Elevation anxiety: the walk

I used to love the climbs. I never felt stronger, more beautiful or determined than when I was fighting for a mountain with a fierce determination that it belonged there, in rocky lines while the sun was getting. Something in my heart would come to life, I would feel a peace and satisfaction that I have never found elsewhere. A growing moon in sugary skies. The irregular picos of rocks against pink and blue horizons and the first promise of the stars that came out. I would feel invincible, beautiful, strong. A peace would wash me. For years I pursued this feeling. This feeling took me through hiking. It took me to who I am today. It is the one who wants to be again in the future.

Everything changed in Colorado. This high mountain country with less oxygen that left me incessantly panting breath between the dry piracy cough. I found myself at the bottom of a climb, desperately looking for a way of not doing so. I wondered if there was a way I could walk through him in the lower country. It was Hope Pass. A rise with elevation that rivals the white mountains of the Apalaches. It was, with much, not the most steep climb I have done, but I sat down in the background, boiling water in my stove to make hot cider, delaying the inevitable. I had to upload it.

I realized that I have anxiety of elevation. Anxiety for sudden increase in elevation gain.

It was not the real elevation that made me anxious, but rather what had been happening to my body along him: altitude evil.

On the height of altitude

I have spent a lot of time to altitude. Winters living and skiing in the French and Swiss Alps. Trekking in Nepal and the Andes, the high Sierra Nevada del Pacific Crest Trail. It had spent numerous trips in Colorado visiting friends. He had never had a real problem with this before, with the exception of feeling less in the form of the usual, but knowing that the path of the continental division passes through some of the highest peaks of the United States, I collected a Diamox recipe (a great altitude medication) and began to take it over 10,000 feet. I didn’t want altitude to ruin my experience. I thought this would be all I needed.

The thing is that (and I know this because of a healthy fascination for mountaineering in the highest peaks in the world) altitude altitude can hit you at any time, even if you have never had it before. Even if you have always been fine. I know how to decrease it; Drink more water to increase oxygen in the blood, sleeping at lower altitudes, etc. I didn’t realize what it was at first. I started feeling nausea in a great climb of the Ghost Rancho in Northern New Mexico. I assumed that it was the food. I barely suspect that it would be an altitude disease. The following days I struggled to eat and drink when I began to remove dry. I walked 23 miles through the state line of New Mexico and in Colorado with just over 500 calories and 1 liter of water. Every time I tried to consume something, my body instantly wanted to reject it. I thought Giardia but the tests were negative. I walked like this for weeks, eating and drinking as much as possible to have enough energy. It was not until one day that I began to violently vomit the water that I realized what was happening. I had altitude evil.

My dry cough (khumbu cough) that even in the city would not happen, my tingling fingers and toes, the fact that even when I could consume water, it was barely urinating, the exhaustion, the irregular breathing. city. I couldn’t understand how I had lost my symptoms, or maybe I just didn’t want to recognize them. I didn’t want to believe that I had this weakness.

Hope Pass (and lack of hope)

So I am there. The lower part of Hope Pass, slowly drinking my hot apple cider (made without real apples), knowing that to reach the twin lakes the next day I had no choice but to climb it that night. I feel at the bottom scared to be sick and dry backing all the way. I’m tired of feeling like that. I had no choice but to do something that scared me and generally on a walk or in life, nothing scares me. Prospealine and risk. With all honesty, the fear of the climb was much, much worse than the real increase. So I did it at my favorite time of the day. While the sun was putting on and the darkness, he took over. I arrived at the summit in the dark of the night sky, I could see the scintillating lights of the twin lakes and the security ahead, but I realized at this time. I couldn’t keep feeling like that. I could not continue with fear and fear of what should be to bring me so much peace and happiness.

I will publish more about my experience in the continental divide Trail this summer. You can follow me on Instagram @juliette.outdoors To see more of my trip and what I decide to do in the future! Thanks for everyone’s support.

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