My longest time was a mountaineering patrol on Denali, over twenty years ago. We had been at the Advanced Base Camp (14,000 plus) for over a week and were planning to push on to the summit in a long day (according to our oximeter readings, this was quite feasible). We never got tofind out if this would have been the case, because on the morning of our attempt, we were engaged in treating a HACE victim at the ABC. He was staggering at 17,500 feet where he had been camped, and was coherent and walking normally by the time he had descended to the ABC.

So much for reaching North America's highest summit. The neat thing was that our evaluation and handling of this person was monitored and later critiqued by Dr. James Wilkerson, author of [/u]Mountaineering Medicine[u], the bible for climbing medicine. In a way, that was a more nifty experience than reaching the summit.

Descending does wonders for high altitude complications.