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by Allen Best
Colorado Ski Country USA, the trade group for the state’s
ski areas, says The Wall Street Journal is picking on
Colorado.
Several weeks ago the newspaper ran a front-page story
titled “At Colorado Resorts, Ski Fever Often Comes
with Case of Nausea.” The story told about what
is often called “altitude sickness,” which
afflicts about half of people with such flu-like symptoms
as headaches, insomnia and shortness of breath when they
ascend rapidly to a much higher elevation, such as from
sea level to a ski resort at 9,000 feet.
More rare, but severe, is something called pulmonary
edema which fills the lungs with fluid. It can cause death
unless a person rapidly descends in elevation or gets
supplemental oxygen. Cerebral edema is even more rare
and dangerous. Mountain climbers know, and respect, these
dangers, which is why most sleep low even if they go high,
drinking much water but little alcohol.
One ski-town emergency room doctor, Telluride’s
Peter Hackett, told the Journal that he sees as many patients
for mountain sickness as he does for broken bones.
Nonetheless, Colorado Ski Country criticized the story
as unfair, because it singled out Colorado resorts. “They’re
making it look like a Colorado problem, but it’s
a problem for all high-altitude places,” said Ashley
Boyden, the group spokeswoman. “Colorado ski resorts
have never tried to mask the problem,” she added.
“There is literature out there.”
Indeed, there is. Turn on the cable TV channel in Vail-Beaver
Creek designed specifically for tourist consumption, and
there’s a constant stream of information about precautions
of the thin air for those recently arrived. Whether tourists
are targeted before they leave their homes, however, is
another matter.
But the reason that the Journal targeted Colorado is
that, well, Colorado truly does have the high country
of the West. The mean elevation of the state is 6,800
feet, and that includes nearly half the state that is
located on the Great Plains. Other states of the West
are high – Wyoming is 6,700 feet, Utah, 6,100 feet
and New Mexico 5,700 feet – but not as high.
Colorado resorts are, compared to other ski resorts of
the West, heads and shoulders higher. Think Paul Simon
next to Shaquille O’Neal, and or at least Robert
Redford (without heels) next to Paul Newman.
Consider Whistler/Blackcomb, British Columbia’s
busy ski resort. Located near the salty waters of the
Pacific, the highest lift there reaches 7,494 feet. You
know what people at Colorado resorts call that elevation?
Down valley. Whistler’s base village, at 2,214 feet,
is lower than any place in Colorado – and, for that
matter, in New Mexico or Wyoming.
California’s Northstar-at-Tahoe advertises that
“Life begins at 8,000 feet,” which may be
true, but that precludes the resort’s base area,
which is at a mere 6,330 feet. The state’s busiest
ski area, Mammoth Mountain, has a base area of about 7,300,
which is sagebrush country in Colorado.
In Wyoming, Jackson Hole’s Tetons are next to none
in magnificence, its ski slopes among the most rugged
you’ll find serviced by lifts. But in elevation,
it’s no more than middlin’ – 6,300 feet
at the base, 10,450 feet at the summit. Montana’s
Big Sky isn’t much higher, and Idaho’s Sun
Valley is lower. Only New Mexico’s Taos rivals Colorado
resorts for thin air, and it’s just across the border.
No wonder The Wall Street Journal focused on Colorado.
Thin air is at issue in athletic events even in the Mile-High
City, Denver. In some minds, home runs at Coors Fields
have an asterisk by them. A professional basketball player
from the Houston Rockets some years ago was given oxygen
at timeouts.
At 8,000 feet problems intensify, and at 9,000 to 10,000
feet, which includes much of Durango Mountain Resort,
Crested Butte, Telluride’s Mountain Village, and
most of Summit County, thin air can be debilitating. To
top that off, the ski lifts at several resorts approach
to within a few feet of 13,000 feet. No matter how young,
how athletic and how acclimated you are, everybody moves
more slowly at 13,000 feet.
Among mountain folks in Colorado, thin-air living is
a matter of bragging rights. I learned about this one-upmanship
years ago while in Silverton, elevation 9,318 feet. Colorado
has several higher towns, but no place is so beholden
to its climate. Surrounding San Juan County has not one
tillable acre.
Winters at 9,000 feet undeniably last longer –
before global warming, it seemed like until mid-June.
It’s no wonder that inhabitants regard themselves
as superior physical beings, looking down their noses
even at those who live at, for example, 8,000 feet.
“You know, it’s not necessarily true,”
explained a woman who had befriended me at the bar of
the town’s polished Grand Imperial Hotel. “Some
of the guys from Texas who come to hunt every year can
scramble around these hills as well as anybody. But you
won’t hear the local guys admitting it.”
Fit or not, flying from sea level to 9,000 feet without
acclimating along the way can have consequences. Earlier
this year a 31-year-old Dallas-area man died of pulmonary
and cerebral edema after several nights at 9,300 feet
at Mt. Crested Butte. It was, said Gunnison County Coroner
Frank Vader, just one of an average of six deaths that
were caused, at least in part, by inadequate adjustments
to the thin air each year by hunters, hikers and skiers.
So, was the Wall Street Journal picking on Colorado?
Not in my book. Colorado is higher. This ain’t no
downstream state. The skies are bluer, the snow more powdery,
the air crisper – and also thinner. And that thin
air is not something to be trifled with.
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