alt Hacker News> 12-15K feet just isn’t that high in the scheme of things. Many peaks in the western US are in that range or more.
The highest peak in the contiguous United States is Mt. Whitney at ~14.5k feet
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_highest_major_summ...
Many peaks in the western US are in that range. Lots more with several exceeding if you include Alaska in “the western US”.
I think you mean continental United States, as Alaska and Hawaii are excluded, where-as Alaska is contiguous with the United States, but requires crossing through parts of Canada to reach by land. That said, yes Whitney is the highest in the continental US, and McKinley in Alaska is the highest in the US (and contiguous US) and is also the tallest in the world from base to peak and the third most prominent peak in the world.
I went from sea level to 11k feet in the same day many times before. I would say the altitude effect is there but not as much as you might expect. A little quicker to be out of breath a little longer to recover it. Not sure what it is like at higher elevations or greater daily altitude delta.
There are 50+ peaks in Colorado higher than 14,000 ft and 1000+ higher than 12000 ft