Altitude sickness when skiing?

You can really notice going from sea level to just under 4000m when unfit, however it never takes more than 2 days in resort to get aclimatised (in my experience). I have never had problems sleeping at moderate altitude, In Portillo (Chile) the hotel was bang on 3000m, my bedroom is now about 1680m.

The big thing is how much work you are doing, if you are profficient and ski easily, then you will not need to work so hard to keep yourself oxygenated, however if you are perpetually on your arse, the work rate goes up and then you notice.

My mate who helped me move to Zermatt a week or so ago, said he really felt it going from 100m at home to 3900m and working, had some dizzyness, however nothing drastic.

Everyone reacts dfferently of course, small steps (or time periods) are probably best if unsure.

I have been to breckenridge a few times and seen people suffer. As a climber we get more information about this problem than skiers seem to. Firstly it's about you not your level of fitness or your behaviour on the piste or mountain. Ski high sleep low is good advice if you do suffer, and yes if you can lay off the booze. I don't ski on day one at Breck despite the temptation. No-one talked much about advanced or severe symptoms... the onset is headaches then nausea and then you start getting into oedema territory and that gets awful serious. If you do get a bout get oxygen and by all means try the genko... anything that works for you really. Given time your blood will adjust... on a one week holiday, however, this isn't ideal. One last point, it is more about where you rest than how high you go up to during the day... A-Basin is a must do before you die place so practice going high.

Never had it and skid up to 3200m. Closest I came was a summer trip up the Agile d midi in Chamonix.

AllanNevilleRogers wrote:Never had it and skid up to 3200m. Closest I came was a summer trip up the Agile d midi in Chamonix.

Lunch at the Klein Matterhorn Restaurant should establish if you are affected )

Divers can be a bit vulnerable. They can have type two symptoms for a while on day one ( nervous tissue damage ) Blurred vision and tiredness, often just a bit of a cleanout going on but uncomfortable none the less. fortunately for us humans the body is pretty good at repairing this kind of light damage.

My Ex hit problems in Vail but me and my daughter were fine. Plenty of advice around the hotel and town in general on how to deal with it

Patrick Damant wrote:Divers can be a bit vulnerable. They can have type two symptoms for a while on day one ( nervous tissue damage ) Blurred vision and tiredness, often just a bit of a cleanout going on but uncomfortable none the less. fortunately for us humans the body is pretty good at repairing this kind of light damage.

I'd be interested to see some evidence for that and a citation. My understanding was that divers are at immediate risk at altitude or in a high pressure environment and that the effect was around 24 hours with an incidence rate around 0.004%. I've never heard of a long-term adverse impact and I'm struggling to understand what the mechanism might be.

Before everyone gets a bit carried away it's worth pointing that most skiers suffering from altitude sickness simply aren't. Some places like Breckenridge are high enough to give someone living at sea level problems but 99% of ski destinations simply aren't.

The highest ski station in Europe is only 1850m in the village where you have about 80% of what's called partial pressure, as a measure of how thin the air is. Just bobbing up over 2500m for a few hours isn't really going to trouble any normally healthy person. You're not going to have symptoms whatsoever that aren't fixed by going back to village level.

Something you quickly realise if you do deal with high altitude medical problems is that any number of other conditions present just the same as AMS. For skiers it's rather more likely they're suffering with tiredness, unexpected exercise, interrupted sleep from travel and dehydration.

And in answer to an earlier question, no, it-s not going to make any difference what the weather is like. The difference between a low and high pressure front will be worth not much more that 300m of altitude. It won't make your apartment feel like Everest.

ise wrote:[

The highest ski station in Europe is only 1850m in the village where you have about 80% of what's called partial pressure, as a measure of how thin the air is. Just bobbing up over 2500m for a few hours isn't really going to trouble any normally healthy person. You're not going to have symptoms whatsoever that aren't fixed by going back to village level.

Val Thorens (France) think they are the highest ski station at 2300m )

So what would be the effects there?