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ALTITUDE SICKNESS: The two most serious types of altitude sickness are High Altitude Pulmonary Edema (HAPE) and High Altitude Cerebral Edema (HACE). HAPE is fluid in the lungs and you can self-diagnose it when you feel gurgling in your lungs or pain in the chest. If your breath is condensing and your friends aren't condensing, then you may have fluid in your lungs. HACE is fluid on the brain. You can self-diagnose it when you get dizzy and stay dizzy for more than a minute or so. If one of your hunting partners goes unconscious or doesn't wake up in the morning, you need to transport him to lower elevation immediately to save his life. The only effective field remedy for HAPE and HACE requires an item called a Gamow Bag and you won't have one. So, DESCEND! DESCEND! DESCEND! Get to lower elevation immediately if you want to live. Fortunately, HAPE and HACE are both rare (but not unheard of) below 10,000' elevation.

The most common type and the least severe is AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness). It's often associated with dehydration. Its symptoms are similar to those of influenza and they may include mild headache, nausea, vomiting, lassitude, loss of appetite, and periodic breathing (waking up gasping for air). Common Aspirin and Tums can help. Diamox is the brand name of a prescription drug (acetazolamide) that works for some people. Start taking it a couple of days before you begin to ascend. But it doesn't work for everyone and there are some potentially miserable side effects. In most cases, if you rest for a couple of days, drink lots of liquids, and take Aspirin and Tums, AMS will subside.

The best way to avoid altitude sickness is to ascend slowly, at the rate of 1,000' per day. But often you don't have that much time. So, get in good shape now. Good shape means strong heart and lungs. Good exercises include running stairs, swimming, bicycling, or any other kind of exercise that works the heart and lungs. However sometimes even the best athletes can get altitude sickness, so don't count on that being the cure all. Get to high elevation a few days early and just lounge around for a few days before you start exerting yourself. Stay hydrated, avoid alcohol and coffee or any other kind of diuretic. Take one Aspirin and one Tums each day. Be alert to the symptoms mentioned and react appropriately if they occur.

Also try to develop a technique called pressure breathing. Essentially you consciously make your lungs inhale and exhale before you feel the need to breather heavy. If you wait until you need the air then it’s too late and you are always out of breath. A logical extension of pressure breathing is a technique called the rest step. You generate a rhythm between your body effort and your lungs so that you move slower using less energy, and so you have air before you need it; step-breathe-pause-breathe, step-breathe-pause-breathe, repeat, etc.

If dropping below 6500 or so to sleep, I seems the studies suggest you shouldn't have a problem. The problem is if you come from sea level, ascend fast (24-48 hrs) and stay above 9000 ft for sleep and activity. You may not get it, but are at higher risk then. I'd suggest acetazolamide (diamox).

Give your body time to acclimate. Start trying to gain elevation a few days before the hunt. Gain elevation slowly. You will begin to produce more red blood cells.
The climbers rule of thumb is sleep low climb high.
If you start to feel ill drop back down before it becomes more serious.
I climbed to 22,800ft once. I felt HACE, HAPE, cheyne stokes, but they are all manageable if you pay attention. I used diamox but what really got me through was drinking more water.

Hunt high, sleep low. This is another good strategy to mitigate the effects of elevation sickness. Of course if you're having to hike up 3000 feet every morning to hunt, that can make things more challenging.

I try to stay In Ogden (4,500 ft) or Rock Springs (6,500 ft) one night and get to Craig (6,200 ft) two nights before the hunt which is generally under 7,600 ft. That eliminates the issues I had sometimes driving straight from Boise arriving the night before opening day. Several times I got a little symptomatic a couple days into the hunt. We had one guy get dehydrated and end up in the ER several years ago. Our cabin is at 3,500 ft and no issues there. Perhaps that helps the adjustment. Happy Trails

Just for the record, Boise's at 2700'.

I don't know how much it helps but I take an iron supplement and/or try to eat iron-rich foods before and during a hunt, since your body needs iron to produce red cells.

If nothing else, it's a good excuse to bring a few steaks for the fire.

We're at 4000'. I've hunted at 9k with no problems. On the other side, I take our church's Trail Life troop on a llama pack trip every year. Our favorite spot is at 9200'. We've had some minor altitude problems with a couple boys but more commonly with adults who go along. We've considered a longer trip this year. it's 10 miles in and would take 2 days. We'd go over a 10k ridge on the way. That's not a good spot to have people getting sick. Each boy carries his own 1st aid kit and we've put Rolaids in each one.

BTW, on these long group adventure type trips, whether hiking, canoeing, or whatever, when someone gets in trouble, most of the time it's an adult, not the kids. Kids are more resilient.

Yes it is. Driving straight from W. Washington at near sea level with only one night in Boise and a rather short night in Craig didn’t do as much in acclimating as a few more nights at somewhat higher elevations. Happy Trails

I'm almost 72 and spend time every year at between 9,000 and 10,000 ft. I've never been bothered by altitude sickness. I live at about a 600 ft. elevation and walk daily for two miles and have done so for a long time. However, altitude sickness bothered my wife a great deal when she was younger. It seldom affects her now at 73, but she's active and also walks daily. I don't think she ever took any medication when she was troubled by the sickness and it always subsided completely in two or three days.

The most important thing is to hydrate and take it easy at first. I lived in the Andes mountains for a work project, the elevation we stayed at was bout 14,800 feet but we did get up to about 16,080 feet in elevation. When I first got up there I was sick as a dog, after about 3 days I got acclimated to it. Your body also burns a lot of calories at that elevation, I lost a lot of weight. Ibuprofen is your friend. Some people take a small oxygen bottle up, if they start to get a headache, about 10 minutes on the oxygen helps a lot. Be careful.

This is going to seem like an odd thing to do for this but it's what I was told by a man that lives close to Pagosa Springs, Colorado. He told me that eating pears, skins on them would help with the headaches. I have done that as I love pears. Does it work? I made two trips and didn't notice the headaches. For the stamina it didn't do anything.

you need spinach for that. Ask Popeye......

Regular exercise beyond the point where you're sucking air will help but it's not a cure all.

Never bothered me until we drove up Pike's Peak. Felt terrible. couldn't breathe or sleep. Didn't get better until we landed in Charlotte. Ruined my trip

Second this, look for a quality iron supplement also, will be easier on your system.
It takes awhile to ramp up your iron, if in fact you are starting lower than optimal. Get on the supplement 6-9 weeks before your hunt.

I'm good with that!

I live at 1270 elevation so the lack of Oxygen affects me pretty much wherever I hunt. Its not uncommon to break, 10,000 but we are usually a little lower. Like suggested before, I start carrying a weighted pack on my PT hikes before season and get into camp a couple days ahead of time, which I also use for scouting. I have hunted higher and have never had altitude sickness, but it does not affect all.

As said, different individuals have vastly different abilities to handle higher altitude,. Some people will die at elevations others don’t notice. If in doubt, head to lower elevation, NOW! A teenager climbing 12,000 foot Mt. Adams died overnight of altitude sickness at what sounded like 8 or 9,000 feet according to the news story.

Two examples of people prone to altitude sickness:

My wife is hyper sensitive. Some days she gets sick at elevations above 3,000 feet, yet once in awhile she will do fine on the rim of Bryce Canyon at nearly 10,000. In Quito she ended up in the ER with apparent heart attack. Docs took one look and said, “Another tourist with altitude sickness.” They gave her some pills that helped till she could fly home, don’t know what they were. Another trip she got so sick in Banff, which I’d guess is 3500 -4000 in elevation, that we canceled the rest of our stay and headed home to sea level. One time driving through the high plains of Wyoming she got slightly mind fuddled and her vision greyed out till she was looking through a horizontal slot blacked out on top and bottom. We boogied for the Snake River canyon and she got better by the mile as elevation dropped. Forced over hydration ahead of the sickness, not allowing a chance of dehydration helps- sometimes. She avoids high country anymore.

At 7,000 feet when deer hunting in California, a hunter near me went into chest pains and I rushed off of the mountain to take him to an ER because I was sure he was having a heart attack. He insisted that it was altitude sickness and merely needed to get home to sea level. By the time we got down to 1500 feet he was fine.

Driving up Pikes Peak gains a lot of altitude very fast. At least 6000ft and even more if you start down near the center of Colo Spgs. They have some problems with that there. Barr trail is a great training hike for big range mountaineers because of that altitude gain. Very sorry to hear of your experience.