't eat. I was so nauseous just low energy headaches kind of came off and on but just really nauseous and The whole time i'm just standing in my head thinking like what the heck is this? Like is it altitude sickness? Is it not? Well, I don't really have a headache. So it's probably not it's and then this and this and then Got off the entire trail and you know after having eaten almost nothing for two days um Almost immediately started to feel better. We went into a subway. That's like the food I was craving was like a sandwich with a bunch of mayonnaise on it for some reason and uh Which is why I started bringing mayonnaise packets on the trail sometimes uh But anyways started to feel better pre-day fast and then ate like five meals worth of food in like the next six hours like seriously like anyways So but then like I talked to my brother and he's like, oh, yeah We were sick last week. Like I was feeling nauseous too and there was this and I was like So what did I have nausea? I didn't know I really didn't know so Then we go on highline and we have another scenario or a different team member of ours experiences symptoms again, and I won't cover those details right now and he actually had to get off the trail Because he was too sick to go on And then months later. I'm literally listening to this college professor doctor on youtube talk about Elevation sickness and I just started piecing things together. I thought man, maybe I really did have Elevation sickness and I just didn't want to admit it or face it or whatever it was And I thought you know There's something that I could check that that seems to be a symptom that these guys are talking about which is like elevated heart rate And so I went back using my trustee garman watch and their platform And I looked at my heart rate that night and I saw that my resting heart rate Which is usually in the mid to low 40s when I sleep Was at 80 beats per minute did not go under 82 beats per minute that whole entire night and That was kind of a start of like me being like that was that was elevation sickness And then I started to research more and just putting more and more dots together and sure enough I firmly believe that I had elevation sickness that day And that entire trip so basically kind of ruined that trip for me I was able to complete even though it probably wasn't the smartest thing in retrospect But it was really interesting to me I guess of Of like starting to put everything together and factors that could have led to that so um Yeah after that die hard on it and I think maybe now let's go backwards and talk about Why I think it was? Elevation sickness and the factors that you need to watch out for right so on that day one Actually before we ever got there one of the ways that you can avoid elevation sickness is um Getting good sleep not not having any underlying sicknesses and getting good sleep multiple days before you go to high elevation um Brigham you always talk about stress on the body right like limiting the amount of stress on the body Well, that was like the opposite of what we did right. I got terrible sleep. I got like five or six hours I was up packing my bag super late had a bunch of stuff going on for me that kind of made me Procrastinate per se getting totally ready. Then I got really poor sleep We're up at like five something in the morning to get to the trailhead drive out there And then we put a 20 pound pack on our back and start running for 26 miles Which I've never done in my life. That was my first, you know marathon per se in a day um And then you know keep in mind 20 pound pack and then we climbed six thousand feet of elevation And then this is the part two that was funny is You know and listening to some of these people talk about high elevation is to me high elevation is ten thousand feet plus Our base our camp that night was like Nine thousand nine hundred, you know what I mean, but I didn't looking around It didn't look like ten thousand feet to me a lot of times when you get ten thousand feet you are seeing the the transition between Trees to to non trees or some stuff like that, but it didn't look like that at all. It was heavily treed et cetera And so we ran, you know, we climbed six thousand feet that day. So tons of stress on the body and then Sleeping at that high of elevation Also looking backwards my I think one thing that I did that hurt me was getting slightly behind on hydration Then trying to play catch up. I think I threw off a lot of my electrolytes in my body because I um Without keeping a good ratio of electrolytes anyways all of those I think equated to me getting elevation sickness and uh I don't know. There's some I think there's some good takeaways there. So Go ahead. Um, I was about to say like the common
[00:15:00] Joe: Thing that you hear is to sleep at elevation for a few days before you even start hiking I don't know how many people actually have time for something like that, that's a problem. That's a challenge, that's a challenge. I also moved to Vail, Colorado for a few months, and it took me like, I would say almost three months where I wasn't winded when I picked up a box. Like, so I feel like when they say, because I did research on that, it was like, oh, it was, you know, ten days or something like that, three to ten days used to elevation. I think it's way more than that, at least it is for me. Just living up at like 8,300 feet was, that was quite taxing.
[00:15:42] Brigham: I think there's different levels of acclimating, but yeah, it can take you three months to fully acclimate, but I think you can do like, you get a lot of your gains in the first couple days, you say. Yeah, because I think there's a couple things going on where it's, there's full acclimation, like as if you're permanently staying there, like your body adjusts to the altitude and day-to-day life, versus acclimatizing enough to reduce the chance of getting altitude sickness. Like that's, they're kind of too, they're related, but separate, kind of separate issues, right?
[00:16:17] Joe: Okay.
[00:16:18] Brigham: So, I don't know, I think also, you know, we could talk about what, like what are the factors that contribute or increase the likelihood of getting altitude sickness, and then, I mean, I have that experience too, that like, we could.
[00:16:36] Tayson: Yeah, let's just cover what are the, what are they typically, like we've kind of seen a case study of what gave me altitude sickness, so just calling out what those things are exactly.
[00:16:45] Brigham: Yeah, so obviously, the first one would be the elevation benchmarks, so like we talked about, around 8,000 feet, as you increase that altitude, your likelihood increases.
[00:16:56] Tayson: Kind of exponentially too, right?
[00:16:58] Brigham: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a good point. And then, like rate of ascent is one of the most significant factors in getting altitude sickness, so that's, you know, how quickly did you go from a non-threatening altitude to an altitude where you have likelihood of, an increased likelihood of altitude sickness, how quickly did you do that? And then, another significant factor is stress on the body, and that branches out, that's a big umbrella topic, on the body, so that includes exertion, that includes sleep or rest prior to the event, so how stressed was your body days up, days before you ascended, right? So, and that is affected by sleep, that's affected by physical exertion, where you, you know, did you run 10 miles days before you ascended 6,000 feet, so there's the stress on the body prior to the event, there's the exertion as you're ascending and as you're at the altitude, there's the rate of ascent, and then there's the altitude, and then, like hydration, that's stress on the body, so lack of hydration is stress on the body, lack of poor nutrition is stress on the body, lack of electrolytes, that's stress on the body, and then the difficulty of the activity that you're doing, that's stress on the body, and then, I just lost it, but basically, you know, how the duration that you're exerting yourself at altitude, and then, yeah, I mean, if you're just going and going and you're never taking the time to rest, those are all very, like, as you increase, as you add those factors in, like, the likelihood of you getting altitude sickness just goes up.
[00:19:01] Joe: I'm not saying it is or is in altitude sickness, but what I dealt with at King's Peak in Mount Albert, 14,000, 13,000 feet, it was immediately better as soon as I started walking up there.
[00:19:12] Brigham: Yeah, so I remember the exertion. The exertion level goes down and you're losing elevation. Yeah, and that reminds, the other thing is fitness level. So, and that's where it gets tricky is because you can take a very unfit person and they could try and go hike King's Peak and feel absolutely hammered, but they could very easily not be having altitude sickness. They could just be a person that's very out of shape, and now there's a massive percentage, less oxygen, getting into their lungs because of the altitude, and they feel like crap. Like, that's not the same as altitude sickness. That's lack of fitness, and that's the altitude taking an effect on your performance, but it also can, if you are out of shape, you're more likely to get altitude sickness at those altitudes and with all those other factors.
[00:20:02] Tayson: Yeah, I think I would want to interject here because in some of the research I've done, some people are trying to claim that fitness levels don't affect altitude sickness or even that healthy people are more at risk, but as I dove more into the research, it's not that healthy people are more at risk percentage-wise. They're more at risk because they're more likely to put high stress on their bodies, meaning they come in headstrong, and they think, kind of like I probably have done a lot of times where it's like, hey, I'm in pretty damn good shape this year. Like, I'm invincible. I'm just going to go up there, and I'm going to run a marathon at 10,000 feet in elevation.
[00:20:34] Brigham: Yeah, versus going through like a two-mile little hike.
[00:20:37] Tayson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. They put themselves at risk, but my belief is definitely in the ballpark of being more in shape helps you, but doesn't make you invincible. Like, don't think of it that way at all. So, yeah, there's some different trends and thoughts there for sure.
[00:20:54] Joe: Well, let's get into what, from your guys' research, helps with altitude sickness.
[00:21:02] Tayson: Yeah. Well, I'll let Brigham start this off, but I do want to just say, I feel like for me, I have found, what I think I used to think was like the culprit, but I think it's more like a trailing indicator using heart rate. So, I do want to get into that, because I think that's an indicator you can use in a lot of time that's really, really interesting to look at. But, yeah, so what helps, is that what you want to go back to, is what helps with elevation sickness?
[00:21:29] Joe: Yeah, I think it's all the things you've already talked about.
[00:21:31] Brigham: Yeah, so basically, all those factors, you try to mitigate them. You try to account for as many factors as you can. So, like, think about, like, think of it as a risk assessment. What are the risks? How are we going to mitigate all those risks? Because you're not going to eliminate them, right? So, you just, everything we just talked about, you want to mitigate. So, and it does get challenging, because people have work, they have family lives. So, it's like, things like, it would be great to get 10 hours of sleep, four days, you know, leading up to each day, leading up to the trip, right? But that's very difficult, and my story relates to that. But then, you know, being properly hydrated, just being conscious, basically thinking ahead. So, at least try and get a good night's sleep the day before. And what I often try to do is, at least maybe sleep at the trailhead the night before. So, that helps kind of get a little bit adjusted. And then, versus driving to the trailhead, that's a quick rate of ascent. And then, exerting myself up another several thousand feet, right? So, just things like that, where, and then properly making sure you're hydrating your body as best as possible as you are ascending and exerting yourself, and making sure you're keeping track of, you know, regularly ingesting, you know, electrolytes to replace all that, everything you're losing, because you're losing way more than you can actually put in your body. You'll never realize how much they're getting dehydrated at a high elevation, because there's two factors up there that's cold.
[00:23:14] Tayson: Well, it's not even that. It's that, yeah, it is cold, so you don't feel hot, ever. It's always windy, and it's usually a very dry wind up there, so it's just pulling all of your sweat off your body so quickly. You don't even realize you're sweating half the time. And then, you're in, like, super direct sunlight, typically. And so, you've got more exposure to sun, because you're higher up. There's less ozone. You can get more sunburn, right? But what that equates to, from my own experience out there, is that people are like, I've been drinking plenty of water, and they don't realize, like, they're not dehydrating at an average level. They're dehydrating at, like, a very, very high level, and they really are getting dehydrated without ever knowing it, because the typical times you look for is, oh, my shirt's getting sweaty. Or, oh, you know, just whatever it is, or, like, my forehead's getting wet. Well, your forehead's never going to be wet, because it's getting blasted by the sun, and there's this constant wind and elevation, right? So, I think those factors lead people to not always realize how much they're dehydrating out there.
[00:24:13] Brigham: Yeah. I totally agree. We should do it, like, separate podcasts on hydration, because it's another one of those things where people just really don't know what's actually happening. I'm not thirsty, so why would I drink, or I'm not sweating. Why would I drink water anyway?
[00:24:32] Joe: Both of those hikes I ran out of water by the time we got back to my camp, by the way.
[00:24:38] Brigham: Yeah.
[00:24:39] Joe: So, I was drinking a lot, but I don't think I would have had enough to push it forward like that.
[00:24:45] Brigham: Right.
[00:24:46] Joe: Yeah. So, what's your story, Brigham?
[00:24:48] Brigham: Yeah. This is probably two years ago. Probably, yeah, around 2019. So, I had a trip planned where I was going to backpack, starting kind of a low-level trailhead that was at, like, 5,000 feet, and then backpack up in four miles to 9,500 feet, and just spend my time up at that level for, like, three days, like, three nights. But prior to this trip, knowing that it was – this was, like, right after an upcoming three-day weekend, and so prior to this three-day weekend, I was trying to cram in a ton of hours to get all the work that needed to be done done to, you know, to be able to –
[00:25:36] Joe: Was this recently?
[00:25:37] Brigham: Yeah. It was, like, two years ago.
[00:25:38] Tayson: Okay. I remember this now. I'm like, wait a second.
[00:25:40] Brigham: Yeah. It was Labor Day – it was Labor Day weekend. So, basically, you know, I was basically working 12 hours a day for a week leading up to the three-day weekend so that I could kind of just get work done and then build up time so I wasn't having to use, like, vacation time and didn't have to worry about losing any paycheck or any of that, you know. And so then I did, and I was actually meeting my family out of town. So, like, that last 12-day workday that I worked, I then drove, you know, I went home, packed up my stuff for that trip and the next trip, and then drove, you know, at, like, midnight for a couple hours, met my family, and then did the Labor Day vacation, which was, you know, just chasing kids, and it was down south of here so it was 105 degrees and not really been able to do the best things for my body for three days or whatever. And then so I also – in between that trip and the next trip, I wanted to work, like, a day. So I got up at, like, 4 in the morning from the trip, from where we were staying, and drove here to the office so I could get in a 12-hour workday, and then at the end of that day, I drove up north to where I was going on my trip. And so, needless to say, there was, like, four nights or so of, like, very little sleep, but leading up to that multiple, like, long, long days and then trying to get all the, you know, life home stuff taken care of, you know, in two or three nights to get ready for these trips. And then so I come and I work that day, and then I drive about five hours north, you know, in the middle of the night, and then get up that next morning with three hours of sleep at, like, 4 or 4.30 in the morning at the trailhead, and I hiked up. Well, by the time it was, like, 3 o'clock in the afternoon, I had gotten up on to about 9,500 feet, you know, found where I was going to set up camp. But by the time I got to that point, I'd been up there for, like, two, three hours, and I just started feeling, like, this massive headache, tons of fatigue, like, this really heavy-headed feeling, you know, and just, like, I was way past, you know, dehydrated. I couldn't keep up with my hydration. And, like, granted, like, I know about all these things, right? So, like, but I was just trying to force it, right? I was just trying to commit it to taking the time off work. I was committed to doing this. And anyway, so by, like, 3 or 4 in the afternoon, man, I was just smoked, like, just completely beat. I felt horrible. I was dizzy, weak. My legs were weak, just very fatigued. My head was just pounding, which was affecting my vision. And so, yeah, I had service at the top of the mountain, and so I ended up texting my wife and just saying, like, I feel horrible. I'm worried if I stay up here, it's just going to get worse. So I bailed off the mountain. So I came down. Well, something, my wife, I guess, said, you know, she was worried about it. So she didn't want to say anything to me. So apparently she texted my parents that live close by that town. And anyway, so they got all worried. But, I mean, I was in bad shape. So that whole way down, I was just so, my body, I just felt so horrible that, like, by the time I got down to that, like, 5,500 foot of elevation towards the trailhead that lasts, like, 2, 1 or 2 miles, it's basically flat, like, it, like, took everything I had to make it to my truck. And it was really bad. Like, I probably, I don't think I've ever felt that, like, sick and fatigued physically. Anyway. Anyway. So, my dad, he's a retired doctor, and he's not a pulmonologist or anything, but generally I think most doctors have an awareness of how the body works. And so, he was asking me questions about it, and he kind of thought that, like, yeah, I think you've got some altitude sickness. And I, you know, over the next day, two days, like, it was just like one of those things where it just, it all comes together, it all really pieces together where, because in the moment, your cognitive ability is really not great. So, you're really not putting the pieces together other than I want to stick this out and I don't want to leave, but I physically can't keep going. So, but like, yeah, I mean, within a day or two, you know, once my head got clear, it was very clear, like, again, you know, I didn't go visit a pulmonologist or anything, but for sure, like, I'm certain that that was altitude sickness and because it just checks all the boxes, I mean, so leading up to it, I hardly slept, you know, worked long days, you know, the few days prior and then got no sleep before going up, you know, close to 5,000 feet of elevation in a short distance. And so, yeah, like, in that case, like, I did all the things wrong, like, I did as many things wrong as I could, honestly, so, yeah.
[00:31:31] Joe: Well, as far as how to avoid it and how to mitigate those things, I mean, what would be your advice to me? Let's say we were all to do Highline or something like that and I were to go with you guys. What would you tell me to do?
[00:31:52] Tayson: Yeah, I think just like Brigham said, prep starts days before, so, you know, getting good rest before, first couple days before is a big factor. When you're there, making sure you're getting really good, just consistent hydration. I think it also is just really helpful to know your limits and know when you're pushing past them and if you are being able to tell your group or yourself, can't even slow down because I'm stressing my body too much, per se. So, let me kind of back up, actually, I want to talk about heart rate for a second because I think that can be a really valuable thing for people and more and more people have heart rate monitors on them these days, right, through watches. If you have an Apple Watch, you could get your heart rate. And more and more, I also have blood oxygen sensors, which is another thing that I actually did not use in my blood oxygen sensor on this Garmin because I found it kind of finicky. I learned in November, though, that it works. I just wasn't being patient enough, I guess you could say. So, I didn't actually pull any of that kind of stats throughout it. But one thing that I feel like I noticed was a big factor for me was just overall heart rate and I think that can help you in the moment as well as looking back. So, like I mentioned with my heart rate being super high on the beaver, not dropping below 80 beats per minute when I was sleeping and trying to rest. The next month later, I went to another area where I was even higher. I barely stepped below 12,000 feet of elevation for like a week. I was at that kind of high elevation. And what was interesting there is I'm getting more data sets with our heart rate and what I found there is I had to that one an underlying sickness. I wasn't sick, but I couldn't breathe through my nose very well because it's still like stuffy from being sick before that. And between that and Colorado, when I was in Colorado, we also went on high line. So, I had three different trips where I was at elevation and I was able to monitor heart rate. And when I went on high line, same thing. Heart rate's in the 70s night one, 70s night two, gets into the 50s night three and I felt pretty dang good. By night three, I was feeling like really good on that trip. There was like one or two moments where I like started to develop a headache and I was able to I think kind of basically I took like a quick lunch, laid down, got like a tiny little nap, was trying to stay really hydrated, was able to bounce back from it really well. But by like night three, heart rate was getting really low during resting periods and did really well the rest of that trip. Didn't feel any high elevation. When I went to Colorado and was over 12,000 feet for a long period of time, I had that ability, I couldn't breathe through my nose. And I found a big difference in me being able to breathe through my nose and lowering my heart rate. And so, it actually took me four plus days to get my resting heart rate into the 50s even. I was having a lot of 70s that got into the 60s for a couple days. And then finally, when my nose cleared up, was I finally able to get into the 50s. So, I guess why is this all relevant is I think what I've experienced and learned and come full circle on this is the heart rate is a really good indicator of stress on the body. So, and let me display that in a few ways. Let's say, for instance, we talked about getting good rest a few days before. Well, let's say you weren't getting good rest. Let's say you were, like Brigham said, you went on a 10-mile run the day before and you put all that stress on your body. Well, what does that do? Even after that workout is over, your body has to rebuild muscle tissues. It has to regenerate. It has to do all those things, which is stress on the body and actually elevates your heart rate. So, a lot of times you can see your heart rate resting after something like that will stay a little bit higher on a resting heart rate than if you did no physical activity. So, I like one indicator, right? Hydration. You can actually go in, and I've tested this a lot. I've heard experts talk about this with the Garmin devices as well, is if you are dehydrated, you can see that in your heart rate, right? Because your body has to pump harder, essentially, to circulate and fuel everything than if you are well hydrated. So, if I go into a run dehydrated, and I know I'm dehydrated, my average heart rate on that run will be 10 to 20 beats per minute faster. And so, that's a factor, right? That's how hydration plays into this. Anyways, there's all these different touch points that I've kind of found that heart rate can be a decent indicator. Again, this is... I'm not a doctor. This has just been my experience this last year, tracking it, monitoring it. It can be a good indicator of, are you stressing yourself too much in the moment? So, let's say in the moment, I know that, you know, I should be staying below 150 beats per minute where I get into, what is it, anaerobic, aerobic, anaerobic, right? State, right? So, even in isolation, like, if I'm tracking that, I'm like, hey, I don't want to push too hard and get my heart rate into the 160s, 170s, 180s. That's going to be helpful down the road with elevation. But then also, even just factors to me, like, staying well hydrated, you can kind of track that. Like, my heart rate's rising more than it usually is. Maybe I'm getting dehydrated when you go to sleep. If you're... Like, if you get done with one night of sleep up there and you see, like, man, I didn't get... My heart rate didn't really go down low. That's a good indicator that don't push it, you know what I mean? Maybe don't push yourself because I think all of that really plays in. I will say the best way is that one of the things that I've really become a big believer in is breathing through your nose. If you can do that, I think that's a big, helpful thing. Like, so, when I sleep, I've kind of also been watching myself with this. If I sleep and my nose is clogged, I lose so much more water throughout the night that I can almost never be hydrated the next morning. When I was on Colorado, I had that plugged nose. I could not breathe through my nose at nighttime. And I was doing everything I could to hydrate. I'd drink a bunch of water right before bedtime. I would drink throughout the night anytime I woke up, and I would still wake up and be slightly on the dehydrated side of things, which I thought was very interesting, but I couldn't breathe through my nose. So, if there's little things like this, I think you can learn from this. So, nasal breathing, but also just using it as a... It's kind of a trailing indicator, more than a leading indicator, per se, meaning, like, you can't watch this and be like, yep, I'm about to get... My clockwork, I'm going to get elevation sickness. But it's like, it can be helpful data sets to learn and experience. And it's another one of those reasons, though, that it's super helpful for me, I think, to wear the Garmin devices or any device that you can build that kind of a profile, because I can go months back. I was just looking at it before we helped on the podcast. I went back to those days in July and August and September looking at my heart rates and just analyzing it, and it helps you build, I think, your own profile to learn from. Yeah, I think that's a... To me, that's been a very interesting thing. And it's something that I'll report on, because this year, I've got a handful of other trips that I'm planning to do a high elevation. In fact, I'm planning to do another big run at high elevation, and that's going to be one of the biggest things I'm going to watch and try to control and see if that ends up really paying off for me.
[00:39:07] Joe: Okay.
[00:39:09] Tayson: Anyways, that's fine.
[00:39:10] Joe: Any other things before you tell me how to deal with this?
[00:39:17] Brigham: Yeah, I don't know. I feel like that's all we're doing is telling you how to deal with it. Okay, so I feel like you're probing for some generalities and tips.
[00:39:26] Joe: Yeah, I am probing.
[00:39:28] Brigham: Let's do something like that. So quick top five things you can do. So try and be well rested prior to your trip. Pay attention to your exertion level as you're ascending as you're doing whatever you're doing to the altitude or at the altitude. Try to be as fit as you possibly can before you ever do this trip. Make sure you're hydrating properly and fueling your body properly. That includes food and things like electrolytes. So pay attention to your rate of ascent. If your trip just says, well, I'm hiking from point A to point B, and point B is at this altitude, well, we're not saying don't do your trip, right? Just try and mitigate all the other factors like I talked about prior to it. Be well rested. Be as healthy and fit as you can. Be well hydrated prior to your trip and hydrate well during your trip and try to listen to your body. If the tool-tasting was just talking about, that's a great tool. If you don't, just pay attention to your body. If you feel like you're, you know, if you just can't even keep up with your breath, you're just, you're killing yourself, well, slow way down. Stop and take a 30-minute break. So that's kind of like addressing the rate of ascent. And then the other thing is also, if you can, I think it's very helpful to try to sleep a night before at the trailhead. And that only helps if the trailhead is at a higher elevation than your home. So like that trailhead that I started at, like that's what we live at, right? But the high line, we slept at like 9,000 feet. That's helpful. That's definitely helpful. So if you can do that, try to do that. But get good rest too. But like don't like drive with a trailhead and get six hours of rest just to be at it.
[00:41:24] Tayson: Like I would say, like what's your opinion on this? I'll say mine after yours. But if it's a decision between getting six hours of sleep at elevation or eight hours of sleep in your bed at a slightly lower elevation, you know what I mean?
[00:41:37] Brigham: Yeah, I mean, that's a tough one. Six hours or eight hours of those are kind of close. But if you're talking like it, well, I'll throw in another factor. Six hours at elevation when you've driven five hours through the night and then you sleep in your car very uncomfortably where you're like your next sore. And those are six crappy hours of sleep. I would definitely take just getting a good solid night's sleep in a comfortable bed. Having taken all the other measures prior to that and then just mitigate as many other factors as I can.
[00:42:08] Tayson: Yeah, that's what I was going to say is I think a lot of times you kind of blitz to a trailhead and then get crappy sleep. So if you don't sleep well, like one, you need to figure out your sleeping pad, shelter, whatever situation. So you do sleep well. But like there's people that don't maybe just aren't very attuned to sleeping in the backcountry and then they might still get to the trailhead. So the trailhead might still get what they think is a lot of hours of sleep. Maybe it's not quality enough. There's things you can mitigate for that for sure. But I'm probably more on the train of like get good quality sleep is just as important as sleeping at the elevation. So there's two things to weigh there.
[00:42:48] Joe: I have some other questions that I want to dive into.
[00:42:51] Tayson: Go ahead. So on Highline, we had Brennan get sick. And Brennan's not here, which is great because we can pick on him. Brennan, if you're listening, we love you. You know that. Brennan, so we started Highline just like Brigham said. We slept at like 9,000 feet of elevation at the trailhead, started hiking the next day, and basically by a little after lunchtime. Was it?
[00:43:19] Brigham: It was when we stopped for lunch.
[00:43:21] Tayson: Like we didn't make it.
[00:43:22] Brigham: Hiking four hours.
[00:43:23] Tayson: Yeah. Hiking four hours. We were climbing quite a lot. And we were in the middle of a dry section. So our packs had gotten weighted up. And we stopped for lunch. Right after lunch, he throws up. And I'm looking at Brigham. And we have some unspoken words of like, oh, no. This is the last thing we need to start on day one of a big five-day, 100-plus-mile trip at high elevation. And anyways, we kind of go into this. And we're just saying, like, you probably have your elevation sickness. You know what I mean? At this point, we're at 10,000 feet probably and done a decent amount of climbing and so on and so forth. And Brennan really didn't want to say it was elevation sickness. And so we go through that day. We get to the following night. He's still sick. You know, we're all trying to help him out a little bit. But he doesn't get good rest, throws up throughout the night. We start the next day. He's just powering through. Like, he's incredibly strong and mentally strong. And he just kept pushing. You know, he's not eating very much. He's not high. Actually, hydration was a bigger factor. He was really struggling to drink. Whereas when I was sick with it, I was able to drink OK. But I just like even a couple bites of...
[00:44:41] Brigham: He could hardly drink like an ounce of water without throwing up.
[00:44:45] Tayson: Yeah. And so anyways, we go throughout that whole day. And eventually, we have to call it. You know what I mean? Dude, we got to get you off trail. Like, you're just too sick. This is a big problem. But even at that point, he wasn't sure it was elevation sickness. Didn't think it was elevation sickness. Two days later, when he picks us up in a car, we ask him again. Dude, so was it elevation sickness? I don't know. I don't think so. You know? There's all these things, right? If we break down the things that we do know about that situation, I think there is something to learn. And I think me and Brigham have our thoughts on was it elevation sickness? Was it not? I think we're both on the side that it was.
[00:45:24] Brigham: Actually, I'm not.
[00:45:25] Tayson: No. You changed.
[00:45:27] Brigham: I've never... No, I've not changed anything.
[00:45:30] Tayson: So I think it's a fun discussion because... There's one other factor. He was taking Diamox, the elevation sickness, which there's also some things to bring up with that.
[00:45:43] Brigham: Sure. So here's my take. So at the point where we stop and he starts throwing up, to me, there is not enough of a window of factors to tell me that that's elevation sickness. That looks like every case of somebody that's out of their element, out of shape, or something is irritating their stomach. Basically, he looked exhausted and sick. So keep in mind, we've maybe hiked six miles. We started the hike over 9,000 feet. We were not even to 11,000 feet yet. We were like 10,000 feet. So rate of ascent, very low. He slept the night before at elevation. We were not really exerting ourselves very hard. Now, his fitness level may not have been great and may not have been ready for what we were doing. He had done the fast act. He'd been going along and doing these training things as a company we were doing and documenting. So he's not an out-of-shape person by any stretch of the imagination. I would say he's in above-average shape at this point. So we start high. We're hiking a low rate of ascent, not running. He had plenty of food leading up to it, and we've been hydrating. And so to get elevation sickness where you're throwing up in four hours of hiking and only gaining 1,000 feet of elevation, to me does not indicate that that's altitude sickness. Sure, it's a possibility, but there's an old adage that says, train high, sleep low. So that means you can spend hours up in elevation training, climbing, running, but then go sleep low, and that's easier on your body. So that doesn't jive with that, and that's not like just some urban legend. That's like what the experts will say. It's a common phrase in mountaineering and stuff like that. So none of that, to me, is consistent with altitude sickness. It's just too soon. Now, the reason why when he started puking and I looked over at you is because that's evacuation of everything you've eaten and all your fluids. So that's the problem. So it's kind of a two-part answer. I don't think at first what he had was altitude sickness. That's my opinion. But what happened was, and this is a tough situation because if I had a crystal ball, my crystal ball told me he's going to get altitude sickness. He should turn around now because all we were doing was going higher and higher and farther and farther and stressing our body more and more and more. Yet he's losing more and more fluid, exerting himself more, stressing himself more and gaining elevation. So that's a crash course to disaster, right? And that's what it was. So that's why once he started puking, that's very, very bad because then he just kept going. But as he kept going, we're all sitting over here drinking like two gallons of water and he can't keep down a half a cup. And if he drinks that much, he's throwing up. And over the day, he maybe consumed like 200 calories. And so that's where his curve of stress on the body just skyrocketed. And so for sure, by that night where we camped, kind of by that creek and into that next day, yeah, for sure he had just took the fast-trained altitude sickness by whatever happened at the beginning. So I don't think what started was altitude sickness, but by that initial starting to throw up and he kept throwing up and not being able to hydrate his body the rest of the day, not being able to fuel his body. And the whole next day. And he's still hiking at an increasing elevation. We hiked like 26, 27 miles that day. So yeah, that's my take. Because no, it wasn't probably altitude sickness at the beginning, but basically that was the jump start where when he got off the trail, he for sure had altitude sickness.
[00:50:24] Tayson: That's interesting. I think that's really interesting because there is one other factor. As he told us before, he had a bunch of stress going on. He wasn't getting good sleep. He wasn't doing some of those things leading into it.
[00:50:34] Brigham: Yeah, because he was doing some finals in grad school.
[00:50:36] Tayson: Yep, yep. There's one other thing that he brought up a lot and that there's a little bit of research of people out there. It's one of the things that are claimed side effects of Diamox, which Diamox is a prescription to help avoid elevation sickness, which he was taking. Because he was saying, man, I think it was the pills. I think it was the altitude sickness pills, which funny enough, that can be one of the side effects of Diamox which is basically all the same symptoms of elevation sickness, which is really interesting, which is also why at least the information I got from my doctor was don't take any of this unless you have to. If you have to start taking it, when you start taking it, you should start descending in elevation anyways because these are just band-aids on a bigger problem. That was the advice that I had been received when I got a prescription to take. But that would be interesting. What if it was, say, Diamox? This is all hypothetical at this point, right? But then that just jump-started elevation sickness, which is why it threw him through such a loop of being like, I don't know what's going on. And to be honest, Brendan is not the most, I don't think he's the most aware of all these things. It's not to say that he's just totally ignorant of everything and doesn't know what's going on, but I think there's an element of that where maybe he hasn't spent a lot of time really trying to research the effects, the signs and symptoms of altitude sickness or whatever. It's kind of like with me, I wasn't that interested in altitude sickness until I basically got it and then I started to educate myself a lot. Brendan has actually done a lot of things at high elevation and never had issues, so I think to this point he wasn't tracking or caring as much. He was like, I can just do it. It's fine. Whereas now with me, just one encounter, I'm paranoid about like, all right, I need to limit all the factors all the time because it's not fun and it can totally ruin a trip that might be a trip of a lifetime. Anyways, I think that was really interesting. It's another just little story and case point. We don't actually know what happened to Brendan on that trip. We definitely have our theories in it. At the point he turned around, it was irrelevant whether he had elevation sickness or not because he was dehydrated. He couldn't eat or drink and it was irrelevant at that point. But anyways, yeah, I think there's some good takeaways from that and hopefully there's some good takeaways from this whole podcast with just the tips of what you can and can't do. I'm a big believer in getting a device that can track heart rate and you can track blood oxygen percentage. We didn't talk about that. I don't know how to talk about that because that's probably something I'll be adding in this year is trying to learn a little bit more from that. But I do know that's a big factor when you're hiking. The massive peaks is they'll throw a finger scanner on you and be like, oh man, you're too low. We need to turn you around type of thing. There's probably more that we could talk about in a future episode if we learn more about that side of it. I'd like to get some kind of trail docker or something in here. Be able to talk about those other two. Yeah, I mean, if you guys need some entertainment and you have Netflix, there's a documentary on there called 14 Peaks. And man, that is super interesting because there's this guy going and hiking basically the world's tallest 14 peaks and he's doing it as fast as he can and elevation's the biggest factor when you're hiking Everest and everything around it and throughout the world. And yeah, there's a lot of just interesting little pieces of discussion and elevation in that documentary, but it's also just insanely well filmed and entertaining. So go watch that one.
[00:54:29] Joe: All right. Well, is there anything else you guys want to add?
[00:54:32] Brigham: I think we should end with like takeaways for the audience. Like what's the takeaway? And I would like to point out what the takeaway is not. And the takeaway is not to be paranoid about altitude sickness or to be afraid of it or to think that you need to mitigate all the risk, therefore just never go.
[00:54:55] Tayson: Yeah.
[00:54:56] Brigham: Like, please, please do not take that as this. Like we, as you know, what we do for a business, we definitely advocate not packing your fears and your what ifs. I think that applies to this as well. So just get experience. Listen to your body. Pay attention. Pay attention to the factors. Do all the research you can. Talk to a doctor. I mean, just do as much as you can to educate yourself, to prepare yourself, to just plan. But don't have this fear of that if you go into the mountains that you're going to get altitude sickness, therefore you're never going backpacking in the mountains and you're just not going to do these things because you don't have the time to sleep at the trailhead for five days. Like, it's just a matter of just be aware of what can happen and try to mitigate it as much as you possibly can. And statistically, you're very likely to be just fine. I know I've been in the mountains thousands and thousands of times and there's the one time I've had altitude sickness for sure. Maybe I've had some minor symptoms before, a handful of times, but so that I hope that conveys to the audience like, you know, we just want to help people and getting altitude sickness sucks. We don't want that for people. So we're going to help people mitigate that.
[00:56:26] Tayson: I would second that for sure. Yeah, I would second that for sure. Like, I've been, you know, at or above 10,000 feet of elevation my whole life at different periods of time. And I also don't think that I've really had elevation sickness until more recently. There's times when I look back and I'm like, that could have been, you know, but it also just could have been a number of other factors, right? But not many of those anyways for how many times I've been at elevation totally ignorant of any of this knowledge, right? So even just having a basic knowledge of some of this will help you to mitigate it and already low percentage chance of something happening. I think, like I say, my family essentially has been at high elevation a lot and we've almost no one's really had factors. Obviously, you don't get to elevation and feel like a million bucks like you can run because you still got to keep up with breathing and it limits you and slows you down naturally. So that's always going to be there. But I think as far as just actual elevation sickness, it is quite rare. And I think having a generalized piece of information like this is really helpful to just do some of those things to help eliminate it. So, yeah, I second that. Don't get too nervous or fearful about it for sure.
[00:57:36] Joe: All right. Well, guys, if you're interested in anything that Outdoor Vitals has to sell and you want to let people know, let us know that you listen to the podcast, please go through the links at the bottom next time you decide to go shopping for your backpacking gear. It'll be in the description. I'm sorry, not at the bottom. The description of the episode in your podcatcher that you use, iTunes, whatever, or on YouTube as well where we have our brand new YouTube channel for the Live Vulture Live podcast.
[00:58:09] Tayson: If you don't mind, by the way, you've done a good job with it, Joe.
[00:58:12] Joe: It's slowly building, slowly building. We'll see. So feel free to send us your comments, questions about backpacking, about outdoor stories or ideas for future episode topics. And if we think it'll bring value to our audience, we will read it out on the show. You can send them by commenting on our Live Ultra Light podcast YouTube channel like we were just saying, or you can send us an email at liveultralightpodcast.gmail.com. And if you have any positive iTunes reviews, we will also read those on the show. So please be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcast. Hopefully you learned something with this episode. I did. And yeah, we'll see you on the trip.
[00:58:55] Tayson: We're going to get to the top of King's Peak, Joe.
[00:58:57] Joe: It's just a thorn in my side.
