My Attitude About the Altitude

I have commented before how the altitude has affected my trip.  I am not sure I impressed enough how it affects so many aspects of my life.  Although I am at a moderate altitude of about 6,000 feet, it keeps me busy figuring out 'work arounds' and adaptation.
Here is how Princeton classifies altitudes:  8,000-12,000 ft (High Altitude), 12,000-18,000 (Very High), 18,000+ (Extremely High).  These are numbers I am generally aware of since my first trips to Colorado.  Which is why I am mildly surprised at the degree of difficulty I have experienced at my moderate altitude of 6,000 ft.

That was until I was grilling out at my friend Ola's the other day.  It seem to take forever to cook chicken and burgers.  Initially, I figured the gas grill wasn't working correctly or my estimation was out of whack due to my prolonged absence from grilling.  Then the altitude issue occurred to me.  It seems that High Altitude has different definitions, especially pertaining to cooking.  Most cakes recipes will have adjustments for altitudes over 3,500 ft.  My propane heater defines high altitude somewhere between 5,000-7,000 ft.  

My overly generalized view about what constituted High Altitude needed overhauling.  I understood that the air was thinner and that caused oxygen levels to be less but I needed to know specifically how this affected my bus living lifestyle.  It was time for me to educate myself on the exact properties of altitude.

So this is the nerdy, science stuff; hopefully made interesting.
Why is the air thinner at higher altitudes?  Air has weight, specifically a square inch column weighs 14.7 pounds at sea level.  This is because all the layers of air above it.  The air at 5,000 ft per square inch weighs 12.3 pounds and at 10,000 feet it weighs 10.2 pounds.   With this thinner air comes less oxygen.  Although the percentage of oxygen in the air is the same as at sea level, 21%, there are less molecules of air.  So there is less oxygen.   Where I am currently at 6,000ft I get 81% of the oxygen that someone at sea level gets per breath.  Not terrible, nothing I notice on short walks.  At 12,000ft I would only have 65% oxygen available compared to my friends living at the beach.  You really start to notice your breathing at this altitude.

How this has affected me in the Denver area.

Cooking- I have mentioned before that I consume copious amounts of eggs.  Good protein, relatively cheap and readably accessible.  I noticed that my boiled eggs weren't cooking all the way through, even though I cooked them for the same amount of time once the water started boiling.  The problem is that water starts boiling at lower temperatures in higher altitudes.  At sea level, water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit (100 degrees Celsius, for my Canadian friends).  At my current altitude, water boils at 203 degrees Fahrenheit.  This is a subtle but noticeable number.  I can't simply turn up the heat.  The water can't get any hotter than that before it evaporates off as vapor.   This affects the cooking of pasta and rice as well.  The boiling point temperature drops 2 degrees for every thousand feet increase in altitude.  If you find yourself climbing Everest, remember water will boil at 168 degrees Fahrenheit at 26,000 feet.

Exercise- I have started hitting the gym to start getting back in shape.  I focus mainly on anaerobic activities, weight lifting instead of aerobic activities, like running or jazzercise.   In order to maximize my time and get the most of my workout I do what I call circuit training.  This means that I might do a set of bench press and instead of resting between sets, I will hit a muscle group not used in the bench press, like bicep curls.  So I don't have any down time wasted resting.  Lately, this has kicked my butt.  I am used to feeling the discomfort of resuming a long forgotten workout but this was different.  I was breathing like I had just done a 50 Yd sprint.  That might be normal.  What was unusual is that it took a long time to get my breathing back down to normal. In fact it wasn't until 30 minutes after my workout that my breathing resembled being at rest.  I was forced to take breaks between sets, just to get the sound of my pulse to stop pounding on my ear drums.
 
Bus Operation- I have been battling a leaking tire since last August.  I bought an air compressor to fill it up when it got low.  I noticed that when I drove it around the Denver area (with elevation changes of about 1000 feet) that my tire seemed to go down from 100 psi to 50-40 psi in one trip.  If I didn't change elevation it would only go down to 90 or 80 psi.  It is a slight hassle to drag the cumbersome air compressor off the bus to inflate the tire.  I am holding out on buying another tire until I find a good deal on one.
My air brakes take a much longer time to fill up when I start the bus.  When I crank the bus, I have to wait for my air tanks to fill.  This usually takes 3 minutes, a long time when compared to turning the key to a car and driving off.  Now it takes about 5 minutes.  Presumably, because the engine compressor needs longer to pump 120 psi of thinner air into the tanks.
My bus is fairly respectable with concerns of MPG for a 10+ton vehicle.  It averages out to 10 mpg on the interstate.  In town driving drops that number to about 5 mpg.  And in town driving is all I have been doing lately.  This isn't really altitude related but is something I have to adjust to.

Propane Heater- My Lil' Buddy, the propane heater that keeps me warm when boondocking, whether in the wild or blacktop camping, is very altitude sensitive.  Originally, I thought it was just dirty from my trip to the grasslands.  After some experimenting, I found that it is most probably due to the altitude and is particularly sensitive when there is a change in the weather.  I attribute this to low pressure systems compounding the altitude issue.  The heater has a safety shut off when it detects low levels of oxygen.  For awhile, it was a real problem.  Not so much lately.

My Water Jug-  My 7 gallon water jug has been affected by the elevation.  I seal it up tight when driving to reduce spillage.  I believe that the air pressure inside expanded and blew out the seal on the cap, causing it to leak when turned on it side (the position I use to operate the spigot on it).  I lost about 5 gallons one night.

Despite all these new developments, my positive attitude about being here has only increased.  There truly is no place I would rather be right now.   If it weren't for the fact that I need to have access to the mass transit systems in order to find work, I would be camping out in the jagged mountains that beckon to me from the horizon everyday.