People with hypoxia brave high elevations

BY DAN ENGLAND THE COLORADO SUN

Chantelle Shoaee will have a question for you if you decide to visit her: “What kind of car do you drive?”

Unless you’re one of her buds, perhaps one of her Hypoxic Hikers, the reason she’s asking may shock you. Rough mountain roads, the kind that ummox those who don’t drive Subarus — and yes, there are a few — lead to the little base camp where she lives and runs Always Choose Adventures.

Shoaee lives at 10,000 feet in a rural spot above Idaho Springs. She also has hypoxia, a condition de ned by low levels of oxygen in the body.

Doctors tell hypoxic patients to move out of Colorado. At Denver’s elevation, around 5,280 feet, there’s 20% less oxygen than at sea level. Whenever she’s walking around, Shoaee receives oxygen through a tube in her nose, called a cannula. She punctuates her sentences with pu s from her tank that sound like a gasp.

Oxygen is as much of a treasure to her as the gold from the longclosed mine on her land. And yet, she lives at twice the elevation of Denver, a space so devoid of O2 that most at-landers have trouble e innovation could be a boon for hikers tethered to a cannula: Most of them are anchored to heavy oxygen tanks or concentrators.

It seems like a mismatch, like a penguin wobbling through a desert. And yet, Shoaee climbs 14ers at speeds that would smoke a weekend peakbagger.

She wears a backpack comfortably and even helped design a pack being developed by Osprey, a Cortez-based gear company that specializes in hydration bladder vests and packs for bikers, hikers and ultrarunners.

Shoaee’s pack ts oxygen tanks.

Shoaee loves the mountains, elevation be damned, and her strong body, balanced by a pair of powerful thighs, shakes with good-natured laughter when someone asks why the hell she lives so high.

“Look around,” she answers.

She doesn’t care that she lives in a small trailer, or that the property needs a lot of work, or that the