Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Smoking effects on the body @ altitude?

Greetings all:

I wanted to know if anyone had any personal or observational insight about how cigarette smokers tend to perform/react at altitudes such as those encountered on Mt. Whitney.

For example, are you a smoker and have never had a problem? Do you know people who have tried to climb @ altutude and failed or suceeded? Is there no way that a smoker could ever seriously consider climbing at altitude.

I appreciate any experience and/or insight that people can offer here. I have a friend who would like to climb this mountain (and other mountains) and I would like to be able to advise this person about how smoking might or might not effect them while exerting oneself @ high altitude. If the consensus is that either you quite smoking or forget it, then so be it...that would be good to know prior to getting to 13000 feet. Or, perhaps it is possible to puff your way to the top...I don't know since I don't smoke.

Thank you for the insights and I apologize if some members think this is a silly question to ask. I just have no experience on the matter and I would like to give this person some sound and realistic advice for the sake of their health. Of course, the obvious answer is just to quite smoking and of course I have suggested this. However, some stuborn people think that there will not be a problem with smoking cigarettes @ 12000 feet and beyond. Thus, I would like to save this person from having some problems on the mountain due to smokers lungs and whatever insight people can offer will be appreciated.

Thanks

I'd say it would depend on the person's abilities just like any non-smoker. I summited last year (non-smoker) along with two others in my group. The fourth member, a former smoker, didn't make it much past Trail Crest. That was on a day hike. I don't know if it was just not his day, how much or little he drank and ate, physical condition or what.

I agree that it depends on your abilities and overall conditioning.
It seems as if almost all of the Europeans that I've climbed with smoke. When we take a rest break or if they are belaying the first thing they do is light up. I've seen this behaviour all the way up to the summits of 22,000' peaks. I'm basically gasping for oxygen and they are smoking!
I know a few smokers that have quit for a climb and they have felt it would have been better overall to just keep smoking.

On Jan. 15, 2002 I quit smoking after smoking for 20 years of smoking a pack-a-day or so. I worked out for 7 1/2 months before my first attempt at Whitney last September 5, 2002. We started at 2:30 AM and made it to Trail Crest by 10:00 AM. I felt really good and knew that I could of summited except for the thunder storm that turned almost everyone around that day. (REGRET) I know for a fact that if I was still smoking I would not have tried it, let alone even made it to Trail Crest. I thank God every day that he gave me the strength to finally quit! For anyone that is still smoking, I do not mean to preach but PLEASE there is a GREAT difference in hiking after you quit smoking. If you can quit long enough to train and do a hike you might as well quit for good. Enough more "Holy than thou" attitude. I have a 2 nighter on Whitney this June and this time I'm going to make it! See you up there! JIM

As a smoker a minimum of 10% of your blood gas is trash. This places you at an immediate disadvantage ...coupled with an unfavorable genetic predisposition, poor training, age you have a problem. I have seen people smoke @ basecamp on Everest. Hey, Mallory smoked a pipe on Everest. With all we know about the detremental effects of smoking the practice seems a bonehead move.
KL

Interesting subject...

I confirm that a lot of European climbers do smoke a lot (even if I'm a European... and non-smoker!), I don't know why!?

For sure the first impact of smoking for someone going in the altitude is that from 10 to 30% of the red globules are ineffective in a smoker's blood (in fact, that's the hemoglobin inside the red globules that cannot catch oxygen anymore). Then we could just think that it is necessarily negative in the moutain : this is the case usually at medium altitudes (under 12,000 feet), where smoker usually catch up less quickly especially after a short violent effort.

But at the same time, their body is used to deal with under-oxygenation. And to react by producing more red globules (and hemoglobin). This is why some people think that they are not necessarily worse than non-smokers at high altitudes, because the less time the body needs to realize "Hey, I need to produce more globules" the better it is. I don't know that there is any scientific results confirming that, just observations. But it really seems that the best people in high altitude, are those who react very quickly by producing lots of red globules (these are not necessarily the youngest or the strongest, for example, which body seems to often react to under-oxygenation by... doing nothing), which of course can be achieved without smoking !

So, don't think I want to promote smoking !
No, I finaly would advice your friend to stop smoking (but at least 3 monthes before going to high altitude) and train for that goal. Or, if not possible, simply to train without quitting smoking. The worst thing to do would be, I think, to quit smoking 2 weeks before going, not to train, and to go back to 'cigarettes' just the day before climbing (because of the stress) !

O

I've smoked for about 30 years, quite a couple of times, once for three years at a time. The first year I summited Whitney was just after the 3 year quit time. I had started smoking again in February and did the climb in August. I'm sure I would have had more oxygen in my system if I had not started again, but I did train for months while I was smoking. The non-smokers out there will say "nay" about this, but I feel better when I do smoke. I've made the summit twice and smoked on the trail all the way up and at the top (I always take my butts with me too). Naturally, if your friend could quit its probably better, but if they can't, ...train, train, train! I don't think I could ever do Whitney in a day hike, but we always do the three day pass so we don't have to move too fast. Everyones body and tolerance is different so it will be up to them if they smoke or not.

From my 33 years experience climbing with people, I'd say smoking does not necessarily impair you from climbing peaks. I had a partner with a 2 pack a day habit, who showed plenty of speed and strength, and seemed to enjoy life more than I could! But, the last I'd seen of him, he had medical problems, and didn't look too well. He drank plenty, too.

A quite famous Sierran also does a couple packs a day, even in the backcountry (they all carry out the butts), and climbs peaks at an unbelievable rate.

I spent 15 years in a cramped government office with 80% of the unit doing up to even six packs (on the job) a day, with probably a record for the worse indoor air, yet I climbed peaks more and better, then, than any person who does this in my area. I am also considerably overweight, more of a detriment than tobacco smoke, I think, but as far as I know, no local beats me over the long term.

I see hikers exhausted after only a few hundred feet of gain, and whether they smoke has far less to do with it than getting exercise and conditioning for a climb prep.

But, if people can quit, and if it feels like losing several pounds, please do so! All of life will feel much better!

I would love to ordain myself in charge of placebo effect in such experiments.

Here's what I know, it's pretty long though.
Smokers GENERALLY have a better O2 uptake than non smokers. IOW, their RBC's (red blood cells) more readily absorb oxygen. For the same fitness level, a smoker will have a higher percentage of red blood cells attached to oxygen than their counterparts. However, as a smoker ages and they have less and less lung to work with, the total oxygen in the blood which the body can use will be lower, even though the percentage of RBC's holding O2 may remain constant. IOW, their O2 saturation may remain 94%, but their total PO2 will gradually decline.
Also, smokers generally run around with a higher CO2 level. This is significant because that's one of the primary mechanisms that drives our urge to breath. Too much CO2 and we breath faster, too little and we breath less. Smokers slowly destroy this mechanism until their primary drive will be the level of oxygen in their blood instead of the CO2 level. They often walk around functioning just fine with CO2 levels twice as high as the rest of us and 60% of the oxygen in their blood. Every time I think of this fact it reminds me of the grisled old marines on my ship that would run the flight deck all day long with a cigarette hanging out of their mouth. That exempliflies that ability of our bodies to adapt to adverse conditions and change over time.
So, smokers function just fine in an environement of low oxygenation and high CO2 levels in the blood, exactly the conditions created at higher altitudes. The natural conclusion would be that they should not only do just fine, but should excell past us on our high altitude climbs. Not so, as with us, they build up CO2 levels that are more than they can handle and have O2 levels that beat them down also. It seems it's all relative, basic level of fitness counts the most.
As far as being able to do it as we age, there is some support that non smokers have the edge here, because of the inevitable permanent damage that continuous long term smoking causes to the lungs and vasculature.

I am not a smoker, however have had experiences with smokers at elevations over 17,000 feet.

While trekking in Nepal in 1997 I met 6 Australians, two of which were smokers. When we met we were at about 12,000 feet and they would smoke one or two cigarettes a night. They were determined however to rassion their cigarettes so that they had one left to smoke when we reached the pass at 17,300 feet. During the climb they never fell behind the rest of the group or had trouble adjusting to the higher elevations. They were both however in excellent shape. They made it to the top and tried to light up but the high winds kept the smoking celebration from ever happening.

It all comes down to being physically fit and taking your time to adjust to your surroundings (ie. elevation).

I climbed Mt. Whitney several years ago and had been smoking for about 15 years, 2 packs a day. I smoked the entire trip to the top and didn't have any trouble at all. The air was thin towards the top, but the hikers I was with were non-smokers and they had trouble breathing also.
Shouldn't be any problem for them. I wasn't in shape and had only 1.5 days notice before ascent.