You're coming up with quite a bit of contradictory and hard to follow information.mtree wrote: ↑Fri Sep 05, 2025 9:52 am You will not acclimate to high altitude in a few days. Period. Acclimate - biochemical and physiological changes in your body at a cellular and molecular level. There just isn’t enough time. It takes many days, even weeks to get results and there are many variables involved.
What you CAN do is adapt. First, there’s biophysical adaptation. The ability to both physically and physiologically make adjustments to changing environmental conditions. You won’t see much difference physiologically. But you can adapt physically - and most noteworthy - psychologically. These are the benefits I suggest. It is different than acclimation or biophysical adaptation. I call it physical adaptation. Its far easier to achieve.
Just sleeping overnight at altitude will do absolutely NOTHING to adapt. You’re not engaging your body to cope with any kind of stress. That’s like saying your 4 hour flight pressurized at 8000ft was sufficient. No, it isn’t. You’re sitting there. Hanging out at 8000ft on a couch or slugging beer doesn’t do much either. Kinda like staring at the weight bench expecting to yolk up. Sleeping in your car at the trailhead before the hike to get acclimated? Right. Hey, if the placebo works, take it! Going for a run at 8000ft? Now we’re talking!
My suggestion is different than most. I say get the body to react to altitude stimulation as soon as possible. This includes a short hike above 10k. Maybe a longer one or higher one if you feel good. What’s happening is you’re learning to adapt to your new environment. How to breathe properly without passing out. How to set your cadence. How to adjust your speed. How it feels to have your chest expand like your heart is popping out of your ribs! Dealing with exhaustion, dehydration, and recovery. Extending endurance. THESE are the benefits of strenuous movement at altitude before hiking a 14er. You are physically adapting to your new environment. Its much more efficient and quicker than acclimating. In lieu of this, just go for it. Start slow and take it easy.
I say sleep wherever, but just sleep before a big hike. Preferably 48 hours in advance. It’s the night’s sleep before the night of the hike that really matters. Eat well and hydrate to minimize your body’s unnecessary stress. My mantra to all the newbies and flatlanders I take hiking is physical adaptation. Focus on the things you can control. That’s the key. Physical adaptation. That’s what we should push to newbies asking about acclimatization. Kinda what nyker stated without realizing it.
One more thing on altitude sickness. You can’t predict it. Outside of not climbing that 14er, you can’t really prevent it. If it happens it happens. Just don’t make it worse.
Sleeping at altitude is exactly what high altitude mountaineers do and absolutely does have acclimatization effects as your body adapts to the altitude whether you're exerting yourself or not. It IS well known that ventures above your sleeping altitude are a major part of adapting to high altitudes, but your experience with just having a couple guys hang out at 8k for a couple days doesn't prove that sleeping at altitude isn't helpful. You also compare a complete nights sleep at 8-10k- or several- with a 4 hour pressurization flight.
The OP comes from low and plans to hike very high, with a compressed time frame. I do the same and have brought several people out and it's clear that people get some initial adaptation in just a couple of days. We do 14ers on days 3 and 4 with no issues in spite of coming from about 1200 feet above sea level- by sleeping at 8-9600 k and hiking as high as possible during the day, plus all the other proven methods we've been discussing. I think you might be mixing full physiological adaptation, which could take the body 4-7 weeks at Colorado altitudes with initial acclimatization.
