Brain Damage: Yet Another Reason to Fly Fish Instead of Climbing Mountains
By Tom Chandler on Oct 30, 2007 in Underground Entertainment
It’s not hard to argue that most fly fishers suffer from some form of dementia, but at least no one’s proved it scientifically.
That’s why it would suck to be a high-altitude mountain climber, what with a bunch of scientists proving that brain damage results from high-altitude climbing (and not from falling on your head either).
Only 1 in 13 of the Everest climbers had a normal MRI; the amateur showed frontal subcortical lesions, and the remainder had cortical atrophy and enlargement of Virchow-Robin spaces but no lesions. Among the remaining amateurs, 13 showed symptoms of high-altitude illness, 5 had subcortical irreversible lesions, and 10 had innumerable widened Virchow-Robin spaces.
We conclude that there is enough evidence of brain damage after high altitude climbing; the amateur climbers seem to be at higher risk of suffering brain damage than professional climbers.
Woo-hoo! Sure, the rest of the outdoor world considers fly fishers two steps below couch potatoes on the sporting food chain, but unlike those brain damaged climbers, nobody has to cut our food into small pieces and feed it to us.
(And yes, it’s a day where I’m looking for victories wherever I can find them).
See you on Everest, Tom Chandler.
Technorati Tags: mountain climbing, brain damage
kbarton10 | Oct 30, 2007 | Reply
The brain damage existed before the climbing, how else to explain them passing up so much good trout fishing?
Tom Chandler | Oct 30, 2007 | Reply
Dunsmuir legend Joe Kimsey once said — when I asked him if he’d ever climbed Mt. Shasta — “Why the hell would I do that? I never left anything up there I needed to get.”
Well said, Joe. Well spoken.
Larry Swearingen | Oct 31, 2007 | Reply
As an Ex-climber with lots of routes done in CA, CO and a few in Canada, I can attest to
kbartons assertion that the cortical atrophy in
high altitude (Everest, K-2 etc.) probably
existed BEFORE the climbs were attempted.
:>)
Larry Swearingen
New Hoosier
Big Sky Taku | Nov 1, 2007 | Reply
Tom: Perfect! Now I have the greatest excuse for not being able to do all those fancy curve casts and stuff. After having been to high elevation a number of times on two continents, I obviously have so blown my cortical whatevers that spey casting is completely out of the picture (now that’s a real relief). If I show up in your favorite run drooling and flailing away, you’ll know why….