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What is the highest altitude...

What is the highest altitude...

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What is the highest altitude on land that you have ever reached? Where was it? Why were you there?

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I've been above timberline several places, several times in my younger years. Most memorable Mt. Evans, 14,200 ft or there abouts. I live in Colorado on the plains.

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Rummaging backthrough various trips and adventures, I am realizing that great altitudes have not been A Thing in my life.

In Britain, the highest up I have been is atop Cross Fell, the highest mountain in England outside the Lake District. It's only 890 metres above sea level.

Just 25km north of where I live is Kaliurang, a kind of mountain resort, on the shoulder of the volcano Mount Merapi. That's a mere 903 metres above sea level.

So that just leaves Chamonix-Mont-Blanc in the French Alps which is 1,040 metres above sea level, although we went to a village nearby - that I think was called Le Tour - to walk on a glacier and that was 1 420 metres above sea level.

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I think Mt. Everest is over 29;000 ft. Sort of dwarfs the Rocky Mountains.

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@gambrel said
14,200 ft or there abouts.
Is there much of an impact on your breathing at that elevation?

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@fmf said
Is there much of an impact on your breathing at that elevation?
Most definitely. I used to train at about 10,000 ft. Once you get used to that, athletic events in Denver, 5280 ft, were easier with more "wind."

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@fmf said
What is the highest altitude on land that you have ever reached? Where was it? Why were you there?
About 8000 ft. As a teenager I went hiking with some friends on Mt. Rainier. It was OK, but not really my thing. I never went back.

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On holiday in Austria we took a cable car up Mt Grossglockner in the Alps.
The weather at the bottom was drizzle and about 18c. My wife and I were dressed in summer clothes, it was August. At the top 3000m, a snow storm was raging with visibility about 5m. Air felt thin but not unbearable.

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I stood at the top of the main ski jump slope that was used for the Innsbruck Olympics. How high above sea level would that have been?

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@fmf said
I stood at the top of the main ski jump slope that was used for the Innsbruck Olympics. How high above sea level would that have been?
2500m to 3000m

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@the-gravedigger said
2500m to 3000m
Astaganaga

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Probably the Parseierspitze (3036 m) in the alps, on a tour we understook in 1984... So I am not really an alpinist 😉

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@fmf said
What is the highest altitude on land that you have ever reached? Where was it? Why were you there?
Not sure, but it can't have been high. Probably Prague or the Ardennes. Everywhere else I've been is low-lying.

I'm currently below sea level.

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-Removed-
The drive from Phoenix is about 4 hours to Flagstaff, another hour to the Canyon. It's a nice drive, through the middle of Arizona. An extra 45 min or so takes you through a more scenic area, through Prescott and Oak Creek.