Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Acclimation is important

I guess not.

It doesn't apply to everyone. My absolute worst AMS experience at these elevations after a couple of days acclimatization at 8,600' and 10,000'.

It is really how an individual systems reacts going to these elevation. I can day hike anywhere in SoCal with out a problem but put me at 10,000' for 8 or 10 hours and I'm toast.

My latest theory is that it is a combination of acclimatization and experience at the elevation you are hiking to that help in guaranteeing success at Mt. Whitney. This something a newbie just cannot get hiking exclusively in SoCal. Personally, when I go back to the higher Sierra elevations after months away I know exactly what to expect as I go higher than 11,500'. This is why I recommend a trip to White Mountain for anyone who is new to all this.

wb is right

it is acclimatization when we are speaking of altitude

sorry, this is one of my pet peeves, see definitions. Harvey

Acclimatization is the process of an organism adjusting to multiple change in its environment. At high altitude, this may include temperature, pressure, O2 saturation, hydration, fatigue, nutrition, hemodynamic/cardiopulmonary factors, fitness and more.

Acclimation usually refers to controlled laboratory conditions, this process is controlled to only one variable change.

Adaptation, unlike the above short term changes, occurs over an organism's lifetime or usually even longer, many generations.

Huh? I googled both words, and in the definitions I found, they all refer to each other. I could not find anything that differentiated them, or referred to "controlled laboratory conditions".

Check this Wiktionary link

Reminds me of two related words: regardless and irregardless.

Ha! Thanks h_lankford. I've always wondered if there was a distinction but standard dictionaries don't make one and it's easy to find examples of the two words used interchangeably.

However, a few minutes of googling supports what you wrote.

Thanks.

Adapt is to adjust to new circumstances (short term implied). Probably more colloquial or accepted than perfect use of the word. Lots of organisms adapt to environments without going through a gene change.

Acclimatized is what you get when you are acclimated and happens after a prolonged exposure to higher altitude.

Adapting is what your body does while it is on the way to being acclimated. Some adapt better than others. That probably is genes working there (see Darwin below). Not a lot to do with oxygen saturation - probably mostly about partial pressures (and differentials) and how your body works out the problems.

Acclimatization (verb) is what you do (a process) while you are trying to get acclimatized (noun-ish). That is a different concept than adapt.

I consider the 1 or 2 day visits to higher altitude more toward adapting to a different environment. You ain't going to get fully acclimated (or acclimatized) to 10k' or over in just a few months let alone a couple of days.

Adaptation is what Darwin described to bring order to observations.

*Love the English language*.

Adaptize is maybe what some religious organizations do with water after they prioritize their members.

> Adaptize is maybe what some religious organizations do with water

sorry, no religion can be discussed in this election year.

I realize that the words get blended together, there are some nuances, but offer the info as FYI.

I figured some might get upset by the picky details of the words acclimatization, acclimation, adaptation and I even left out
accomodation, acquired acclimatization, natural acclimatization,and other terms.

In my first post, I summarized the definitions from a simple source, the Wikipedia entry on acclimatization.

For the Truth, see the bible:
High Altitude Medicine by Herb Hultgren

Take a deep breath.

Harvey

You know a pet peeve of mine? Is people who get upset over semantics, grammer and spelling during the course of online comunication. Serioully we are not in school. Did anything preductive come from this whole discussion? Maybe if you are an english major, or a contradicting person who likes to get peoples goat, but seriously it has little to nothing to do with mt. whitney.

You mean "Mount Whitney" ?

LOL - Just kidding man. Slow night with everyone being at the big party and all..............................DUG

Do you mean "grammar"?

You do know that "irregardless" ain't a real word?

Actually, it has a lot to do with Whitney. People ask about high altitude illness here ALL THE TIME.

There is a wealth of knowledge on this board that is shared, not to be picky but to be helpful. There are world class mountaineers, SARs, medical researchers, guides, and other people who love to share. It is offered in the spirit of not know-it-all-ness, but to help those who might want to learn, and in fact, many of them do appreciate it. I can see how Bob R. gets frustrated when his knowledge of water quality in the Sierra gets trampled on.