Memoir

Being at Altitude

Being at Altitude

Having owned a home in Park City, Utah for over fifteen years, I made it a point to get a familiar with the impact of altitude on the human body. I actually owned five different homes in Park CIty over those years for various and sundry reasons and they all ranged from being from 6,500 to 8,500 feet in altitude. That is the price of having a western ski house on the high desert. You must adjust to being at altitude.

I think I first discovered the difficulties of altitude while traveling to Latin America in the 80s for work. The countries of the Andean Pact (Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Chile). Technically, Chile is not a full member of the Andean Community trade association (merely an associate member), but since it houses the vast majority of the Andes Mountains, I think of it as part of that Pact. I was traveling to these countries because they all owed us money and I was charged with trying to get it back one way or another. Those were strange years and that was a strange assignment because trying to get a sovereign nation to repay you for money they borrowed is an interesting dance that required a great deal of creativity. The thing that was in short supply was dollars with which to repay us. As sovereign monetary authorities, they had the ability to print local currency as needed, but what good was that to us other than to buy local goods in country. We eventually found ways to make that work for us up until we ran into that other economic phenomenon, inflation. I met inflation face-to-face at the same time that I met altitude and it was a toss up as to which was more debilitating.

The real truth was that most of those Latin American countries at that time were dealing with more than inflation, they were dealing with hyperinflation. I have often said that people who grow up in a hyper inflationary economic environment make the best finance professionals because finance is not an esoteric concept, it is a pervasive force that one must learn to wrestle with in order to live. If you grow up in a cave with a dragon, you must learn to fight dragons. Inflation is the ultimate schoolmarm of finance because the key to understanding finance is to understand the power of compounding. Inflation pushes that reality into your face such that cannot avoid learning it and understanding it.

The equivalent for altitude is hydration. At altitude there is less oxygen and there is more evaporation. The human body needs both oxygen and water to function properly. It is said you can go without food for weeks or even a month or two and still survive. But without water, the human body cannot last more than three days. And without oxygen, you’re a goner in four minutes. That means that altitude and the fact that it provides you with less oxygen and drains you of water is a very deadly combination.

I am so fascinated by altitude that I very much enjoy watching movies and documentaries about high altitude mountain climbing. They have determined that physiologically speaking, when you are over 26,000 feet (only the highest of mountains – fourteen to be exact – attain that altitude) you are in what they call the death zone because with only a little variation among people, human life cannot be sustained with that low amount of oxygen. Add to that the water loss your body goes through and it becomes a contest as to whether you will suffocate of desiccate at that point.

At more modest altitudes like 10,000 to 14,000, the zone in which many higher altitude ski areas like those in the Andes operate, you may not die, but you are very much subjected to the risks of altitude sickness, which in its worst incarnations can cause fatal cerebral or pulmonary embolisms. These coronary air bubbles are created by the combined conditions of oxygen and water deprivation and they are quite lethal. The only solution for them is to get down to a lower altitude immediately. I watched a NatGeo show once about an upper Yangtze River expedition that began in the Himalayas and ran down the river into China. I recall that on the second day a 26-year-old professional mountain climber died of a pulmonary embolism even though they had a physician with IV equipment on the team. Altitude is a bitch and it is a random bitch. It can grab anyone by the embolism regardless of age and fitness and it does so with a randomness that is hard to understand. Sometimes you feel fine at altitude and other times you don’t. The most common symptom is headache and wooziness that is caused by the combination of the water loss and oxygen deprivation. About all you can do to fend it off is hydrate, literally until you are blue in the face.

I recall that when I had homes in Park City, the biggest issue for me with altitude was sleeping. During sleep your body takes on a rhythmic breathing cycle to keep you in a form of suspended animation while it tries to restore your body. Without adequate oxygen flow it becomes hard to sleep. Park City is where I first got introduced to the CPAP or Continuous Positive Airway Pressure machine. In addition to preventing snoring and apnea, it also helps you sleep at altitude because it makes sure you get as much oxygen as the surrounding environment allows. It really made a difference to my sleeping when I was in Park City. I have now slept with a CPAP for twenty-eight years and would not be without it.

Yesterday when we arrived here at the home of our friends Bruce and Sandi Tully in Jackson, Wyoming, I recognized that I was coming back to altitude. The most obvious giveaway is the grandeur of the Teton Mountain range that creates a western backdrop for the valley where Jackson is located. I am staring at the Tetons this very moment and to say that they are grand mountains is an understatement. I know enough about geology to know that craggy mountains like these are relatively young mountains. They look a lot like the Dolomites or parts of the Alps and they are magnificent. They rise so steeply from the valley floor that they give the illusion that you are standing at sea level in the valley, but that ain’t so. This house sits at 6,325 feet and is part of the high desert that makes up much of Wyoming.

Once I recalled that I would be sleeping at altitude once again, I began to make sure to drink lots of water, remembering the importance of that act in fending off the telltale signs of dehydration from the beginnings of altitude sickness. When I went to bed I was very conscious that even with the CPAP, it took me longer to fall asleep than normal. Maybe it was the altitude and maybe it was me overthinking the altitude. I will never know. But I made it through the night with relatively good sleep and now I get the pleasure of looking at the Tetons in the morning light.

Today we head south and overnight in Park City, where I haven’t returned since selling my last house there fifteen years ago. I will be aware of the altitude once again and hope that my CPAP will do the trick of my being once again at altitude.