Kyle wrote:

>
>Man, Bobby, if you're not used to altitude >5000 ft, it can MESS YOU
>UP!  Once you get about a mile above sea level (Memphis is pretty low by
>comparison), the O2 carrying capacity of those red blood cells starts to
>diminish.  Above 10,000 you can get altitude sickness rather quickly.
>
>I spent two weeks at 11,500 in '98 and the first couple days were a real
>drag.  A headache like you wouldn't believe!  I also remembered a lesson
>learned a long time ago in Wyoming:  Do not drink alcohol in the High
>Country.  What's nice is spending time at altitude and then coming home
>to 800' above sea-level.  Man, what energy!
>
>I think what gets me more than anything is the rapidity with which my
>balance, flexibility, pain-level got bad.  If it had been a relatively
>gradual process I think I could have coped better emotionally.  I get to
>thinking,
>
>The other thing that sucks is that if I take enough
>pain-killers/antispasmodics to let me hunt/hike/fish without undue pain,
>then I'm not really being safe.  Fishing would be bad enough, but
>hunting???  No way!
>
>(Sigh)  Like Laura says, "Kyle, ain't it a bitch?  You've got the body
>of a 70 year-old, but the mind of a seventh-grader".  ;>)
>
>-Kyle

Yeah, we were at about 10,000 ft. Even going to Cripple Creek(7-8,000) gets
to be a drag on the blood thinners I take!

 "Sh*t, if it's this bad now, what's it going to be like in
>five years?"

Yeah, I know the feeling!

Bobby