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Everybody, this is episode 2 by Mount Everest, Mount Lobuche expedition.

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The previous episode I just talked about how you're going to select an expedition team,

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how you're going to do it in Kathmandu if you're going through Nepal and things to

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do, things not to do and all the way to Lukla, Lukla Airport.

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So once you get there, just to resume where I stopped, once you get to Lukla, then the

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fun begins.

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Then you're going to start your hike.

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No more cars, no more helicopters, well, although there's still a lot of helicopters, you can

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definitely take one all the way to base camp.

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But keep in mind that the process now can be divided into sort of two experiences.

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The first one is you must acclimatize.

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That means you must spend enough time in certain altitudes in order to adjust your body.

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Otherwise you're going to feel really sick and you can have serious complications such

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as Bomaneria Dima, Cerebroia Dima or just the standard acute mountain sickness, which

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I got and pretty much everybody gets some level of it.

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So that's the first objective.

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This is why it's going to take maybe two weeks to get to base camp alone or to some of the

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mountains in that range, just to give your body enough time to acclimatize.

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So that's the first important process and why it takes so long.

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The second is enjoy the experience really.

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I think stopping in every village every night and sometimes spending a couple of days depending

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on sort of the hiking and elevation gain profile of your expedition, they're slightly different,

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slightly.

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And it is just a great experience.

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You get to meet some of the people, you see the villages and of course you see the landscape.

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It's just mind blowing.

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I'll remind you that Leucla Airport and Leucla itself is already at about 10,000 feet.

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So it is higher than most mountains in, think about it right in the world and that's just

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where you start.

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So Kathmandu is at about 5,000 feet.

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Leucla is about 3,000 meters and 300 meters, give it a take, 10,000 feet, a little bit

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more than that, give it a take.

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So you start at a very high altitude already and the landscape changes significantly.

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It's very green until you get to about 15,000 when it becomes more rocky and you see it

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be very, if any, vegetation.

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But again, it's just amazing.

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So keep in mind, in my point of view, there were two main purposes of taking about two

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weeks to get to your mountain, to get to your goal, could be Everest and those are the two.

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So we'll cover both of them separately.

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So let me talk about acclimatization first, super important because you want to have a

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good trip.

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You don't want to feel sick all the time.

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You want to be able to actually get where you want to be.

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It could be at summit Everest, it could be just a base camp, it could be somewhere between

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those two, which was my case.

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Why is it important?

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Everybody, there's less and less oxygen as you go up at about 17,000, which is a base

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camp, 17,500 feet or 5,200, nearly 300 meters.

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There's just about 40% oxygen.

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So you need to adapt.

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Your body needs to develop more red blood cells and you need to, the whole physiology

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of your body needs to try to adapt as quickly as possible.

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Everybody's different.

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Some people will adapt very quickly and by quickly, I mean at least two days in a certain

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altitude.

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As you move up, the recommendation is if you move up 300 meters or about 1,000 feet, you

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need to rest at least a night or two.

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So again, this is the local recommendation.

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This is actually you find in the tea houses or the quote, unquote hotels that you spend

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the night.

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They are generally very good.

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I mean good for Nepal in the middle of Himalaya.

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Don't expect the four seasons.

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Actually, I don't want to say this about the member of our expedition, a tracker who was

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just doing the tracking to Everest, complained in the very first night that his mattress

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was too hard.

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Come on, give me a break.

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And then he even asked one of the guides, our lead guide, if somebody could replace

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the mattress in his bedroom, in his tea house, in a bit of nowhere in Nepal.

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Oh, come on.

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So they shouldn't be there in first place.

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That's what, that's the big concern that they had.

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Anyway, I digress.

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Let me go back to acclimatization.

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So drink a lot of water.

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That's the other recommendation.

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Really by a bunch of people, not just the expert guides with us, about four liters of

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water every day.

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That means you're going to pee a lot.

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So don't forget about that.

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That's the part typically nobody tells you.

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But drinking water and taking your time, if you feel sick, stop, tell all the people.

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I saw some people trying to just push it through and they just got worse.

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So follow those two recommendations.

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Try to eat well.

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Some people lost their appetite as part of the altitude sickness.

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I didn't.

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Luckily, I was eating like crazy because you are burning 8,000, 9,000, maybe 10,000, 12,000

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calories a day, depending on where you're climbing and how much you're tracking.

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So you've got to eat a lot.

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Luckily, for me, I never lost my appetite with the exception of one meal that I was really

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feeling altitude at base camp, Everest base camp, that I didn't eat well.

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But other than that, the whole month was awesome because you can eat whatever you want.

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So those are sort of the key secrets to acclimatization.

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Not much more.

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Everybody's different, as I said.

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Now, some people in my team, they started taking some medication before.

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So typically, you take three medication for altitude acclimatization.

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Actually, you typically don't take it, but you take it with you.

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You don't take it.

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Actually start having them.

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But you take it in case you need it.

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And I'm going to start from the most severe to the less severe one.

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So the most severe complications are cerebral edema when your brain gets too big and compress

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your, you know, the outside.

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Just you get increased pressure.

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That's what it is.

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I'm missing the words now, but you got the point.

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And that can be very, very serious, as you imagine.

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Can lead to death very quickly.

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So you have medication for that.

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You have medication for pulmonary edema when your lungs due to the lower pressure altitude,

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due to altitude, start filling up with fluids.

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You don't want that too, because that can cause death.

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So you take those two, but those are really emergency situations.

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And the only medication, the only solution for those conditions is going down.

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So you got to go down, either you walk down if you can, or your helicopter out of there

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as quickly as possible to lower altitudes all the way to Kathmandu, as some of my friends

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had to do this year.

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And they're still there, right?

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Because they were just feeling sick and there's no other remedy.

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The more common one, less serious, at least initially, is acute mountain sickness.

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And you can start getting it at, you know, even lower than 10,000 feet.

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So even before you get to Lukla, you can start feeling the symptoms of acute mountain sickness,

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which is like nausea, loss of appetite, headache.

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You won't sleep well, but you're not going to sleep well in altitude period.

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Just live with it.

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Do not expect to it.

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So if there's something that is not something you like to endure, don't go, because you're

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not going to sleep well.

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You're going to wake up multiple times because you're drinking a lot of water too.

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You're going to pee a lot.

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So you're going to wake up and you simply can't sleep well.

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Every time you adjust for a couple of days, keep in mind that you're moving up.

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So your body needs to readjust.

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So you can't really, you can't catch a break until you spend three, four days in the same

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altitude.

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So expect to be miserable for a long time.

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Let's not don't fool yourself.

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No matter what other people say, I mean, again, people are different.

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So maybe it's going to be great.

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You're going to feel awesome.

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I felt awesome for most of the trip for the first two weeks.

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And then I didn't.

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And when I didn't, and I'll cover that later, I really felt like, not I was going to die,

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but I felt like going back.

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So expect the worst, I think.

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And but just plan to do and follow the instructions to minimize the effects of altitude.

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The last piece is called the medicine that you can take for.

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And that one you can take even preemptively before the trip.

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Some people were doing it like two weeks before they even got to Nepal.

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Some of them are, you know, we're living in at sea level in the US and others in Australia.

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So they take this medicine called Diamox.

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Diamox is very popular.

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It's a very known prescription medicine.

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They were taking it.

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They just wanted to make sure they were prepared.

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It will help you help your body, of course, with the oxygen saturation and retention in

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your bloodstream.

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Yes, it will have some side effects.

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Remember this, right?

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Tingling, you know, fingers and which go away to be like 30 minutes after you take it.

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It's just a little bit annoying and you're going to pee a lot.

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So and you have to drink more water.

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So think about this, right?

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So if you're on Diamox, you've got to drink six liters of water, not four.

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And you're going to end its diuretic.

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So you're going to pee more.

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So you know, if you're not going to sleep because you don't sleep just because of altitude,

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you know, adaptation and then you have to pee because if you're drinking four liters

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of water without Diamox, then you're drinking six liters with a diuretic.

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So you're going to wake up a lot and you're going to stop along the way a lot.

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That's sort of the most the more annoying collateral effect.

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However, right?

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If you are feeling sick with the other symptoms of AMS acute mental sickness, it's worth it.

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I ended up taking Diamox about two weeks into the expedition.

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I wanted to know how far I was able to go without any medication because I wanted to

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know, right?

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The limits of my limits, my body's limits.

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I found them.

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I'll tell you.

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So I went on Diamox, no problem, right?

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And I got better in a matter of a day or two, what it takes a while for your body to adapt

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and to react to the medication.

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So keep that in mind, right?

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Most people are on Diamox, I found out.

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And even from the guides, for certain mountains, a certain altitude typically above 20,000

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feet.

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What I do is often they take the medicine for pulmonary edema just as a precaution, right?

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On summit day.

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I found that this is somewhat of a secret.

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I don't know why because people don't want to admit they are taking that weird.

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Why wouldn't you?

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If there's no, there's really no collateral effects as Dr. Romain just told me before

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my trip.

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So that is sort of the acclimatization piece of this.

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Super important.

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It's going to make your trip either miserable or more enjoyable.

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Keep in mind, this is mountaineering and one of the episodes of my mountaineering podcast

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series, I said it's suffering because it is suffering, right?

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So it's not like, I just say, is either miserable or more enjoyable because it's not like sitting

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on the sofa and watching TV and drinking some good wine.

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It is a lot of work.

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Your body is not adapted.

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Even some of the Sherpas who were born there, right, feel the altitude, you know, effect.

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And even day sometimes they say, I had a horrible night, right?

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Which surprised me.

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I thought they were like, you know, completely immune to that and they are not.

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So that is really all I want to say about acclimatization in terms of the effects on

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our body.

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The profile of how you climb and how you minimize those effects change.

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As I said, I mentioned many things drink a lot of water, etc.

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But typically what you do is in our expedition, right, has a different has a slightly different

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profile where we go up about a thousand, 1500 feet, sometimes 2000, but no more than that.

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It's about, you know, 300, 500, up to 600 meters a day.

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Rest, then take a hike the next day.

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Right.

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Just a one day hike, go up, go down, stay in sleep a second night in the same altitude,

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same village, then move up.

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And then we keep doing it.

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So it's at least two days in every stop in every village in every tea house.

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I'll describe more about the tea houses later in another episode and sort of the whole process.

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As I said, not not just the acclimatization, but enjoying the landscape and the cultural

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aspects of the trip.

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So that's for the next one.

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But to finalize the acclimatization, so that's the profile, right?

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So you go up, sleep, up and down, sleep, keep going one more.

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So if you do this, if you think about going from 10,000 feet, and I'm going to do this

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in feet, apologies, I already tried to do it in meters as frequently as possible.

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But if you do it in feet, you start at 10,000, average base camp is 17.5,000 feet.

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So that's about, yeah, that's rounded up to 8,000, right?

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Feet elevation gain.

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And there's no flat spot, by the way, you're always going up or down in the Himalayas.

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But the elevation gains about 8,000 feet.

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If you spend two nights at every stop, that's about 16 days just to get there.

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If you follow this acclimatization profile of trekking and hiking and climbing every

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day.

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So that's why it takes so long to get there, to give your body enough time to adapt.

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Keep in mind that two days, it was okay for me, it was not okay for most people.

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Some people were just fine.

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I mean, the minority of them were just fine to spend like a night.

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They were like, okay, I'm fine.

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I wasn't, I think I would need three days to be honest.

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So it's going to be a tough 16 days to get there to base camp.

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Because you will give your body some time to adapt, but not enough to feel great.

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That's on acclimatization.

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That's sort of the second part of the trip in terms of my podcasts.

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I'm going to cover the cultural aspects, which are much more fun than acclimatizing your

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body and suffering in the next, in our next episode.

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And the tea houses and where you sleep, how do you sleep, how do you take shower, or if

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you don't.

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So until next time, bye-bye guys.