Interesting article on HAPE risk factor

Grab your bear can or camp chair, kick your feet up and chew the fat about anything Sierra Nevada related that doesn't quite fit in any of the other forums. Within reason, (and the HST rules and guidelines) this is also an anything goes forum. Tell stories, discuss wilderness issues, music, or whatever else the High Sierra stirs up in your mind.
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gdurkee
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HAPE and Woodstock

Post by gdurkee »

Duuuuude:
By the time we got to woodstock We were half a million strong And everywhere there was song and celebration And I dreamed I saw the bombers Riding shotgun in the sky And they were turning into butterflies Above our nation We are stardust Billion year old carbon We are golden Caught in the devils bargain And we've got to get ourselves Back to the garden.
Butterflies though, no white rabbits. That's a different song.

Great Gamow-bag-in-action photos. That's rangers Erika and Rob and your tax dollars at work. Do you have any others from that night? I don't think we have any of an actual SAR using one (rangers too busy pumping...).

As far as age as a risk factor, I haven't seen anything lately. I used to read that young males were more susceptible, but I think that was skewed because more young males hiked. The only risk factor I'm aware of now is a previous occurrence of HAPE.... . Not too useful sometimes.

The youngest I've seen is 15 or so and the oldest in his 60s. Few women, but that might be the demographics of backcountry users. The person in the Gamow photos is a woman. I can think of two other women, one of whom died (age 20 or so).

Several of you have mentioned being adequately hydrated. That affects AMS, but I don't think it's a factor in HAPE or HACE -- though I don't understand it well enough to say for sure.

And, if you want to be totally paranoid, you can get in deep weeds from drinking too much water. The symptoms are very similar to HACE -- altered mental status, vomiting, eventually convulsions and death. Comes from drinking too much water and no food or electrolytes: hyponatremia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyponatremia

Extremely rare, but I've seen two cases in the last 5 years. Both almost died and I thought one was HACE.

A good book to have to familiarize yourselves with this stuff is Wilkerson's "Medicine For Mountaineering."

Happy and healthy trails!!

g.
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Rosabella
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Post by Rosabella »

George - sorry, these were the only pictures I took. You're right, the female Ranger was Erika, but the male Ranger was Paul Larson, he was located at the Tyndall Creek Station. I just remember he had beautiful long hair ;) . (...and no, I'd not been to Woodstock either, I could have/should have... I just graduated that year :hippy: 1969... what a year!!!)

ANYWAY... That trip we spend the night on top of Mt. Whitney, and on the way down we ran into Paul and Erika - they were doing a day hike together. They said that the woman was evacuated safely and was doing fine.
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