You’re all geared up for your mountain trek to Base Camp/Machu Picchu/Mt Kinabalu. You’ve got your fancy kicks, zip-off pants and nifty headband, and your carefully curated Spotify playlist has been flicked to ‘Available Offline’; you’re totes ready to rock this trek. High altitude? High five.
Before you start stretching your quads and filling up your water-bottle-backpack-thing, we need to word you up on a few things related to – cue the dramatic music – altitude sickness.
What is altitude sickness?
You know how you need oxygen to breathe? And how the air is thinner the higher up you go? Of course you do.
When you gain altitude too quickly, your body doesn’t have enough time to readjust to the lower oxygen levels and changes in air pressure, which means it’s not sending as much oxygen into all your wet, squishy bodily places (aka your tissue and organs). This usually happens once you hit the 2,000-metre mark.
Sooo, you get a bit short of breath?
Well, yeah. But it can also come with a bunch of other symptoms, like headaches, lethargy, sleeplessness, dizziness, nausea and vomiting.
Signs of severe altitude sickness are heart palpitations, coughing and blue-ish skin and nails, a la The Smurfs. You’re also likely to become extremely a tad irrational and refuse to acknowledge you’re not 100%.
Ew, sounds disgusting. How can I avoid it??
Go slow, homie. If you’re flying in to a high-altitude destination like Cochabamba, Bolivia 2,550m; Bogota, Colombia 2,645m; Quito, Ecuador 2,879m; La Paz, Bolivia 3,658m; Lhaza, Tibet 3,685m; Everest Base Camp, Nepal 5,500m; Mount Everest summit, Nepal 8,850m; Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania 5,895m and Cuzco, Peru at 3,399 metres, rest up for a day or two so your body has time to adjust to the thinner air.
Drink heaps of water, avoid booze and don’t even think about popping any sleeping pills (they slow down your respiratory system, so taking them at altitude will make you feel 80,000 times worse than a bad night’s sleep would).
Forget your paleo/low-cal/green-smoothie diet too – aim to eat small amounts of healthy high-carb foods like quinoa, sweet potato and chickpeas. And chocolate. Lots and lots of chocolate.
For some reason known to absolutely no one, men are more susceptible to altitude sickness (but ladiezzz, you still need to take it easy ‘cos you can still get it).
What happens if I get sick on a trip??
It happens. And as we mentioned, you might not even know you’re unwell. If you start feeling woozy, nauseous or vommy (or if you notice one of your gang looking a little green around the gills), stop.
Take deep breaths every few minutes to lower the carbon dioxide in your blood, slowly sip some water and try to relax.
In some cases, if you are on tour, guides will help you down to a lower altitude, and, if things are serious, they’ll arrange a helicopter evacuation. You can find out more about treatments online.
What?? Why would anyone wanna do a trek at altitude if that might happen??
Because the warm and fuzzies you get when you arrive at Base Camp or watching the sunrise from Mt Kinabalu is flipping amazing and something you’ll never forget.
Travel companies take health and safety SUPER seriously and they’ve got strict limits on how high they climb each day. Most always include rest days, and guides are trained to help you out if you get stuck. Calling in the choppers is a last resort!
Game to give adventure a go? Check out some of our favourite trekking tours today and buy travel insurance before you go.