Driving to a higher altitude after diving

[casino04]

Hi everyone,

I live at 6500 ft. and will be driving down to 4500 ft. this weekend to dive in a warm spring. My question is,can I drive home, back to the 6500 ft. elevation on Sunday? I can find plenty of info. regarding flying, but nothing about driving to a higher elevation. Thanks for the help.

Mark

 

[Scott]

How many dives and how deep? It's all part of the planning.
The simplest way would be to plan your dives as though they were at 6500 ft. instead of 4500.

You could also swing into Wendover and chill for a few hours (4-6) before heading back to Ely.

 

[robint]

Yes, we deal with this issue here in NM (we live at 5,500', dive at 4500' but we have a 7800' mt pass we have to drive through). We do it by planning the dive as if we were at that highest point IF we are planning to drive back within a few hours.
BUT the big thing we always try to do is spend several hours out of the water before starting the drive. Our plan is to usually spend an hour packing up dive gear, then drive to a local restaurant for a meal and chatting with everyone for another hour, paperwork if needed (my hubby is an instructor), then we think about taking the drive. It takes us about an hour to get to that pass, so that means we have spent at least 3 hours out of the water. Our plan is a 1 hour sit out per 1000' gain.

 

[fdog]

Here you go - these are the NOAA ascent to altitude tables. They deal with altitude gain from the dive location, which for you would be 2000'.

Note that these refer to a pressure group, which is different from the PADI or NAUI ones. It's from the NOAA air tables, which are built on the USN ones. I've attached the NOAA tables.

Do the appropriate conversions for your dive altitude,and plug them in. I believe you'll find that it will take quite a dive to incur any surface delay.


All the best, James

 

[casino04]

Thanks for the info!

ROgue: I'm not sure what the group has planned for depth but it will be two dives on Sunday. It took me a second to figure how you knew I'd be close to Wendover until I saw your location. It looks like I will be heading back to Wendover for a while but the slots usually make for an expensive stop!

robint: I think I will plan the dives for the higher elevation and then follow the charts from fdog to figure out how long to hang around before I head out.

fdog: Thanks for the tables fdog. That makes it real simple. I hadn't seen the Ascent to Altitude Table before.

Thanks again for all the great advice.

Mark