Back From Elbert

I've been calling some of the stair climbs "hard". This now seems laughable. For stair climbing to be "hard" in the same way that mountain climbing is "hard" I will have to duct-tape my nose shut and breathe through a straw. That might begin to approximate what happens to your blood oxygen levels above about 4000 meters. When I stood still, or ambled on a rare flat bit, I was fine. Oxygen requirements and oxygen intake were still reasonably balanced. But then when I tried to climb up any sort of slope, something that is clearly unavoidable when attempting to reach a summit, the oxygen requirements rocketed way past my capacity to extract it from the thinned out air. Oxygen. It is your friend. We take it way way too much for granted.

Elbert's summit is at 4401 meters, so the last 400 or so required me to take 20 or 30 slow steps until my arteries began bounding like kangaroos in my head and my breaths turned into agonal gasps. Then I would stop, inspect my lips and nostrils for pink froth, and gradually begin to rebuild my oxygen levels. After a minute of steady deep breaths I would feel good again, take another 20 or 30 steps, feel impending doom again and repeat the cycle.

When I finally got to the top there was already a chiseled Captain America type up there who had ridden his bike up (!!) and a young woman in tiny short shorts, despite the sub-zero cold, who had run all the way up. But the view was spectacular (of the surrounding mountains I mean) and it felt great to be there. As long as I stood still.