Medical kit and oxygen

What travels with every group

A graded medical kit sized to the length and altitude of the trip, carried by the lead guide and checked before departure rather than at the trailhead. The inventory is reconciled after every trip, and we will send you the current list for your route if you ask.

Oxygen and the altitude chamber

What travels depends on the route, and we would rather set it out plainly than imply one standard everywhere.

• Treks. Two or three small oxygen cylinders with every group.
• Expeditions below 8,000 m. Full board service throughout, oxygen and a portable altitude chamber included as standard.
• Expeditions above 8,000 m. Two options, priced separately and chosen before you book: a full high-altitude service carrying oxygen on the mountain, or a base-camp service where oxygen and the chamber are held at base camp only. Pick deliberately. The difference is what is available to you at four in the morning at 7,500 m.

A chamber buys time and descent height when weather or darkness has closed the alternatives. It is not a treatment and it is not a substitute for going down.

Who can use it

At least one wilderness first responder is on every departure. They are trained to recognise acute mountain sickness, high-altitude pulmonary and cerebral oedema, to begin treatment, and to make the descent call. They are not a doctor and the kit is not a clinic.

What we monitor

Pulse and oxygen saturation are taken twice daily for anyone the guide is watching, or for anyone who asks, and recorded rather than eyeballed so a trend is visible before a crisis is. You see your own numbers. If they go the wrong way we say so that evening, not the morning after.

The limit, stated plainly

At altitude, in bad weather, days from a road, the honest ceiling of what any kit achieves is keeping somebody stable while they are moved downhill. Every decision we make assumes that, which is why the acclimatisation profile and the turn-back criteria matter more than the contents of the bag.