Eventually. 
It’s quite horrific for most of it.
I have friends who succeeded at climbing Everest, and those who failed. Being fit and motivated isn’t enough. The ability to operate at altitude is not a given for any individual, some folks simply will be unable to deal with the challenge. And some degree of luck is vital as well. You can’t really imagine or prepare for the deep suffering that high-altitude mountaineering offers.
Well, it’s like 127 Hours. You get the bad and the good.
yes, I recall a person who semi-professionally ran marathons and he got altitude sick and never managed to summit (3 tries over 3 different years) … so, there is def. a “nature” component in it that you cannor “nurture” away.
some peoples bodies deal better with that environment than others … and there is really nothing you can do about it … its a characteristic just like being tall or short.
for those interested, there is plenty of (very commercial) doc’s on YT
e.g.
enough for a binge-weekend
I liked the movie, but I liked the book even better.
I didn’t run marathons, and I didn’t attempt to climb Everest, but I did run 10Ks, and I hiked Mt Whitney. And I got sick with the altitude. I had enough to get to the summit and come back down. With every foot (it seemed) of descent, I felt better. Weird sensation.
I was pretty altitude sick in Quito, thousands of feet below even Everest Base Camp’s elevation.
It sounds pretty awful. I enjoy reading about people doing things in nature that I would/could never do. I can understand suffering greatly for a goal though. I’ve suffered for a lot of goals.
I sure believe it isn’t sufficient to be fit, but would you agree that it’s necessary to be exceptionally fit, at a minimum?
I feel like some people talk about Everest like anyone reasonably fit could do it, like there are just schlubs strolling along up there due to all the fixed ropes. But it seems to me it would probably be pretty physically grueling even with all that. My assumption, and perhaps it isn’t correct, is that most regular exercisers aren’t anywhere in the neighborhood of how fit you need to be to climb Everest. Do you think that’s so?
My impression is that being fit certainly helps, but it isn’t the determining factor. For example, I can out hike my friend who was successful at Everest. What she has is the ability to push on through pain, misery, and suffering, day after day for extended periods. I never thought of her as exceptionally fit, but she is super strong mentally.
just to make sure: this is NOT a thing of “pushing through pain” …
we are talking of your brain swelling (within a given volume of craneal-space) and your lungs filling with fluid … some people get that and others dont … you cannot “fitness away” a swelling brain that starts compressing your whole central nerve system.
At the point of HAPE and especially HACE you need immediate medical attention.
I don’t think I would do well at high altitudes. I did fine hiking up Half Dome (8,800’), but when I hiked Lassen Peak (10,400’) I got a raging headache. But maybe that’s because I did not get acclimatized. I’d driven to it from sea level and then immediately did that hike. It was probably too fast an altitude change.
Thanks for this. I just watched it, it is excellent. Joe Simpson’s surviving a 200’ fall with a broken leg, then exiting the crevasse and crawling for some 4-5 miles back to their base camp was an amazing ordeal.
Yeah - but if you ARE one of the folk who are able to function at altitude, how fit need you be, as opposed to mental toughness?
And to what extent can anyone increase their ability to function at altitude? I understand a LOT of athletes train at altitude, but I thought that was primarily to increase their function at lower altitudes.
I’ve never gone much above 10k’, but my wife has MAJOR problems in the Rockies - or even in Denver, whereas I have none.
I did OK at 18,000’ - moving slowly and slight headache but fully functional. But there were a few Westerners with us that seemed completely unaffected by the altitude. They moved at normal speed, could carry other people’s packs, and carried on normal conversations the whole time.
The local Nepali seemed completely unaffected at those altitudes.
Krakauer’s beef was over whether Anatoli Boukreev was a guide or an advisor. Boukreev was apparently up front that he would be summitting without supplemental oxygen and would be limited in assisting slow clients on the final ascent. However, he was marketed as being an expedition leader and acted as a guide in the weeks prior to the ascent. Krakauer believed that the Mountain Madness clients were relying on Boukreev. Boukreev did support the team’s clients on the way to the summit. However, he descended ahead of them, and some of those clients were stranded outside of camp during the tragic blizzard that occurred on the afternoon of the summit day.
Krakauer felt that Boukreev was acting as a guide and had a duty of care to his clients that should have exceeded his personal ambitions, Boukreev disagreed, stating that his intentions to summit Mt Everest without supplemental oxygen were know upfront.
And that would have been a conversation between Fischer and Boukreev. My point is that the level of care among the clients of Mountain Madness and that of Adventure Consultants, from the guides (including Boukreev and Neal Beidleman, and also Mike Groom and Andy Harris for Rob Hall) would be different. If that difference in the level of care/support was not communicated to at least Scott Fischer’s clients, that could lead to problems. From what I’ve read, it was not.
Did you trek to south base camp? Or was that 18,000 somewhere else? The elevation at SBC is 17,598‘. Calling that 18,000’ is close enough, I suppose.
Thorong La on the Annapurna Circuit, 17,769’. I rounded up. 
Just for another data point, when I was 26 and spending a month in the Wind River Mountains on a National Outdoor Leadership School course, we summited an 11,505 ft peak. Didn’t affect me at all, and I was by far the oldest and least-fit person on the course.
There’s a big difference between 11,505 and 26,000 feet, of course.
Cool. Must’ve been an awesome trek. I had to look this up but for orientation purposes, Annapurna is about 190 miles to the west northwest of Everest.
Sounds sensible. But situations in which a rescue entails absolutely no danger to would-be helpers are uncommon.
First rule of wilderness rescue is don’t create new victims. That’s somewhat different emphasis from non-wilderness situations where more risk is acceptable since resources to deal with more victims are generally close at hand.
No one is saying that you can’t make a move until all danger is gone. But you can evaluate the situation, reduce the risk, and make choices that present less danger to the would-be rescuers. In some difficult situations you can’t risk going in.