# What's the highest elevation you've ever been? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 3, 2011, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-highest-elevation-youve-ever-been/580606 "2011-05-03T19:24:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Darryl\_Lict](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7cd45c/32.png) [@Darryl\_Lict](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darryl_Lict)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-highest-elevation-youve-ever-been/580606/81 "2011-05-04T18:08:46Z")
I’m pretty sure I’ve been over a pass at around 5200m (17000 feet) somewhere in Peru on the way to Colca Canyon. I actually got a slight headache and felt a bit nauseous but felt fine after we descended a bit. I was in a car in any case, and it didn’t do anything strenuous. ---
**Author:** ![mcgato](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac8455/32.png) [@mcgato](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mcgato)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-highest-elevation-youve-ever-been/580606/82 "2011-05-04T23:18:04Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > Top of [Longs Peak](http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=40.25585,-105.61419&spn=0.016703,0.029311&t=p&z=15), Colorado, 14,200 and change. I did that hike with a friend when I was 18. I was from the flat lands of Minnesota, so the altitude zapped me. I got about 100 vertical feet from the summit, but couldn’t go any further. My friend went up to the summit for the first time in his three attempts. I said that I’d start back down, but being the experienced mountain person he was, he told me to sit right there and wait. I sat right there and waited for his return. On the return hike, I was barfing near a lake or something, and he was patiently waiting while telling me the proper way to spell the name of those birds over there. Ptarmigan. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Mondegreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/91b2a8/32.png) [@Lord\_Mondegreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Mondegreen)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-highest-elevation-youve-ever-been/580606/83 "2011-05-04T23:51:51Z")
10,623 according to Wikipedia. [Mount Titlis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titlis) in Switzerland, by cable car. Only time in my life I’ve experienced genuine white-out, with absolutely no way to tell where the snow ended and the air started, except by feel. Even then it was so powdery that the transition was not completely obvious. ---
**Author:** ![kapri](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4491bb/32.png) [@kapri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kapri)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2011, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-highest-elevation-youve-ever-been/580606/84 "2011-05-05T02:47:28Z")
Pike’s Peak, just last week. We couldn’t go all the way to the summit (14,000) because of weather or something, but we got to 13,000 feet. (No, we didn’t climb; there’s a tram that takes people up. It’s very cool.) ---
**Author:** ![Hallucinex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ba9def/32.png) [@Hallucinex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hallucinex)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2011, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-highest-elevation-youve-ever-been/580606/85 "2011-05-05T08:38:52Z")
Highest I can think of was climbing [Peak Sovietov](http://www.panoramio.com/photo/3050133) (4,317m/14,163ft), in the Tien Shan mountains just outside of Almaty, Kazakhstan ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2011, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-highest-elevation-youve-ever-been/580606/86 "2011-05-05T09:50:34Z")
16,355’ (4,985m) - Point Lenana, on Mount Kenya. (It’s the left-hand peak in [this photo](http://www.gohiking.co.za/newsletters/200703MARCH/kenya/2006_1214MtKenyaDec060120.jpg) and damn cold despite being only 12 miles south of the equator!) The very highest peak on Mount Kenya is 700’ higher than Lenana, but it’s a technical climb and I was only hiking. ---
**Author:** ![user\_hostile](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/user_hostile/32/474_2.png) [@user\_hostile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/user_hostile)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2011, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-highest-elevation-youve-ever-been/580606/87 "2011-05-05T23:17:55Z")
> [@blondebear](#): > > 14,505 ft (Mt. Whitney) > > Second highest (just across the valley): White Mountain @ 14,252 ft White Mountain Peak, a couple of times. The second time, it was dead calm at summit and shirt sleeve weather. It was the only time I’ve ever seen wild mustangs (on Mount Hogue to the north–never forget that day! Also, the summit of San Jacinto Peak for what it’s worth at miserly 10,834 ft. **blondebear** , at the last time I was there (+20 years), the reported elevation was “only” 14,246 feet. Was it a matter of remeasuring the mountain, or was it the result of releasing the North American Vertical Datum of 1988 which pushed up all of the elevations around the Owens Valley? ---
**Author:** ![Nawth\_Chucka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c57346/32.png) [@Nawth\_Chucka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nawth_Chucka)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2011, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-highest-elevation-youve-ever-been/580606/88 "2011-05-05T23:56:32Z")
[Monarch Pass](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarch_Pass) 11,312 feet; both times when it was frozen over, the last time w/ a car towing a trailer packed w/ 2000 lbs. ---
**Author:** ![Rysdad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7cd45c/32.png) [@Rysdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysdad)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2011, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-highest-elevation-youve-ever-been/580606/89 "2011-05-06T00:25:49Z")
The Zugspitze in Germany… about 9,700 feet, and Winter Park, Co, about 12,000 feet. ---
**Author:** ![TheBoltEater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/779978/32.png) [@TheBoltEater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheBoltEater)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2011, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-highest-elevation-youve-ever-been/580606/90 "2011-05-06T05:41:15Z")
Skiing at Copper Mountain, Colorado - so, somewhere less than the summit of 12,313 feet. And while no one here has snarkily thrown out the 35,000-40,000 foot cruising altitude of your average airplane, it might be interesting, as an aside, to see if anyone has been significantly above _that_ altitude as well. ---
**Author:** ![Obsidian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/51bf81/32.png) [@Obsidian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Obsidian)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2011, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-highest-elevation-youve-ever-been/580606/91 "2011-05-06T06:37:32Z")
I don’t hike, or ski, so the best I can do is Donner Summit, at 7,200 feet-- along with 1/2 the residents of Northern California, as it’s on the road to Tahoe. Have also been to Flagstaff, which is about the same height. ---
**Author:** ![scootergirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e99b99/32.png) [@scootergirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scootergirl)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2011, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-highest-elevation-youve-ever-been/580606/92 "2011-05-06T07:42:21Z")
I think Mexico City - 7,340 feet. ---
**Author:** ![colonial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2011, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-highest-elevation-youve-ever-been/580606/93 "2011-05-06T11:59:22Z")
The highest I have ever been was on a hikimg trail a few 100 feet above the Sangre de Cristo mountians parkway near Santa Fe NM. I am guessing I reached 10,000 feet based on the act that SF is over 7,000 in elevation and we were considerably above that in the mountains. BTW that part of the country is stunningly beautiful- go there of you have a chance. I expected the mountains to be bare rock, but they were a forrested bluish green much like the Appalachians. And the desert between SF and Los Alamos was nothing close to dull yellowish-buff- it was a vivid pink with vivid green polkadots from some kind of prevailing vegetation. While driving I had to pull over and stop to sit, look and marvel. ---
**Author:** ![thirdname](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@thirdname](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thirdname)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2011, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-highest-elevation-youve-ever-been/580606/94 "2011-05-06T15:14:05Z")
The highest was driving up Pikes Peak at 14,115 ft, but hiking up [Mount Bierstadt](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Bierstadt) (14,065 ft) was more interesting. There was a storm coming when we hit the summit, so we headed straight down the mountain rather than following the switchbacks of the trail. We took shelter in a depression. Lightning struck a big boulder that was next to the stream in the valley between the mountain and the parking lot. We were closer to the top of the lightning bolt (at least the visible part of it) than the bottom. ---
**Author:** ![Angel\_of\_the\_Lord](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/angel_of_the_lord/32/2949_2.png) [@Angel\_of\_the\_Lord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angel_of_the_Lord)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2011, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-highest-elevation-youve-ever-been/580606/95 "2011-05-06T18:49:33Z")
> [@Ferret\_Herder](#): > > Aw crap, I picked the 10-15k option as I thought I’d been past the 10k mark on Haleakala. Guess not! Ditto, though I was fourteen, and I wanted to see what the nearby observatory (or, at least, I thought it was one) looked like, so I hiked/scrabbled up rocks a bit, so I got a bit higher than the visitor’s center, I think. This was largely not on the actual path stuff, and past signs that specifically said not to go there. I’m still kind of ashamed of that. I was an asshole kid. Also, I’d never been anywhere more highly elevated than Illinois before, and wasn’t exactly athletic, so I spent the next couple of hours dizzy and feeling like crap. Whoops! ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2011, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-highest-elevation-youve-ever-been/580606/96 "2011-05-06T18:54:35Z")
Never traveled outside the eastern half of North America. The highest I’ve ever been was Mount Washington in New Hampshire (6288 ft - 1917 m). ---
**Author:** ![user\_hostile](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/user_hostile/32/474_2.png) [@user\_hostile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/user_hostile)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2011, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-highest-elevation-youve-ever-been/580606/97 "2011-05-06T20:22:47Z")
> [@TheBoltEater](#): > > Skiing at Copper Mountain, Colorado - so, somewhere less than the summit of 12,313 feet. > > And while no one here has snarkily thrown out the 35,000-40,000 foot cruising altitude of your average airplane, it might be interesting, as an aside, to see if anyone has been significantly above _that_ altitude as well. Unless you flew on the Concorde, which cruised between 55,000 and 60,000 feet, I’m guessing your options are limited to military aircraft. My record was as a passenger on a Gulfstream II, reaching 41,000 ft. O, the luxury… ---
**Author:** ![PunditLisa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4af34b/32.png) [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2011, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-highest-elevation-youve-ever-been/580606/98 "2011-05-06T20:35:14Z")
Mt. Haleakala. But seeing the others’ posts, it looks like I rounded up. ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/le_ministre_de_l_au-dela/32/12181_2.png) [@Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2011, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-highest-elevation-youve-ever-been/580606/99 "2011-05-06T21:04:27Z")
Cascade Mountain in Banff, Alta. is the highest I’ve ever been. It’s in the 8,500 to 9,000 range. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2011, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-highest-elevation-youve-ever-been/580606/100 "2011-05-08T00:19:51Z")
The summit of Mauna Kea volcano, on the Big Island of Hawaii. 13,796 feet. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-highest-elevation-youve-ever-been/580606.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-highest-elevation-youve-ever-been/580606.md?page=6)