Mt Whitney Zone Forums The Chat Room Altitude Calculator

I have a fascination with the effects of high altitude because it seems to affect me more than most. Interesting website here with an interesting calculator that I thought some of you would be interested in:

http://www.altitude.org/air_pressure.php

Good website! Thanks for the link. We need to add it to the Orientation notes.

There is an oxymoron in the altitude sickness description, one I have wondered about a few times. From their Altitude Sickness page:

It is a true oxymoron, but not a contradiction in terms. Apparently, in medspeak, acute does not necessarily mean a severe form of the particular illness, but

Acute: Of abrupt onset, in reference to a disease. Acute often also connotes an illness that is of short duration, rapidly progressive, and in need of urgent care.

Sounds like AMS to me!

yep, it is just a chronology thing ,not severity


we just talk about the acute illness form here, but there is a chronic altitude illness, Monge's disease, named after the South American MD who observed and reported it in the Andes before the Europeans had much experience or knowledge elsewhere.

the veterinarian literature understands this as well. if you take susceptible cattle to just 7,000 in, say, Utah, they get Brisket disease, otherwise known as chronic mountain sickness. the cows get swelling in the brisket area but it actually not the brisket but enlargement of the heart right ventricle and congestive heart failure from chronic exposure to high-altitude induced pulmonary hypertension.