Cherry-Colored Air and AMS

Miles 17

Camped at mm Wanderlust Gunnison Hostel

We slept for the second night in a row above 11 thousand feet, and I woke with what felt like a dehydration headache. I drank a bunch of water.
We walked through a cloud, and shadows from the trees hung in the air.
A fox caught something in the trail, and unable to give it up, just stared at us while it arranged the animal in its mouth for a while before it took off, and it was fascinating.
It was a little harder to breathe today. My breathing felt ragged, and I had to stop a lot to catch my breath.
The sun turned the air a rosy hue and I wanted to put arms out and spin, and breathe in the Cherry-Colored Air.
I felt nauseous. All morning. I tried to eat. It got worse.
The logs were uncomfortable, but the meadows were wide and the skies were deep blue and the clouds promised nothing but happiness and fluff.
My headache hung around and seemed a little worse. I took iburpofen, then later, tylenol.
I stopped a lot while climbing. I felt terrible. My lower legs hurt in a new way. Like they weren’t getting any oxygenated blood. They ached.
I feel terrible, I told Anji. I don’t know what’s going on.
But I kind of did, didn’t I? It was acute mountain sickness, coming back to slap me around again.
We stopped at the top of the last climb and I threw my pack on the ground and dug around for the Zofran so I could take another one quickly to keep from throwing up. My head felt like it was going to implode. I couldn’t get the ziplock bag closed. I was stumbling, and freaking out.
Anji tried to calm me down and get me to sit. I couldn’t calm down. The pain in my head was so scary. I finally sat on the ground cross legged and put my head in my hands, ready to weep.
Drink half of the water you have left, Anji said.
I’ll run out before we get to the next water source, I said.
Well it’s not doing you any good sitting in the bottle. It’s our only defense against AMS right now. Drink it.
I drank it.
Anji got me chocolate and my jacket. I was very cold. It was hot out. Nothing made sense.
After a while I calmed down enough to carry on.
We rounded a few corners and saw the 300 mile marker made of stones beside the trail. We’d made it 300 miles! Woot! We took a couple of photos and moved on quickly.
We made it to the first tiny baby creek and stopped to assess the situation and drink water. Anji was refusing to move forward with this adventure with me, since I clearly have AMS again, unless I could be seen by a doctor.
Frankly, I knew I couldn’t continue this adventure without intervention. I couldn’t hike feeling this way every day, and soon we’ll be camping around 12k feet and going up to 13k feet. I wouldn’t be able to handle it.
We hiked to highway 114 and got a hitch from a great guy named John who took us all the way to Wanderlust Hostel in Gunnison, at 7700 feet.
Was the trip over?
Tomorrow I go to the doctor and find out.