All 50 Uses of
altitude
in
Into Thin Air
- The unreliability of the human mind at high altitude made the research problematic.†
Chpt Intr.
- The truth of course lies in the fact that, at altitudes of 25,000 feet and beyond, the effects of low atmospheric Pressure upon the human body are so severe that really difficult mountaineering is impossible and the consequences even of a mild storm may be deadly, that nothing but the most perfect conditions of weather and snow offers the slightest chance of success, and that on the last lap of the climb no party is in a position to choose its day… No, it is not remarkable that Everest…†
Chpt 1
- Their knowledge of the deadly effects of extreme altitude was scant, and their equipment was pathetically inadequate by modern standards.†
Chpt 2
- Surmounting this cliff demanded tremendous strength and skill; nothing so technically challenging had ever been climbed at such extreme altitude.†
Chpt 2
- None of the climbs I'd done in the past, moreover, had taken me to even moderately high altitude.†
Chpt 3
- many of those who died had been far stronger and possessed vastly more high-altitude experience than I.
Chpt 3 *altitude = elevation
- That I proposed to climb to the cruising altitude of an Airbus 300 jetliner struck me, at that moment, as preposterous, or worse.†
Chpt 3
- So they decided to switch direction and get into high-altitude guiding.†
Chpt 3
- Then, five months after the Hillary brouhaha flared, Hall was rocked by an even greater blow: in October 1993, Gary Ball died of cerebral edema-swelling of the brain brought on by high altitude during an attempt on 26,795-foot Dhaulagiri, the world's sixth-tallest mountain.†
Chpt 3
- Additionally, because most Sherpas had lived for generations in villages situated between 9,000 and 14,000 feet, they were physiologically adapted to the rigors of high altitude.†
Chpt 4
- A strong walker, pre-acclimatized to the altitude, could cover the distance from the Lukla airstrip to Everest Base Camp in two or three long days.†
Chpt 4
- The clinic was funded by a foundation called the Himalayan Rescue Association primarily to treat altitude-related illnesses (although it also offered free treatment to the local Sherpas) and to educate trekkers about the insidious hazards of ascending too high, too fast.†
Chpt 4
- It had been established in 1973 after four members of a single Japanese trekking group succumbed to the altitude and died in the vicinity.†
Chpt 4
- Prior to the clinic's existence, acute altitude illness killed approximately one or two out of every 500 trekkers who passed through Pheriche.†
Chpt 4
- And despite our measured pace I had begun to feel the effects of the altitude, which left me light-headed and constantly fighting for breath.†
Chpt 4
- Before he even had time to yell, he dropped like a rock into the Cimmerian bowels of the glacier, At 20,500 feet, the altitude was deemed too high for safe evacuation by helicopter-the air was too insubstantial to provide much lift for a helicopter's rotors, making landing, taking off, or merely hovering unreasonably hazardous-so he would have to be carried 3,000 vertical feet to Base Camp down the Khumbu Icefall, some of the steepest, most treacherous ground on the entire mountain.†
Chpt 4
- Helen, our Base Camp manager, had a grinding altitude-induced headache that wouldn't go away.†
Chpt 5
- Fischer and Hall were business rivals, but as prominent members of the high-altitude fraternity their paths frequently crossed, and on a certain level they considered themselves friends.†
Chpt 5
- On their way down from the summit in a howling storm, Fischer, Viesturs, and a third American, Charlie Mace, encountered Hall struggling to cope with a barely conscious Ball, who had been stricken with a life-threatening case of altitude sickness and was unable to move under his own power.†
Chpt 5
- When I replied that it would be crazy for someone with my limited high-altitude experience to attempt Everest, he said, "Hey, experience is overrated.†
Chpt 6
- It's not the altitude that's important, it's your attitude, bro.†
Chpt 6
- Sleep became elusive, a common symptom of minor altitude illness.†
Chpt 6
- But technical expertise counted for next to nothing on Everest, and I'd spent less time at high altitude than virtually every other climber present.†
Chpt 6
- When confronted with an increase in altitude, the human body adjusts in manifold ways, from increasing respiration, to changing the pH of the blood, to radically boosting the number of oxygen-carrying red blood cells-a conversion that takes weeks to complete.†
Chpt 6
- I doubted that it was due to the altitude, because it didn't strike until I'd returned to Base Camp.†
Chpt 7
- Just to get a taste of what high altitude is about.†
Chpt 7
- One was Klev Schoening, a thirty-eight-year-old Seattle construction contractor and a former member of the U.S. Ski Team who, although exceptionally strong, had little previous high-altitude experience.†
Chpt 8
- The eight-man expedition was pinned down in a ferocious blizzard high on K2, waiting to make an assault on the summit, when a team member named Art Gilkey developed thrombophlebitis, a lifethreatening altitude-induced blood clot.†
Chpt 8
- I doubt if anyone would claim to enjoy life at high altitudes-enjoy, that is, in the ordinary sense of the word.†
Chpt 8
- I used to try to console myself with the thought that a year ago I would have been thrilled by the very idea of taking part in our present adventure, a prospect that had then seemed like an impossible dream; but altitude has the same effect on the mind as upon the body, one's intellect becomes dull and unresponsive, and my only desire was to finish the wretchedjoh and to get down to a more reasonable clime.†
Chpt 8
- As I nervously threaded my way through the frozen, groaning disorder, I noticed that my breathing wasn't quite as labored as it had been during our first trip up the glacier; already my body was starting to adapt to the altitude.†
Chpt 8
- He was carrying a huge load and he had nose bleeds every day at high altitude.†
Chpt 8
- It took my altitude-impaired gray matter a minute or two to comprehend that the object was a human body.†
Chpt 8
- The altitude here manifested itself as a malicious force, making me Too feel as though I were afflicted with a raging red-wine hangover, miserable to eat or even read, for the next two days I mostly lay in my tent with my head in my hands, trying to exert myself as little as possible.†
Chpt 8
- Sherpas aren't supposed to get altitude illness, especially those from Rolwaling, a region famous for its powerful climbers.†
Chpt 8
- By the time he arrived at the tents late that afternoon Ngawang was delirious, stumbling like a drunk, and coughing up pink, bloodlaced froth: symptoms indicating an advanced case of High Altitude Pulmonary Edema, or HAPE-a mysterious, potentially lethal illness typically brought on by climbing too high, too fast in which the lungs fill with fluid.†
Chpt 8
- * The only real cure for HAPE is rapid descent; if the victim remains at high altitude very long, death is the most likely outcome.†
Chpt 8
- An inflatable plastic chamber about the size of a coffin in which the atmospheric pressure is increased to simulate a lower altitude.†
Chpt 8
- When Hunt at A I P tempted to put him back in the Gamow Bag, Ngawang refused, arguing that he didn't have HAPE or any other form of altitude sickness.†
Chpt 8
- A radio call went out to the American doctor —— Jim Litch —— an eminence in the specialized field of high-altitude medicine who was staffing the Himalayan Rescue Association clinic in Pheriche that spring-requesting that he hurry to Base Camp to assist in Ngawang's treatment.†
Chpt 8
- A nonclimber in her mid-twenties who'd just completed a residency in family practice, Hunt had done extensive volunteer medical relief work in the foothills of eastern Nepal, but she had no 46 previous experience in high-altitude medicine.†
Chpt 8
- Fond of costumes, Sandy appeared wearing a high-altitude climbing suit over her evening dress, complemented by mountaineering boots, crampons, ice ax, and a bandolier of carabiners.†
Chpt 8
- As he continued to grow sicker and sicker even at low altitude, the doctors postulated that his illness was perhaps not simple HAPE but rather HAPE complicated by tuberculosis or some other preexisting Pulmonary condition.†
Chpt 9
- By the time Lopsang went to Everest with Fischer in 1996, he'd only been climbing for three years, but in that span he'd participated in no fewer than ten Himalayan expeditions and had established a reputation as a high-altitude mountaineer of the highest caliber.†
Chpt 9
- High Altitude Cerebral Edema (HACE) is less common than High Altitude Pulmonary Edema (HAPE), but it tends to be even more Deadly.†
Chpt 11
- High Altitude Cerebral Edema (HACE) is less common than High Altitude Pulmonary Edema (HAPE), but it tends to be even more Deadly.†
Chpt 11
- The next step is coma, and then, unless the afflicted party is quickly evacuated to lower altitude, death.†
Chpt 11
- Tan and blond, with handsome Slavic features, Boukreev was one of the most accombers; in the world, with twenty years of explished high-altitude dim, ascents of Everest without experience in the Himalaya, including two supplemental oxygen.†
Chpt 11
- "Every minute you remain at this altitude and above," he caution( your minds and bodies are deteriorating."†
Chpt 11
- Although the benefits of using gas at this altitude-24,000 feet-were genuine, they were hard to discern immediately.†
Chpt 12
Definition:
-
(altitude) elevation (height) -- typically above sea level or above the earth's surface
or:
(metaphorically) a desirable height