Safety Measures for Colorado’s High Country

Colorado’s high country kills. According to Peter Kummerfeldt, who teaches survival at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, the main cause is: ''The brain doesn't work right". Most mountain accidents can be traced to two conditions that rob our brains of good judgement, Kummerfeldt said - dehydration and hypothermia. His survival prescription calls for warm layers of clothing, a carbohydrate-based diet, rest, lots of drinking water and careful attention to avoiding injury.

Keep warm

Rain and wind can rob the fires burning in your body's furnace, or even snuff them out. And it can snow anytime in Colorado's mountains. When your body temperature falls to 95 degrees - only 3.6 degrees below normal - your muscles become uncoordinated, which can lead to a misstep or even a fatal fall. Human brain function deteriorates at temperatures approaching 93 degrees. If your body continues to cool to 85 degrees or lower, you die. "The problem is that your brain is not functioning properly, so you're not aware this is happening to you," Kummerfeldt said. Likely victims of hypothermia include anyone who is tired, hungry or hurt. Urban visitors to the mountains who lack proper clothing to cope with the high country's moody weather swings are most at risk. Proper clothing starts with a hat and scarf, Kummerfeldt said, because your head and neck accounts for 50% of lost body heat. Mountain visitors should avoid alcohol and nicotine, he said, because alcohol contributes to heat loss by dilating blood vessels and nicotine makes you cold by constricting blood vessels.

Drink water

Keeping warm and drinking water go hand in glove. If you become even slightly dehydrated, your personal furnace rapidly loses its ability to keep fired up. "Your body contains 20 quarts of water," Kummerfeldt says. "And your objective is to maintain that 20-quart level." Which takes a lot more water drinking than you might imagine. A high- country hiker or hunter will lose three to four quarts per day breathing, perspiring and eliminating waste. So you must drink up to four quarts of water each day. A gallon. Unfortunately, one price of playing at altitude is that it cuts the desire to drink. And your body won't accept a drink if you get much more than 5% dehydrated. The danger figures are as slight and significant as the fragile drops in body temperature that spells doom. At 6% to 12% dehydration you will regurgitate water and be unable to re-hydrate yourself. Delirium and death arrive at 12% to 15% dehydration. "So you have to catch it early," Kummerfeldt warns. "You have to force feed yourself large quantities of water." Drink it hot if the weather is cold. Purify it by boiling, or with purification tablets or portable filter pumps. But drink, drink.

Avoid altitude sickness

You just made it to the top of the 12,000 pass but before you can enjoy the view you begin to have a severe headache and feel nauseous and weak. You have altitude sickness.

Hight altitude is defined on the following scale: High (8,000 - 12,000 feet [2,438 - 3,658 meters]), and Very High (12,000 - 18,000 feet [3,658 - 5,487 meters]). In Colorado it is possible to ride an ATV to just over 13,000 feet and you can drive your car to the top of Mt. Evans which is just short of 14,000 feet. At these heights altitude sickness can cause serious problems.

Don't believe you won't get altitude sickness even if you live in Colorado, Kummerfeldt says. Everyone is susceptible at elevations above 8,000 feet and there are no specific factors such as age, sex, or physical condition that correlate with susceptibility. Young people and - get this - people who are physically fit are especially susceptible. Fit people are at risk, he says, because they tend to be aggressive. They trek farther, higher and longer than they should.

The major cause of altitude sickness is going too high too fast. Given time, your body can adapt to the decrease in oxygen molecules at a specific altitude. This process is known as acclimatization and generally takes 1-3 days at that altitude.

For reasons not entirely understood, high altitude and lower air pressure causes fluid to leak from the capillaries which can cause fluid build-up in both the lungs and the brain. Continuing to higher altitudes without proper acclimatization can lead to potentially serious, even life-threatening illnesses.

Altitude sickness varies from relatively harmless "mountain sickness" discomforts (headaches, nausea, sleeplessness and an acid-tasting mouth) to ''high altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE)," which can kill victims by drowning them in their own congested body fluids. In between is "acute mountain sickness," with symptoms of insomnia, gasping, rapid heart rate, shortness of breath and fatigue. To prevent and treat mild cases, stop strenuous activity, sleep below 8,000 feet (or drop at least 2,000 in elevation at night), drink lots of water, increase carbohydrate intake and avoid nicotine and alcohol. Kummerfeldt says victims also should avoid taking sleeping pills, which can aggravate altitude problems. Everyone should be on the lookout for symptoms of HAPE, which causes its victims to cough and grow disoriented. "It can come on very quickly," Kummerfeldt said. At its first signs, victims should be taken to lower elevations. "Go down quickly and seek professional medical care," he said.

Don't get zapped

Survival instructor Kummerfeldt likes to show his audience a photo of a woman hiker whose hair was a-buzz with static electricity. "She is about to get hit," he said. Fortunately, the woman bolted to safety before the striking event occurred. Colorado's mountains are electrifying, indeed. Colorado ranks second in the U.S., behind Florida, in people struck by lightning. "More people are killed by lightning than by all other weather-related causes, except flash floods," said Kummerfeldt, who has witnessed his share of lightning's more dramatic impacts. A few years ago one of his students, an air force cadet, was fatally struck when he snuggled up to a ponderosa pine, in violation of a premier lightning safety precaution: Don't be the highest object or close to the highest object on the mountain. High-country visitors can avoid most electrical storms by planning their ascents so they are off the mountaintop by noon, Kummerfeldt says. And by keeping an eye on the weather. Most storms roll through the mountains during the afternoon hours. If you are caught in a storm, seek shelter in a low spot. Don't sit or lie down. Never touch the ground with a hand or stand with your legs spread, which turns you into an electrical conductor with a beating heart in its center. Instead, crouch into a little ball with your feet together, a position that encourages electrical discharges to pass over your body. Hikers should know how to judge a storm's distance and its speed if it is coming toward them. Using the standard flash-bang formula, count five seconds for each mile between the lightning's flash and the thunder's bang. "If it is coming toward you, the next bolt will leap two to three miles closer," Kummerfeldt said. Every high country visitor also should know how to administer CPR first aid in case they come upon a group that has been struck. "Treat the people who look like they are dead first. You need to get oxygen to their brain," Kummerfeldt said.