[nuancey]

Interesting. What's the longest amount of time you've had to acclimatize and at which mountain and elevation was it? Any problems with your ears, sinuses or chest at high altitudes or during acclimatization?

[schu]

Well, therein lies the problem. Most, including myself, do not allow sufficient time to acclimatize, you have a limited window and you just go for it. When I went to Mexico to climb the volcanoes we spent one night in Mexico City (7,000) and then went straight to base camp at 14K. One of our party got very sick, she had to descend, so that was a bad decision to move up that quickly.

On Rainier I like to spend a night at 4K, climb to high camp at about 10K and then try for the top. One trip I went from sea level (Seattle) to the top in 24 hours, too fast, ended up apoxic (sp, oxygen deprived, dizzy, sleepy) at the top.

The altitude affects everyone different, the usual problem on a Rainier is headache, nausea and sickness. It happens pretty fast, my brother in-law got sick (AMS, Accute Mountain Sickness) at about 11K, could not remember what we had for dinner and did not know his name. We descended 1,000' he was fine and didn't even remember what happened at 11K!

FWIIW, schu