start the trek up the volcano at midnight and I kept telling myself, ‘I
can do this. I can do this,’ but my heart was racing.
“The next thing I remember I woke up vomiting. I had to
swallow my own vomit, because I was on the third bunk and I didn’t
want to puke on everyone below me. I had an unbearable headache.
It was so bad, my eyes were tearing. Right around midnight, we all
went outside to start the hike. Someone mentioned something
about my face being blue, but I ignored it. I got all my gear on,
and was going to start the hike anyway.
“I remember looking up at the stars. I’ve never seen a sight
in my life like it. So many stars. It was the most beautiful thing I’ve
ever seen. At that moment I had to decide, do I continue? Because
I knew I would die if I did. I had a little medical background, and
deep down I knew I was in really rough shape. My face was bloating,
I was turning blue, and I was vomiting. Even so, I was debating
internally about trying to make the climb. I had spent a lot of
money on the trip, and didn’t want it to go to waste. I also didn’t
want to disappoint my dad, who has always been really proud of my
travel. On reflection, this was stupid, but at the time it seemed
important to me.
“Everyone started heading up the mountain, and that’s
when I ran into a woman who saw me and said, ‘You’re cyanotic.
You’re turning blue. When did you get to Ecuador?’ ‘Today,’
I replied. Her mouth dropped. ‘You need to get off this mountain!
Now!’”
Wes was experiencing “mountain sickness,” also called
hypobaropathy, or the altitude bends – the result of low oxygen at
high elevations. Mountain sickness can occur at altitudes as low as
8,000 feet, and it gets worse with exertion and with rapid altitude
changes, so it’s no wonder Wes was feeling sick at nearly 15,000
feet above sea level. His body was desperately scrambling for the
scarce oxygen in his blood. Mountain sickness can progress quickly
to high-altitude pulmonary edema, which can be fatal within 24
hours. This frightening condition can involve difficulty breathing,
weakness, and cyanosis (turning blue) because of low oxygen levels.
Luckily, mountain sickness is pretty rare, occurring in less than
1 percent of people.
Wes abandoned his quest to see the sunrise on Cotopaxi and
left the camp. “I convulsed in a hotel in Quito, but finally the
next day I was okay. It made me realize that adventure-seeking
sometimes takes you right to the edge.”138 / Buzz!Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Access paid by the UCSF Library, on 11 Nov 2019 at 14:20:10, subject to the Cambridge