Ken:
The last time we disagreed, you said some pretty outrageous things on WPSMB, deleted your posts, and then suggested in a PM that I had exaggerated or distorted what you said. I've quoted you here, complete with grammatical/punctuation/capitalization errors, so I won't find myself responding to a post that got deleted.
Bee: I live at 5,000 feet. I think that helps a little, but it's not a big deal. I'm not climbing nearly as much as I did in the 90's, but I try to get up one of the nearby 10K peaks every week or two if I'm not doing something bigger. That helps acclimatization, but I don't think an hour or two above 10K makes a lot of difference. I have never spent extra time at a campground or trailhead just to acclimatize.
Bob, I was kind of amazed by your post, above, and some of the other things that you'd said in your associated post, in which you'd generally dismissed acclimatization, diamox, in general.
clearly, you start off by saying you live at 5,000 feet, so you are acclimatized to that altitude. but then you mention that you climb to 10k every week or so. So you are essentially acclimatized to 10k, inasmuch as you do that on a constant basis. In our last study, we could show an effect if someone had simply been above 10k in the previous MONTH. At all. I think that what you do has a huge effect. What then happened on Denali would then bear that out, as altitude increasingly had an effect on them, but not on you.
Diamox does have it's effect on the breathing aspects of AMS very quickly. It does NOT have such an effect on the other aspects of AMS, however. As you saw on Denali.
You say in your first (somewhat confusing) sentence that I "generally dismissed acclimatization, diamox, in general."
Here is what I said about Diamox:
The last few years, "everybody" has been recommending taking Diamox before you go to altitude. You should probably do that if you have good reason to expect AMS. However, Diamox does work if you wait until symptoms develop. It's better to climb without using drugs if you can, so you might want to bring some Diamox but not use it until you need it.
That certainly isn't "dismissing" the use of Diamox.
The subject of acclimatization, which you accuse me of dismissing, is more complex. My answer to Bee's question, which you quoted, says that I live at 5K and often take a quick trip to 10K. I acknowledged that this helps acclimatization, but I also said that I don't think it's a huge advantage. In another paragraph, I said that I try to sleep at the trailhead to help acclimatize. Is that dismissing acclimatization?
You claim that a few hours a month at 10K means that I am "essentially acclimatized to 10K." If that were true, people who spend 12-48 hours at or above Horseshow Meadow wouldn't get AMS on Whitney any more than I do. Either that, or I simply tolerate altitude better than most people. Which one is it?
People who climb often develop the right muscles, pace themselves, climb efficiently, and take good care of themselves. People who run on the beach and then decide to head up a big mountain are going to have more trouble. A survey that finds a slight negative correlation between AMS and being above 10K in the last month proves nothing. Climbers climb better than non-climbers. Duh!!
On the Denali trip, we spent four nights at 12,800 and six nights at 14,700. After all those storm days, we should have all been equally acclimatized. (After all, you claim that just a few hours at 10K has a "huge effect.") However, three members of the team still performed poorly. All of them had a history of not performing particularly well at altitude.
If living at 5K had a "huge effect," you would expect all my local climbing partners to perform well. They don't. On one fast trip up Shasta with three younger guys, one of them started pushing me at Red Banks. I pushed hard and waited 40 minutes for him on the summit. On a Whitney trip, another guy who consistently kicked my butt at running and cycling got AMS, leaving me to solo the East Face. I have a great photo of another local partner puking on the summit of Shasta. Another regular partner was consistently stronger at lower elevations, but I always turned the tables above 12K. I could go on, but I can assure you that there are plenty people living at 5K who don't perform especially well at altitude.
BTW, I know a member of this board who lives at sea level, rarely gets above 10K, and regularly performs better as the air gets thinner. Some of us are just lucky and don't have to worry much about AMS.
