It's called acute mountain sickness. Essentially your body becomes acidotic due to the elevation and strenuous exercise compounds the effect.



Acute mountain sickness (AMS) may be associated with any combination of the following symptoms:

Fatigue
Headache
Dizziness
Insomnia
Shortness of breath during exertion
Nausea
Decreased appetite
Swelling of extremities
Social withdrawal


Relatively harmless but unpleasant. In rare but severe cases your lungs and brain and swell with fluid...and well that's a bad thing.

 

I would be very concerned about urine that is very orange and foamy. Orange very well could be an indication of blood in the urine.

 

I'd say Dr. Raj is dead on.

However, Raj, given his relative altitude, 8,000ft, with a 4,000 ft. delta is not unheard of to incite h.a.c.e/h.a.p.e.

You need to spend at least 12-16 hours at 4,000 ft. if you're used to living in the low-lands of the Bay Area and/or San Francisco proper.

Also, you may want/need to fuel yourself better the days prior.

 

Anybody watch the two seasons Everest on Discovery? Man that was some crazy stuff.. made me wanna do it, but I don't have $50k to do it with =/

And I didn't know you could get h.a.c.e from only 8000ft! Good to know!

 

Egcellent. I only know a little about HACE/HAPE, but that's why you ask Unkie Trunkie.

I wanted to climb EVEREST, but it's not a fun thing so I'll stick to the low lands with the other low life.

 

Seriously, a 4000 foot delta should be plenty to induce altitude sickness. I have seen it. My sister-in-law flew in to Denver, there for about a day then up to Breckenridge. Now that is about a 5000 ft delta from Denver but she got it. From what little I know about it, physical fitness has little to no bearing on who will get it. Her symptoms took quite a few hours to develop so your experience ocurring on the way down would still be reasonable. Your repeated experiences might indicate that you are particulary prone to altitude sickness.

 

Fatigue -- check
Headache -- BIG CHECK (first 2x anyway)
Dizziness -- not so much
Insomnia -- nope, I passed OUT at the top
Shortness of breath during exertion -- check
Nausea -- BIG CHECK (all 3x)
Decreased appetite -- absolutely
Swelling of extremities -- yeah, I didn't mention this but my hands DID swell up a lot.
Social withdrawal -- If you were feeling any of the above symptoms (due to altitude sickness or not) I don't think you'd be very chatty either.

 

Thanks for the concern. Fortunately the urine cleared up later (still deep yellow) when I was finally able to keep fluids down. I figured out that so long as I keep my head tilted to the right, my brain presses against my skull and squeezes closed the aneurism-- I don't mind so much, because it makes me look playful.

 

Yeah, it's actually almost a 5000 ft delta, given that the peak is 8842 and the valley floor is ~4000. And I do live in the Bay Area, at about sea level.

I guess if I were to do it again, I'd have to spend a few days up there... maybe do some halfway hikes and try to get acclimated. Unfortunately my gf was so concerned when I told her my symptoms that she made me promise to never go again. Honestly, it was an easy promise to make at the time (right after the hike)... but now, like some masochistic sickness, I want to go back.

Half Dome in a day is a tough nut to crack, but in retrospect it sure is yummy.